If I had to choose one teacher my daughter couldn't do without, it would be my wife. None of that is to say that her kindergarten teachers aren't terrific. They are.
What I don't say, what I should say, is that I'm far below my wife's teaching skill.
Let me tell you the story of my debut into teaching my daughter's writing. Anyone familiar with teaching kids to write English alphabets will know what I mean. Permit me to correct you, there are more than 26 ways to write the alphabets if you mix up the direction each alphabet faces. For the kids, words - like practically everything else - can either be written in the right way or in its mirror image. Even my daughter can write her name with the first letter J facing the wrong way. Yes: it is different. The difference for these two ways to write the letter J is so trivial that a 3-year-old won't bother.
Writing the alphabet J in itself is a piece of cake for me, of course. I never answer wrongly when my daughter asks me which direction the letter faces. I just know the fundamental truth how a letter J should face. "Curve this way. Got that?"
And then my wife had her turn to teach Jasmine, and she made an intriguing discovery: the alphabet J lines up in front of other letters, and of course, this lovely letter J behaves in such a nice manner she won't turn around and step on the foot of others standing behind. Ah yes - here it is. No book has taught me this, nor have I heard it from my teacher. Real good fun to learn alphabets in this way.
Sure, I admit my daughter can still get her J in the wrong way. But then she will smile, "Oops, this J is naughty today; she turns around and chitchats with her classmates again."
Monday, September 30, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Preconditioning
It was the first Saturday morning after my return from an overseas conference. There's no denying that it takes a bit of time to adjust ourselves to the working mode after a holiday. But I did it. I went back to the hospital and my routines.
Saturday routines have been many things to many people: a morning to sleep in and have brunch, a holiday to recover after long working hours, and tutorial time for students. According to my Saturday routines, I first pick up a topic to read, followed by an one-hour teaching of remedial class students, and then morning round at 9.
Here's what I read this morning: remote ischaemic preconditioning and kidneys, and it's a promising way to save our patients' kidneys from being knocked out by contrast dye (as used in a lot of imaging in hospitals). Such cases are common. In order to show the blood vessels in the heart, for example, doctors need to inject dye. Just as remarkable as the dye's power to outline the blood vessels, is how powerful the dye can damage the kidneys. So how do doctors get around the problem? The idea for such a protective drug to safeguard the kidneys has been around for close to 20 years, but none had pulled off a miracle. Easy to say, hard to do.
Last year, news broke that a trick called remote ischaemic preconditioning could cut the odds of kidney damage by 80 percent after dye injection in the heart.
An unusual trick.
What they did was to inflate a blood pressure cuff on the arm for four cycles, five minutes on and then five minutes off. The action of the inflated cuff, of course, is to apply brakes on the blood flow, and if short-lived, won't suffocate anybody. It's hard to think of any tool, any drug, any machine in history with which so many can afford so easily. It's a form of rehearsal or disaster drill, to the point that our patients' kidneys get better prepared before the real attack.
Which makes me wonder: Just how similar can I apply the concept of preconditioning to prepare my medical students for their examination?
Saturday routines have been many things to many people: a morning to sleep in and have brunch, a holiday to recover after long working hours, and tutorial time for students. According to my Saturday routines, I first pick up a topic to read, followed by an one-hour teaching of remedial class students, and then morning round at 9.
Here's what I read this morning: remote ischaemic preconditioning and kidneys, and it's a promising way to save our patients' kidneys from being knocked out by contrast dye (as used in a lot of imaging in hospitals). Such cases are common. In order to show the blood vessels in the heart, for example, doctors need to inject dye. Just as remarkable as the dye's power to outline the blood vessels, is how powerful the dye can damage the kidneys. So how do doctors get around the problem? The idea for such a protective drug to safeguard the kidneys has been around for close to 20 years, but none had pulled off a miracle. Easy to say, hard to do.
Last year, news broke that a trick called remote ischaemic preconditioning could cut the odds of kidney damage by 80 percent after dye injection in the heart.
An unusual trick.
What they did was to inflate a blood pressure cuff on the arm for four cycles, five minutes on and then five minutes off. The action of the inflated cuff, of course, is to apply brakes on the blood flow, and if short-lived, won't suffocate anybody. It's hard to think of any tool, any drug, any machine in history with which so many can afford so easily. It's a form of rehearsal or disaster drill, to the point that our patients' kidneys get better prepared before the real attack.
Which makes me wonder: Just how similar can I apply the concept of preconditioning to prepare my medical students for their examination?
Friday, September 13, 2013
School
My annual leave keeps accumulating. So it came as little surprise that almost two months after my daughter's new school year, I haven't had chance to pick her up after school. A year ago, she wasn't ready to attend school on her own and I've lost count of the number of times she cried at the kindergarten's door. But that was then. Now that Jasmine, more than three years old, is carrying the backpack and lunch box all by herself.
I took half day off yesterday to pick up my little girl, and that means she didn't have to jump on the school bus immediately after class.
It's easy to spend an hour weaving through the kindergarten campus, and around each corner of the playground you're rewarded - with laughter or smile of the kids. Is there any happier sound in the world than your child's giggling with her navigation of a rope course? Or the silly guffaw after a quick slide, landing with the butt?
Soon after my half day leave, I knew I'm going to take another one soon to join my daughter after school.
I took half day off yesterday to pick up my little girl, and that means she didn't have to jump on the school bus immediately after class.
It's easy to spend an hour weaving through the kindergarten campus, and around each corner of the playground you're rewarded - with laughter or smile of the kids. Is there any happier sound in the world than your child's giggling with her navigation of a rope course? Or the silly guffaw after a quick slide, landing with the butt?
Soon after my half day leave, I knew I'm going to take another one soon to join my daughter after school.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Vernacular
Never heard of "TL;DR"? Then you're obviously older than 30. If you've learned English since young and you're having problem with new words, it just might be because of your age.
The list of new entries in the Oxford Dictionaries Online has been expanding faster than the waist size at your belly. Look at those slangs and shorthands that come with digital communication. See how they make communication easier - or not.
I've just read from the Washington Post that a "selfie" refers to a photograph of oneself, typically "with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." It's not as if we don't have the term "self-portrait" in English. But "selfie" is another matter. It's hard to replace "selfie" by "self-portrait" without losing the meaning. Hard as putting panty hose on a porcupine.
That said, it would be important to set a quota for admitting new words. Evolution of lexicon is a series of flukes, some good, many bad. I admit it: words or acronyms like FOMO (meaning "fear of missing out," in case you aren't updated) always give me agita. I'm rock-solid certain that I have absolutely no fear missing out the word FOMO. That's also why I don't think we need "TL;DR" to indicate "too long; didn't read."
The list of new entries in the Oxford Dictionaries Online has been expanding faster than the waist size at your belly. Look at those slangs and shorthands that come with digital communication. See how they make communication easier - or not.
I've just read from the Washington Post that a "selfie" refers to a photograph of oneself, typically "with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." It's not as if we don't have the term "self-portrait" in English. But "selfie" is another matter. It's hard to replace "selfie" by "self-portrait" without losing the meaning. Hard as putting panty hose on a porcupine.
That said, it would be important to set a quota for admitting new words. Evolution of lexicon is a series of flukes, some good, many bad. I admit it: words or acronyms like FOMO (meaning "fear of missing out," in case you aren't updated) always give me agita. I'm rock-solid certain that I have absolutely no fear missing out the word FOMO. That's also why I don't think we need "TL;DR" to indicate "too long; didn't read."
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