MathPlus's definitions

Singapore

A country that has turned learning into drudgery and killed the joy of both teaching and learning, because of its obsession to be top in international studies like TIMSS and PISA.

Singapore's subsidized tertiary education is mostly funded by sin tax, thanks to hundreds of thousands of local gamblers—Singapore is unofficially the third largest gambling market in the world.

by MathPlus July 30, 2017

Yo-Yo Math

When schools or states are willing to change their textbooks every other year, as publishers tempt teachers with free resources (and bribe them with airline and cruise tickets).

Getting an entire state to adopt a publisher's set of textbooks is worth millions of dollars, so the sales and marketing personnel would go all out to play yo-yo math with decision makers to get them to choose their titles over those of their competitors.

by MathPlus July 26, 2017

Editorial Ineptitude

Conceptual and linguistic blunders made by a senior editor or managing editor, as a result of her limited content knowledge of the manuscript and poor grasp of the English language.

Rose resorts to office politics and apple polishing to make up for her editorial ineptitude in occupying the managing director position—she's been promoted to her next level of incompetency, where editors hope she'll cause the least damage to the editorial team.

by MathPlus July 21, 2017

North Korea Math

A Communist version of Singapore Math—which is rehashed from the world's best math curriculums—to brainwash students of the power of math in propelling North Korea into a nuclear power.

Math educators believe that if North Korean students were to take part in international comparative studies like PISA and TIMSS, it wouldn't be surprising that they'd rank among the top ten, thanks to the high standard of North Korea math.

by MathPlus July 12, 2017

PAPism

An unproved political theory that the "People Action Party" (PAP)—the only political party that has ruled Singapore since independence—uses lawsuits to silence critics, and favors detention without trial for those who promote racial or religious hatred.

Ex-PAP member and former presidential candidate, Dr. Tan, is appealing Singapore's High Court's dismissal of his legal challenge that the upcoming Presidential Election should be an affirmative election—however, his fears of being a victim of PAPism for "rejecting multiracism" are not unfounded.

by MathPlus July 12, 2017

Red Kidnapping

When mainland Chinese security agents abduct those who publish or promote materials that depict China's communist leaders in a negative light, who are then detained without trial.

In the last two years, President Xi's agents had carried out a number of red kidnappings of booksellers in Hong Kong and Thailand, who didn't like the books they published about the Chinese government.

by MathPlus June 25, 2017

Trapped

The state when you are making the right or sensible decisions as anyone else—you need to make the "wrong decision," by doing the very opposite to stand out from the crowd.

If you don't want to be trapped, do the unreasonable thing, by taking the "bad decisions"—the safe decision often has boredom, danger, or poverty written all over it.

by MathPlus June 19, 2017