My Little Brother

By Chris (Age 13, Chinese International School)

My brother is the most inconsiderate, tardy, irresponsible, unsophisticated, annoying, rude, manipulative, arrogant, selfish, and stubborn person I have ever met on the face of this Earth. My mother has two sons; I'm the first.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

I can describe my relationship between my brother and me in three words - mutually assured destruction - a lot like the relationship between the US and the USSR during the height of the Cold War. We are both constantly in an arms race to find ways to outsmart and overpower each other, whether it's through our parents' approval or through name calling. I would always have the moral high ground and would always have the better defense in an argument. However, a lot like the Soviet Union that had one of the most impressive and secretive spy agencies ever to step on this planet, my brother is the master of manipulation. Although I know he's tricking me, similar to the US, I would fall straight into his trap almost every single time. He would try to get on my nerves by laughing at me etc. and he would always know what buttons to push to get what he wants.

Yet, our relationship could also be compared to the relationship between the US and Canada or Australia and New Zealand. My brother would simply laugh his socks off about every single thing I do wrong, no matter how small the problem is, and I would laugh at him back. Although we do get angry with each other sometimes, in the end the whole thing would turn out to be a friendly competition. Sometimes, I would get angry at him because he would never pay attention to his studies and I would always pick on him about that topic. However, quite like Canada, he would be too stubborn and ignorant to listen to any advice.

I will conclude the assessment of my brother in one sentence: An intelligent child, who is too idiotic to realize how smart he is and reaches for the bare minimum.

My mother always tells me that I had the most attention when I was small. That's why I have a better self-esteem than my brother, therefore I have to be nicer to him. I don't think so, it's his own problem that he isn't as cool as me.

Teacher Rankings (Part 2)

By Christopher (Age 13, Chinese International School)

Should there be a teacher ranking system for Hong Kong? No, I do not agree. Hong Kong would be using the same system as Los Angeles. This is not a very effective system and I strongly go against it.

The rating system currently in place is a system where there would be a standardized test that every student has to take. The teacher would then be rated by his or her students' progress or improvement. Therefore it's not really the teacher you are assessing but rather the students. This is unfair as 90% of standardized tests are beyond the control of the teachers. In the end, no matter how passionate or effective a teacher is, it's always up to the student's willingness to learn. Attitude is altitude.

Another major problem with this system is the message it is giving to all the teachers. As the teacher's career is at stake if they they get a bad ranking, they would have to concentrate on the test scores. Tests do not determine how good a student is. You can't have a student great at memorizing but terrible at critical thinking. Einstein always said that creativity is the key to every genius. All these rankings would just encourage quantity of work from students rather than quality.

This is also degrading the teachers, taking away the love and passion for teaching and turning it into a system where the only thing that matters is your rank. This ranking is clearly disrespectful to teachers. Their job is to teach the younger generation so their knowledge could be passed on. Now the only way to becoming a teacher is to drill and kill the students rather than teaching the love of learning.

Although you may say that this ranking system would tell teachers whether they need to improve or not, this still does not mean that the teacher would know how to improve or what to improve.

In conclusion, the ranking systems need to be changed into a more effective system rather than looking simply at the students' scores.