Author: TYH

A Singaporean Chinese Language Teacher
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only good and good-er

realised i have not posted to elaborate on the philosophy of ‘good-er’ although i have used the term in a few posts in the past. so shall do it now.

yes, it’s non-existent in English and a grammatically wrong word.
but guess that made the word stands out even more, cos in the ‘good-er’ worldview, there’s no right or wrong; only good, and good-er exist. the philosophy can be interpreted as an extension of the core of the 12 principles of knowledge building (Scardamalia, 2002; Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006), i.e., improvable ideas.

often, in the ‘right vs. wrong’ world, it’s not uncommon that we hear: ‘this idea is stupid, it is wrong, it’s unacceptable’… and pple began to dismiss their own and others’ ideas and not to mention the emotional side of things, bad, sad, angry …
contrastingly, in the ‘only good and good-er’ world: ‘all ideas are good ideas!”. marrying it with kb’s principle of improvable ideas, all ideas become improvable. end result: all good ideas can and will only become good-er ideas over time.

the good-er philosophy was first instituted as part of my design/model for blended learning for CL teachers’ professional development. it was my research project between 2015-2016 when i was with the SCCL. it’s the first ‘rule’ (among three) that my community of teachers adopt: “只有好，和更好”。 so if u ever need to cite a source for the good-er theory/philosophy, you could either use this blog post (Tan, Y. H. (2024, November 9). Only good and good-er. Edublog.net. https://edublog.net/wp/2024/11/09/only-good-and-good-er/ ), or my handbook if you prefer an earlier source:

Tan, Y. H., Tan, Y. N., & Chow, F. Y. (2019). Blended learning for in-service teachers’ professional development: Handbook for new instructors. Singapore: NTU-SCCL Press.
OR
陈育焕、陈雁妮、周凤儿 (2019). 混成式在职教师培训：新手指导员手册 [Blended learning for in-service teachers’ professional development: Handbook for new instructors]。新加坡：南大-新加坡华文教研中心出版社。

Nov 7, 2024, Co-generative dialogue on educational research @RGS

towards only good and gooder!

Tan, Y. H. (2024, November 9). Only good and good-er. Edublog.net. https://edublog.net/wp/2024/11/09/only-good-and-good-er/

p.s. scan QR code for a draft of the handbook — Tan, Tan, & Chow (2019) — that documented the 2015-2016 research
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visit to central library

thanks 8bro R for establishing the connections and making our visit to central library possible. it’s been a while since my last visit to national library (aka central library, or officially central public library). eye-opening to see how a brick and motar library (of yesteryears) is renewing itself relevant in this digital era, where pple consume, if not overwhelmed by, multimedia more than words-only media. and my theory behind this sight – the power of mission (aka v&m).

so what’s the takeaways from the visit to personal l&d? well, it’s not new but more of a reminder perhaps, that connecting mission (& vision) for your pple (from a leadership perspective) is key/critical. what’s the meaning of ‘library’ today or tomorrow? how does that laying one brick contributes to the building of a skyscraper. how many pple look at a building and think of the individual bricks (or blocks)? cos it doesn’t really matter. but to the worker, it may mean something (aside than the salary $ of cos).

mission gives meaning to who are we? why are we ‘here’. and leaders remind pple of meaning with the mission (it’s part of their job). otherwise, it’s easy for individuals to forget why they are doing what they’re doing (forgetting is human nature; possibly neuroscience evidence too). say, looking ard us now, it’s the mission clearly articulated (and regularly reminded)?

(image credit: https://nus.edu.sg/osa/keviihall/open-house-2024)

a final random thought that pops up — even when i was a hostelite, we had a ‘mission’ – “we are full-time hostelites, part-time students”.

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on PLC for organisational KM and knowledge creation perspective

Individuals come, individuals leave (retire, switch career, 躺平, whatever). How does an organisation ‘retains’ as much tacit institutional knowledge as possible? Documentations, guides, playbooks are some ways, but these have their limitations. Why? Becos meanings are not hard cold words, graphics, and videos, print, online, or otherwise. Humans are social beings, and meanings are socially negotiated in respective social contexts.

Communities (or societies?) are where knowledge ‘resides’, some pple would say. By forming professional learning communities (PLC; or otherwise commonly known as CoP, although the term ‘CoP’ includes various conceptions due to different interpretations of what “communities” meant), organisations create an additional avenue for retaining tacit institutional knowledge. But the value goes beyond knowledge retention (if knowledge can be ‘retained’; also note that documents, guides, playbooks stop here). Members of a PLC, through regular interactions, create new knowledge. Thus, the body of organisational knowledge continually grows and renews.

People in PLC don’t necessarily work together every day, but they are bounded by their respective activity systems at work, which may not be conducive for knowledge creation. In the PLC activity system, rules that encourage learning and creating knowledge together can be negotiated and practised by the community.

references: Engeström (1987);Wenger, McDermott, & Synder (2002)

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on epistemology and etymology

saw the following quote in petraeus’s post:

“When confronted with two things that have an appearance of accuracy, most people will choose the one that is more appealing to them.”

and it totally resonated with an observation made 2 days ago. this story began with a casual flip of a ForwardSG booklet that was distributed free with the printed Zaobao. and the casual flip turned up an observation (looks like the casual mode did not disengage the analytical mind):

(click here for image (pwd))

there was a problematic expression. it should have been “取诸社会，用诸社会” (meaning: giving back to society what’s obtained from society).
but “诸” is a word from old Chinese and it’s seldom used and considered more difficult in contemporary Chinese today. however, the second of “诸”‘s multiple meanings in old Chinese can be represented by two simple words of today: “之于”。in other words, 诸 = 之于 (could be interpreted as: from). hence, if “诸” is difficult and not used, a more understandable and accurate expression would be “取之于社会，用之于社会”。but it is lengthy.

so why is “取之社会，用之社会” problematic from an etymology’s perspective? noticed the omission of 于 from the original 之于? none of the 12 meanings of “之” can make sense in this expression. pls let me know if you can interpret otherwise.

what if it were “取于社会，用于社会”? the 3rd meaning of “于” actually makes total sense and can be used to replace “诸” while still retaining its original meaning.

in short, “取之社会，用之社会” is totally meaningless etymologically. but, a quick google actually revealed that pple used and published “in “wrongly” . why? well, not everybody is etymologically-aware; how many of these writers are familiar if not linguists in old Chinese? and in our busy-ness, anything that ‘sounds’ correct goes? afterall, if something sounds ‘weird’, just repeat it 10 times verbally, and it’ll sound “just fine” — a ‘trick’ taught to me by my linguistic professor some 25 yrs ago.

and does something that appear in publications makes it (more) right? this is an epistemic question that was posed to me by my supervisor when i was doing lit review for my doctoral thesis.

to be fair, google also revealed pple pointing out what’s right, for example, here and here. but as per petraeus’s quote at the beginning of this post, pple may decide what’s ‘right’ and/or ‘ok’ to them cos it’s more appealing, for one reason or another.

in summary, “取之社会，用之社会” is problematic etymologically cos “之“ doesnt make any meaning-sense. “取于社会，用于社会” is an acceptable and meaning-accurate if “取诸社会，用诸社会” is archaic and more difficult, or if “取之于社会，用之于社会” is too lengthy an expression.

if you are a (Chinese) language teacher reading this, would you correct the “错误” in your student’s writing?

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C-C-C-C

inspired by and adapted from PPAP; sing to the tune:

🎶i have a coffee, i have a clementine
uh! coffee-clementine!

i have a coffee, i have a comp
uh! comp-coffee!

clementine-coffee, comp-coffee
uh! coffee-comp-clementine-coffee 🎶

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