Article A for Oct_F.4 by tammy wu https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs 1. Have you ever attended a cram school? What are the factors that have attributed to the success of cram schools in Hong Kong? What are the disadvantages of attending a cram school that students / parents might have overlooked? 2. According to the interviews conducted several years ago by a University of Hong Kong research team as part of a survey of 1,600 youngsters on tutoring, students could not really tell whether tutoring helped. Nevertheless, cram schools remain popular in Hong Kong. What does this imply about Hong Kong’s current education system and the culture of our society? What impacts does this kind of culture have on teenagers? en-us 2018-10-12 03:15:02 UTC 2018-10-25 07:53:17 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padletuploads.blob.core.windows.net/prod/218275591/23aeef648f764aecdee720e1128296e6/books_for_clip_art_9.jpg Question 1 Sabrina https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/292145534 Yes, I used to attend a cram school for several subjects. Cram schools are popular for their effectiveness in raising student's academic results. The main reason for this is that the education system in Hong Kong requires memorizing large amounts of information and certain techniques to attain good results. Large cram schools have experienced and qualified teachers who specialize in analyzing and creating material based on different subjects that teach these skills. Studying the concise and well-organized materials are a shortcut for students to improve their results.On the other hand,cram school have some disadvantages. For example, the tuition fees of cram schools are very high. It might be a heavy economic burden to less wealthy families. In addition, the courses are not tailor made for students of different ability. Since there are a large number of students attending cram lessons, the teacher might overlook the needs of some students.]]> 2018-10-12 13:17:43 UTC https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/292145534 Q1 Christy https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/292476318 I have attended cram schools in the past. On of the main reasons I think it is so popular is due to peer pressure. According to a survey by market research firm Ipsos in 2016, there were 3,300 schools providing tutorial for primary school pupils and about 2,900 schools targeting secondary school students. With this amount of cram schools, there would be at least one person in a group that attends them. With the pressure of getting higher marks, students may choose the attend cram schools in order to make themselves feel better. As those people go to cram schools, they affect others near them. Thus, the vicious cycle continues. I think a point that parents and students are overlooking is stress. With at least 8 hours spent at school, students are already stressed out at the end of the day. Now with cram schools on the table, students would spend more and more time worrying about their studies, putting them under more and more pressure. ]]> 2018-10-14 01:03:18 UTC https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/292476318 Q1 cheris https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/292526896 I have attended cram schools before. I think cram schools gain success in HK due to the competitive education system. Students are very aggressive the their academics,they feel very scared to be left behind. This mindset is also affected by the traditional Chinese belief that academic outweighs other perspectives of a child’s growth. Parents want their children to score high in exams. Also, parents nowadays are busy with their work, having no time to teach their children. So they pass the job to tutorial school as they have more resources to help students. Cram schools hire teachers that focus on tackling the exam papers of schools, helping students to have better grades. 
However, there are some drawbacks of attending cram schools. Since there are a lot of students, the teachers there focus on spoon feeding the students but may not put more care in their conditions. For example, students may feel stressed over their results and have mental illnesses. Teachers in cram schools seldom care about the well rounded growth of students. ]]> 2018-10-14 12:57:00 UTC https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/292526896 Q2 Winki https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/293401699 This implies that Hong Kong’s education system is an exam-oriented one. What people nowadays in society concern about the most is the academic results of the students. Worse still, the results in your DSE almost determines your whole future, like your career. It also implicates that the celebrity effect in Hong Kong is really fierce. Nowadays, tutoring centres always make use of social media to build up a ‘celebrity’ image for their tutors. They always claim that the chance of getting a 5** in the subject is very high if the students enrol for their courses. All students choose to apply for their classes without a second thought. As they follow the trend and do not want to fall behind from their peers. However, they will never ponder over the actual effectiveness of the tutoring. Another thing that can by implied is that people in Hong Kong have Herd behaviour, which means that when they notice that their neighbouring friends have applied for these tutorial classes, they are fear of missing out some advantages if they do not take the courses also.
This kind of culture exerts adverse impacts on teenagers as they have been wasting time on unnecessary tutorials as even themselves are not sure whether the tutoring is useful or not. They might even be instilled will wrong values that they will have good results if they simply apply for the courses without working hard by themselves. This culture will even worsen the problem by encouraging teenagers to follow the crowd blindly 


]]> 2018-10-16 15:14:25 UTC https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/293401699 Q1 Giann https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/293689183 I have attended a cram school. There are two main factors attributing to success of cram schools in Hong Kong, the first being pressure to excel academically over their peers. Cram schools are widely-known for their effectiveness in boosting students' grades, and for this reason, many students choose to enroll in its classes. The "good-grades-equals-success" culture is extremely popular, albeit toxic, among secondary school students. Seeing how most of their peers attend cram classes, they join one as well in fear of missing out on its benefits and to get good grades. Another reason is the celebrity effect. Celebrity tutors like Lam Yat-yan have their faces plastered all over billboards and the backs of buses, as a result people believe they are some of the best, leading to parents enrolling blindly in their classes, for the apparent quality teaching their child would receive. An overlooked disadvantage of attending cram schools is how academic results can never be improved without hard work from the students themselves. We all have this problematic mentality that enrolling in cram schools will do our grades miracles, so many of us attend at least one of them, but then when cram class is over we lie around at home not doing cram class homework expecting the good grades to roll in anytime soon, but nothing happens and, disillusioned, we quit cram school. Therefore, all that money and effort put into going to cram school has gone to waste, and unnecessary pressure will have been put on students. 


]]> 2018-10-17 05:32:47 UTC https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/293689183 Q2 Cherry missfeliciawong https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/294797014 This implies that Hong Kong's current education system drives students to mainly aim for getting good grades in their examinations instead of the knowledge and personal growth gained from their learning experiences. Nowadays, it's nearly impossible to get a pleasant job or develop a career without an outstanding mark sheet in DSE, which is considered 'the ticket for stepping into society'.  Hence, parents want nothing more their children to ace the 'fatal' public exam. To achieve that, they put their children in cram schools, believing that they can master the skills and techniques and earn useful tips for attempting exam papers. Along with rise of tutorial classes, cram schools has therefore become one of the most popular locations during an adolescent's life as a student. But in some cases, cram schools are overrated for its services, and students might not actually find them useful nor making a surprising impact on their understanding of subjects.  Still, the majority continue to attend these schools, mostly for the sake of 'staying safe and following the trend. This also reflects the typical culture of Hong Kong, which is the parroting lifestyle of people. Taking us secondary school students as an example, we attend cram schools purely because others do so as well but not out of their own intentions; we sometimes participate in extra curricular activities for the certificates and recognition only to suffice the requirements for their OLE profile;  we bury ourselves in piles of past papers and exercises targeting various public exam question types for proficiency instead of wit... In the end, are we growing as a person, or are we molds of robotic-machines drifting through an aimless journey?

]]> 2018-10-19 13:05:12 UTC https://padlet.com/twu3/2oopfyb26afs/wish/294797014