• Draft plan/design of your project management strategy
• Draft timeline with your goals/milestones mapped out over the Summer Independent Study Period

https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/project-management-methodology

After reading the link provided in class, I decided to develop my own project management strategy based on a combination of agile and scrum methodologies. I personally find it a bit hard to link methodologies and theories to what I’m actually doing currently in my project, so understanding all the methodologies in the list during class wasn’t directly helpful to me, but I could pick out details from the 2 methodologies I picked and slowly build a draft.

From tutorials I slowly learned to build a small cycle for the progress of my project, because my project currently have 3 different overlapping topics that doesn’t link to each other. (Fiction, Psychology, (Education) Systems)

The cycle is as follows:

1. Dig deeper into each area(research-wise)

2. Identify the link between the 3 areas. Sketch out the link between 2 and 2 and 2.

3. Revisit the old interventions, and create new ones that explore either one or two of the topics all at once.

4. Repeat all of the above. And again, and again, etc.

Because both agile and scrum methodologies welcome changing requirements even in the later stages of the projects, and introduces “sprints”, a short period of one or two weeks that plans and finishes a task very quickly. As we are having a tutorial every other week, I plan to go through the cycle in a duration of 2 weeks.

Here’s an example of a 2-week sprint:

1st Week:

(1)Find out everything about dystopian fiction. The definition, the different forms of dystopia, the famous and loved works of dystopia that already exists and the impact it created to the environment. If I were to create my own dystopia, what would it be like?

(2) Do research on what impacts students’ psychological state of mind. (The environment, their relationships, the technology of our times, etc…) Create a list of things that causes psychological impact on individuals.

(3) Sketch out the link between dystopian fiction and psychology on students.

2nd Week:

(1) Create the plan of an intervention based on the previous research and link on the first week.

(2) Carry out the intervention on stakeholders.

(3) Recap. Gather the data collected through the intervention. Record and measure the change that occurred because of the intervention.

According to the calendar above, I’ll have the time to do 5-6 sprints(which means 5-6 interventions) from June to August, leaving a 1-week period to recap all the interventions and the direction of the entire project.

The strategy and timeline in this entry is a first draft and will morph and change according to the impact of every intervention within the schedule.

Time Management Recapping

Recapping the seminar on time management, we were taught to view time in a sort of first-person narrative. So when I created a draft plan for the summer period, I viewed time from a Gods’ Eye view. While that is absolutely necessary, it isn’t an accurate perspective to actually experience and feel the entire process during the summer, so imagining a first-person narrative is helpful in this area.

If I’m on time with the schedule during the summer, then I would feel like I’m walking towards the milestones and goals that are marked throughout the timeline. If I can’t keep up, then I’ll feel like the goals are pummelling towards me and that would cause stress. The first person narrative is definitely a very new perspective for me to inspect time.

Research Question: How can we disrupt the psychological impact of result-based education on current and former students?

What: My topic centers on the result-based orientation of the education system and the psychological impact it has on individuals. I’m interested in the fact that people within a society are required to form a balance of order in society and their own individuality, and education teaches individuals how to follow rules and to maintain order in a macroscopic sense. This either boosts idiosyncratic traits within students (because they want to escape) or it suppresses it entirely.

Why: Result-based education fuels a continuing belief in students (current and former) that grades or ranks would promise “a better future”, and we project it into whatever environment we enter next. This belief is quite common globally, especially in Asian countries, and a lot of people are suffering mentally (and sometimes physically) from it. Personally I have formed this belief as well during high school and I’m still trying to unlearn it.

How: Any system that marks or labels an individual casts a fictional shadow on them, and when this system is large enough to form a macroscopic narrative, it creates a collective belief that your fictional shadow is who you actually are. My aim is to create a similar fictional background myself for future interventions. I plan to create an alternate reality of my own perspective of result-based education and invite people to immerse into it. It’s like receiving a trigger warning or a vaccine of the real world.

Using fiction as a tool also helps to avoid confirmation bias. I strongly encourage skeptical comments about the worldbuilding itself because I’m very aware that my own perspective is biased. Therefore I would unconsciously seek conformation bias while researching. For this reason, skeptical, even negative comments are invaluable to this project.

I tested this idea during the mini-incubator by designing a puzzle in the shape of a test, with 3 pairs of questions that answers each other. (e.g. Question 1 contains the answer to Question 4, and vice versa.) The point of creating this puzzle is to create an immersive experience based on our collective memories of result-based education. I put the “test” in a fictional world called the Ministry of Potential.

1. What is the psychological term for the fear of public speaking?
A. Agoraphobia
B. Claustrophobia
C. Glossophobia 
D. Hypochondria

4. People with Glossophobia often experience a fight-or-flight response when facing what situation?
A. Reading
B. Darkness
C. Heights
D. Public Speaking

Based on the feedback I got, I was partially successful. However, the demographics of my audience were mostly Asian students which is why the feedback I got was mainly positive. I will conduct my next intervention online, which will attract a larger and more diverse audience.

What If: I’m aiming for people to be more critical of the system they are in right now, that they’ll not only have the clarity of mind to question the system in their head, but also the courage to use the system to their own benefits.

In this project, I am not only the creator and researcher, but also one of the stakeholders because I am a former student of result-based education. Being perfectly aware that the education system couldn’t be “fixed”, my ultimate goal is to let more people obtain agency within the system and develop a more active way of learning themselves.

Reading List:

Bregman, R., Manton, E. and Moore, E. (2021) Human Kind: A Hopeful History. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Brown, D. (2007). Tricks of the Mind. London: Channel 4 Books.

Brown, D. (2016). Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine. London: Transworld Publishers.

Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Curtis, A. (Producer & Director). (2002). The Century of the Self [Documentary]. BBC Four.

Foucault, M. (1961). Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge Classique [Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason]. Paris: Plon.

Huxley, A. (1932). Brave New World. London: Chatto & Windus.

Orwell, G. (1949). 1984. London: Secker & Warburg.

Staff, W. (2004) Engineering god in a petri dish, Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2004/09/engineering-god-in-a-petri-dish/ (Accessed: 16 May 2024).

Steiner, R. (1995). The Spirit of the Waldorf School. Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks.

Stewart, T. L. (2007). The Mysterious Benedict Society. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

For the intervention on Monday, I designed a puzzle in the shape of a test, and put it into a dystopian worldview called the Ministry of Potential.

I generated an intro video using Pictory AI with the following script:

Welcome, subjects. Today is the momentous day you strive for – your chance to join the glorious ranks of the Ministry of Potential.
The Ministry seeks only the most exceptional minds. To prove your worth, you will undergo a series of evaluations.

Stage One: Simple inquiries to assess your foundational knowledge.
Stage Two: Questions designed to test the limits of your logic and recall.
Stage Three: A singular puzzle, crafted to separate the truly brilliant from the merely adequate.

This is Stage One. You may now start. Open the test paper in front of you. You have 5 minutes to answer all the questions. 
You can only proceed to Stage Two when you have answered all the questions correctly.
Remember, subjects, there is only one path to success. Answer efficiently, answer correctly. The Ministry has no room for error.
Time is of the essence. Demonstrate your value to the Ministry.

I generated a poster as well.

After building the structures of the Ministry, I started building the test itself. I originally wanted to draw ideas from the movie “3 Idiots”, but considering that we’re doing the intervention on a showcase the size of an A2~A3 paper, the experiments and stories in “3 Idiots” weren’t that applicable.

So I decided to draw on the exam system at the start of “the Mysterious Benedict Society”, where children were selected by not only their acquire of knowledge but also of how they use it.

Stage One complete. Everybody. Stop. Writing.
Subject dismissed. Your potential did not meet the Ministry's standard.
Congratulations, subject. You have persevered.
However, the Ministry of Potential is a fabrication. This experience aimed to highlight the limitations of a system focused solely on efficiency and conformity. True education requires critical thinking, creativity, and the freedom to question.
Share your thoughts on what skills are vital for a fulfilling future.  Please leave your feedback below.

My initial plan was to disrupt the psychological impact that result-based-education has caused, including my own. The purpose of this intervention is to 1. disrupt order in the minds of others, and 2. disrupt my own bias of this phenomenon, which influences the way I create this narrative. So this is a two-way intervention.

So this is a biased story.

2 drafts of a very short comic called “the Nameless” I did during spring break.

The first one I did on a workshop called “Who Cares”, timed for about an hour. The second one I did in the library, took me about 2 or 3 hours on and off.

I personally think I produce better work when on a timer 🙁

The thing about dystopian fiction is that it projects and highlights a macroscopic view and reveals to people inside this view about what is inherently wrong about an orderly society or world.

Up till now I have an assumption that I know is biased. I need to collect evidence but I’m unsure of which field of evidence I should collect, therefore I have no direction and am quite lost. The only certain thing I have up till now is my rather dystopian view of result-based education.

I could project this world-view out to the world and get comments. This world-view or narrative, albeit wrong in the way that it is biased and not objective enough, will attract positive and negative stakeholders(or passersby who are interested, which kinda makes them stakeholders) who will make positive and negative comments. Audience feedback will elevate my project into a higher level and give me a more concrete direction. I secretly encourage negative(or a mix of different kinds of) feedback from this intervention because this will mean that I could find a way to break my bias.

Reminder to self: the purpose of this intervention is to collect evidence. Creating change is kinda the next step because we can’t create change when we don’t know where the painpoint is.

TBC.

Just remembered to document something from several weeks before. We watched a video called “The Art of Asking Better Questions” and answered several questions during class. (video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYnGiWlwcj4)

My answers are as follows:

What ideas/phrases have stayed with you?
Childlike questions can turn into sth more concrete(within the mind of an adult) in an adult-driven world.------Jonathon Keats

We're hierarchical creatures that don't want to shame ourselves.------Tim Ferris


Which speaker made you curious to know more about their work?
Jonathon Keats. What he said about adults thinking that childlike/stupid questions are "inappropriate" really struck me, because I tend to worry about stepping over the line when I want to ask sth that is considered absurd in the adult world.


What are some "stupid" questions you have after watching these videos?
Will we get sth different if we interview kids? Or if we ask a kid(a normal one, not a child genius) to give a presentation/talk?

To me, one speaker stood out amongst others: Jonathon Keats. So I researched his work further, and found that he had an experiment in which he attempted to genetically engineer God and to determine its place on the evolutionary tree.

And I was like, woooow.

I was really interested in anything related to Mythology and Belief(it was a HUGE chunk in my Box of Uncertainties, where I quoted Puddleglum’s belief in Narnia’s existence when he was trapped in a darker world), and I’m currently searching for modes of media other than novels, audiobooks and visual images(film and television) to demonstrate fiction. This is exactly what I was looking for.

In this project, Keats aimed to explore the intersection of science and religion by attempting to create a physical being that could be considered God. This project was more of a thought experiment rather than a scientific endeavor, which excites me because I didn’t know there was such a thing called a thought experiment;)

Keats focused more on exploring the concept rather than a literal scientific experiment. He wasn’t successful in creating a God(unsurprisingly). But he did manage to spark discussions about the nature of God, the boundaries of science, and the role of art. His initial intention was to use art and philosophy to challenge assumptions and provoke conversations, not to literally create a deity.

This is somehow extremely relatable to what I’m currently doing and searching for in my own project. I’ll sort out the logic later. This entry is literally something that I remembered was important for me but forgot to document immediately at that time.

(https://www.wired.com/2004/09/engineering-god-in-a-petri-dish/)

Adding a definition of thought experiments here:

Thought experiments are mental exercises that involve creating hypothetical situations to explore a concept, theory, or question. They act like simulations in your mind, allowing you to play out scenarios that might be impossible or impractical in the real world.

Research Question

How can we reduce the negative psychological impact of result-based education on current and former students?

(Changing details a few days later)

How can we disrupt the psychological impact of result-based education on current and former students?

what

My topic centers on the education system and the psychological impact it has on individuals. I’m interested in the fact that individuals within a society are required to form a balance of order and chaos, and education teaches individuals how to follow rules and to maintain order in a macroscopic sense. This either boosts idiosyncratic traits within individuals outside the education system or it suppresses it.

why

When an education system is result-oriented, it fuels a continuing belief in students (current and former), and we project it into whatever environment we enter next. From my knowledge, this belief is quite common globally, especially in Asian countries, and a lot of people are suffering mentally (and sometimes physically) from it. People would complain about it on scattered safe spaces on the Internet when they are outside the system and away from the rules physically.

Personally I have this belief as well and I’m still unlearning it.

how

Result-based education, or any system that labels an individual, is adding a fictional shadow to that individual. And when this system is large enough to contain enough people to form a collective story, it creates a collective belief that your fictional shadow created by the system is who you are.

I aim to create a similar fictional worldview (an alternate or parallel reality) and set that as a background for future interviews and interventions. This alternate reality is a safe space for stakeholders because with me as the creator of this fiction, I could make sure that people can enter and exit this world freely without getting immersed in it to the extent that they believe it as their reality. The worst they’ll receive is a trigger warning or a vaccine of what is actually happening in the real world. I also encourage skeptical comments about the worldbuilding itself because my own thoughts are subjective and aren’t open enough, feedback like this will be invaluable to this project.

what if

I’m hoping that people will be more skeptical/critical of the system they are in at the moment, that they’ll not only have the clarity of mind to question the system in their head, but also the courage to use the system to their own benefits.

In this project, I am not only the creator and researcher of this project, I am also one of the stakeholders because I am a former student of result-based education. I’m hoping that there will be more people(quantitatively) who obtains more agency in the education system and develop a more active than passive way of learning themselves.

reading list

Derren Brown: “Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine”

Derren Brown: “Tricks of the Mind”

George Orwell: “1984”

Aldous Huxley: “Brave New World”

Bryan Caplan: “The Case Against Education”

Michel Foucault: “Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge Classique” (Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason)

Adam Curtis: “The Century of the Self”(a documentary)

PoorRolemodel (2023). What is an ARG? [online] ARGCREATOR. Available at: https://argcreator.com/what-is-an-arg/ [Accessed 2 May 2024].

Reflecting on what I wrote:

Am I still talking about education, or am I talking about something else?

Do I stick to education or do I explain this phenomenon from a perspective that is more abstract?

We mapped out our thinking process in the shape of a snail, starting from creating the Box of Uncertainties to what our research question is up till now.

Updating my research question:

How can we disrupt the psychological impact of result-based education on current and former students?

P.S. Interventions, in my opinion, is creating chaos/disrupting order healthily when this “order” is generating negative things. In this scenario we can no longer hold the binary belief that order is good and chaos is bad.

Audience(if there is an audience or whoever is reading this), be prepared, because this blog is going to get a LOT more chaotic from now on.

I chose to map everything out during spring break because I was getting tangled in my own thoughts.

This is basically a physical version of my internal thoughts. I’ve linked everything that I thought was objectively(and subjectively) logical.

I got a bit stuck when we were asked to draw a mind map turning time into space——I interpreted it as mapping out what we imagine our action would be from May to November.

When I realised that I was basically copying what I had already done before, I turned the page over.

A project evolving is a bit like the evolving of a plot in a story. Hence, quoting Neil Gaiman: “And then what happens?”(in his words, this sentence always pushes a story forward)

Using fiction as an intervention is an easy thing to say(and to write in essays and anything made up with words) but it’s a harder thing to plan, and even harder to actually take action. Letting go of reality and rules and the norm is harder than I thought as well, because our minds are used to a certain way of thinking, and we forget that what already exists in reality was once imagination, a thought or an idea in a person’s head, and if that thought had been different, or was changed during its evolvement, the world we live in might have been veeeeeery different from what we are used to now.

I don’t know a lot about what happens next. But I do know that if I asked someone about the education system, they would show their immediate views about it(I’ve been mostly focusing on the negative side of people’s comments because there were a LOT of negative comments, and they never really appear in an interview sort of conversation, they mostly appeared in a conversation-in-the-bar-and-everyone-was-tipsy sort of conversation), and then, reading and understanding psychological and societal phenomenons, I would catagorize those comments.

And, at least to me, reading fiction(dystopian and speculative fiction) like 1984 and Brave New World REALLY helps to link psychological and societal methodologies to facts I witness and comments I hear in real life.

I think interviews are the last thing I could do to get evidence because people don’t usually feel safe enough to tell the truth in that environment, because they know an interview will be recorded and documented and sent to other people and an unknown audience. The comments I saw on social media(in China) addressing this topic sound much more REAL. Up till now, starting an intervention on social media addressing this topic is probably going to get more genuine reaction compared with an interview.

This is an example of an alternate reality game. The creator uploaded 8 videos on Bilibili, introducing 8 stages of the game, and created an uploading area for players to upload their answers. I loved this game because people were really actively engaging in solving the mystery in the narrative. And it helps because the central plot of this game is about Final Exams. (a bit like Squid Game actually)

Just remembered, I lost definitions of words I was originally really certain of (Fiction, Storytelling, Narrative etc), but then I decided to stick to my own understanding of those terms because I had to have an initial definition of those words in order to communicate.

We also did a “Theory of Change” worksheet on our individual projects.

Ummm…based on what I have up till now, I’ll probably need to redo it.

My research question had morphed and evolved. This is the newest version:

How can dystopian fiction reduce the negative psychological impact of result-based education on current and former students?

I replaced “we” with “dystopian fiction”. It was originally “How can we reduce the impact of……”

TBC.