聖經說,五餅二魚,死人復活,你有見過嗎?沒見過?我也沒見過。
我廿多歲的時候,疼愛我的外婆患了骨癌,瑪麗醫院診斷說她只餘下三個月的壽命。由於骨癌的關係,她只能每天卧牀,承受著痛不欲生的折磨。當家人已作好了最壞打算的時候,我們遇到了一位不收分文,一生贈醫施藥的老中醫-胡炳良醫師。他用了一些很奇怪、我想也沒有想過的方法治好了我外婆的病。我親眼見過給他治癒的癌症病人,不計其數。
這老中醫自己是做紙品生意的。無論是他的生意,或是他的醫術,都可給他帶來充裕的物質生活。可是,他郤將全部的收入,用於贈醫施藥,自己及家人只住在黃竹坑一間不到二百尺的公屋單位裡。人家問他,為甚麽不留一些錢,為家人及子女改善生活?他回答說:「要做我的妻子及孩子,就是要過這樣的生活。」在遇上他後,我才真正明白聖經所說愛人如己的道理。也真正明白,耶穌、聖依納爵及耶穌會眾神父為我立的榜樣。這老中醫雖然不是宗教上的奇蹟,卻是人性上的奇蹟。
在教學上,我從不對學生說“勤力些”,也不叱責他們懶惰。我只會要求他們付出一個合理的時限,同時要求他們專心。
“勤力”是師長對學生最簡單的指導。一小時做不到,勤力些用兩小時。兩小時做不到,勤力些用三小時。要是仍然做不到,就是學生不夠勤力,責任全在學生。
我不是說“勤力”完全沒用,但學生的時間畢竟有限,尤其對落後的同學,低效的“勤力”只會浪費他們僅有的時間。
教學上的突破,對我來說從不陌生。十多年前,我將花了七、八年時間編寫的化學科教材,放在網上供其他學校的老師及同學下載。香港大學教育學院也曾推介這套教材給受訓的老師使用。每年我都收到其他學校老師的感謝電郵,也有一些同學說自修完教材後能在高考考獲優良的成績。
然而,我用同一套教材教導華仁的學生,班中竟有數人不及格。我想,除了教材和教學法外,定有更深層次的原因。從此,我將我的備課時間,大多用在學習效率的研究上,而不再集中在化學科。
我的另類做法,曾幫助一個華仁仔在”報名限期後”,考進了牛津大學;三個月,令一個華仁仔在SAT中多考一百分;八個月,將華仁高考化學科的優良率提升一倍;十八個月,幫一個會考只有4A的華仁仔在高考中同樣考獲4A而進入醫學院。
現在,我期望的,不是教學上的奇蹟,而是人性上的奇蹟。
2012年2月
後記:
我個人從來都未遇過奇蹟,直至2016年中。我參加了一個由慈幼會江神父,在油塘聖雅各伯堂舉辦的聖體降福禮儀。當時是我人生第一次遇見江神父,他連我叫甚麼名字也不知道。在禮儀中,他吩咐參加者,一個跟一個每人跪在聖體面前祈禱大約三分鐘,然後會轉告他從耶穌接收到的啟示。
禮儀後,有一個時段,大家可自由分享。很多參加者都有分享江神父告知的啟示,但大多都很一般性,如神很愛你、你要寬恕自己等。
然而,他告訴我的卻很特別,「我不知道你在做什麼,但耶穌被你所做的事觸動。」
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You keep mentioning that a wahyanite improved his SAT result by a 100 point. I actually made an improvement of 240 points, alone in the critical reading and writing part by NOT doing your vocablearning. Your examples proving that your system works is not quite supportive as well. There are wahyanites going to Princeton, Cambridge and Oxford without much of your help, you only used the result of 1 year AL Chemistry to prove the effectiveness of your system. To achieve 4A in CE is not an easy thing, and to a point, only students having below 6A in CE would take the AL exam, so why would it be ever so surprising to see a 4A bright wahyanite getting into the medical school in Hong Kong?
The sample size you are providing is ridiculously small and that does not provide sound evidence for your “so-called” effective system.
If Wah Yan wants to improve its academic, extra-curricular achievement, we could simply do strict selection when enrolling form 1 students. The reason we did not do it is simply because the idea of universal education to all kinds of students. It is pathetic that you never acquire this wisdom throughout 30 years in Wah Yan.
Nevertheless, stop manipulating our fellow wahyanites with all those seemingly true figures, we will be having a better life without your mental pollution to us.
Author
First of all, thanks a lot for your criticism. It is because only through the evaluation of arguments of both sides, we can get a clearer picture of the situation.
Before we can compare your case with the case I mentioned, we must clarify whether we are taking about something similar, otherwise the comparison is not fair and not valid.
When I say 100, it is actually 105 out of 800 which means about 1 standard deviation in SAT test. If you are taking about a total of 240 in critical reading and writing, does it mean 240 out of 1600 ? If this is the case, the improvement is more or less the same or a little bit better because the assessment of improvement also depends on the actual final score according to the law of diminishing return.
More importantly, did you take 3 consecutive tests in 6 months as the student I mentioned and got the results of the second test almost exactly the same of the first test after 3 months of serious study ? Reference : How did the project start and what was the result so far ?
If your answers are all yes to my questions, then we may use your case for a fair comparison otherwise the improvement may be due to inadequate preparation of the first test rather than a genuine improvement in verbal ability.
Moreover, I never said that vocablearning is the only possible way to improve the situation. If anybody can provide us a feasible alternative to close the performance gap, I will simply walk away peacefully. Reference : The Starfish Story; $500,000 – a Disproof or an Alternative wanted Would you mind telling us more about how you got 240 marks more and how long the whole process took? I am sure that you got 240 marks more not by NOT doing vocablearning but by doing something else.
Furthermore, my claim is not only based on this isolated incidence. Similar results were also observed in 2(not 1) years of Form 7 chemistry students with another year of chemistry students not using the system in the middle and 1 form of Form 1 students using the same system to study chemistry and English vocabulary respectively. The improvement is statistically significant and with high confidence levels. Isolated cases give us insights while generalized cases give us confidence.
For the case of the Alevel student mentoned, getting 4As in HKCEE is not as difficult as you think and getting 4As in HKAL is not as easy as it seems to be. Reference : Presentation Slides presented to the School Management Committee pg32. The chart showed that there were quite a number of students who got more than 6As in HKCEE stayed put in Wah Yan to take the ALevel. The red line represents the average performance of Wahyanites in the last 13 years and each dot represents the performance of a real student in HKCEE and ALevel. There were a lot of F7 Wahyanites who got more than 4As in their HKCEE but nobody except one who got 9As and 1B in HKCEE managed to get 4As in HKALE. The case I mentioned is really an exceptional feat. Therefore, I asked the student to write a testimonal for me for what he did shortly after the release of his result. Reference : A Testimonial of Revision Organizer
Stricter F1 recruitment will be feasible only if there are more than enough brilliant students choosing our school. Could you ask $1000 for a bottle of Coke if nobody really agrees to pay that much? You may keep asking nonetheless. At present, we are already admitting only the best students who are choosing us. 70% of our F1 students are already in the HK top 20% percentile. If they can upkeep their relative academic achievement in the population, the UGC-admission rate of the school should be about 75.5% rather than the present figure of 28.1%.
The main point of my argument is not about the absolute performance but the change in performance of the students in the whole process, thus what value we can create for our students. Even if we abandon our feeder school all in a sudden irresponsibly, do you think the relative performance gap created by the whole process will close automatically by itself without doing anything ?
This only swaps a group of students that we fail to manage properly with another group of students. No real change is taking place underneath. The whole society will not benefit from the swap. We only shift something that we don’t have the courage to face to somebody else.
Lastly, the case of Oxford admission was special not because it was Oxford but because of the missing of admission deadline. Do you know any wahyanites or any students of any schools who got admitted to Princeton, Cambridge or Oxford despite missing of admission deadline? I am very interested to know.
People Often Don’t Want to Hear the Truth
An excerpt from Hard facts, dangerous half-truths, and total nonsense : profiting from evidence-based management / Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I. Sutton. (Harvard Business School Press)
不值為華仁抱有多餘希望
香港每個人都去補習學校
Author
對學生來說,補習只是鴉片或營養補充劑,多吃無益.
論據請閱:
Why didn’t I enjoy an annual remuneration of over $800,000?
The Will is strong but the Fresh is weak
Understand the difficulties encountered by an ordinary Wahyanite
Effect of not knowing the words beyond Oxford 3000
我老師不會為我們做什麼…(不公平啊))
Author
這只是機會率的問題,你還沒遇到而且.