Back to school...

It's something that I don't look forward to this round... back to the flu front. And today my colleague beside me coughed the whole morning...

Sat for my PTK exam during the hols too. The paper has changed again. It gives a feeling that those people up there don't really quite know what the best assessment is. Anyway, this time around there were no more essays to write. It was a 3-hour paper the last time... all essays!

This recent PTK paper was a one hour paper - 40 questions, all objective. I don't know how answering 40 objective questions are going to determine whether we are competent. Questions sounded like the Pendidikan Moral type... half the time I didn't know what I was doing! So I guess I won't fit the bill of a cekap fler, and hence should be reflected by the lack of cekap-ness in my work.

Anyway, the system doesn't quite reward the best people. Neither does it promote the most capable person. The teaching service is like politics... just like the rest of the civil service. Pay rise such as the one determined by the PTK does not reflect your ability to teach or how good you are at your work. Neither is promotion based on your true ability. Patronage of race and cronyism is how people are moved up! ... again a reflection of our political system. And our political scene is kinda sickening at the moment.

I'll digress...

I was at SRK Iskandar during the hols too because of my gal's theory exam. Was horrified to see that the skirtings around the canteen tables were growing fungus! The table tops covered by linoleum were also dirty. Imagine! Kids eat on those tables! Our perennial love-affair with 'skirts'.

And as I was leaving the school, I saw two tables on the astaka (pavilion).... they too had skirtings. The floor was wet from the rain. Out in the open, exposed to the rain and shine, I dread to think how dirty those pieces of clothes are. The skirt malaise is one that every school seems to be infected with now! Sometimes I wish we'd be more sensible and practical.

As I walked to my car, I couldn't help but notice the idiom on the stairs... If truly, the more you read, the wiser you become, surely the wisdom gained would have made them realize that skirtings if put up must be washed ever so often; and that the canteen is hardly a suitable place for such decos due to cleanliness and health reasons. SRK Iskandar is a boys school! Everywhere I see feminine touches... So will it be surprising if such boys grow up with a feminine bend also?

The gals and I went over to KSAH (Kolej Sultan Abdul Hamid) after that to pick TH up. Love this shot of their corridors. You only get such kinds of corridors in old schools. Thick walls.... and pillars! These days schools have walls on one brick thick, the narrower length one, of course.

While waiting, we wandered around the school a bit. They use biometric thumb scanning for authentication of attendance at school... everywhere, you'd see such boxes, mostly under lock and key since it was hols. But I read somewhere that biometric authentication via thumb prints is on its way out... to be replaced by vein scanning. Technology changes ever so fast.....

And this.. I saw this at outside the building which housed their Prefects' Room and the store. This must be old. Looked like some kiln of some sort... You only get those kind of labels from machines made so long ago. It sat outside the corridor, which is such a waste cos they should restore it and put it in their gallery. It's old enough to be a museum piece.

We played our own version of volleyball with a beach ball Ling dug out from the boot of her car after we were done with the wandering around the school. Under this tree! Love the old huge trees they have all over the school. The 4 of us, one aunty, 2 young adults and one little gal, threw, dug, caught and played ball till TH finished his class. My lil gal had a whale of a time and wondered aloud when we could do it again!

Anyway, today school is back on. I'm back in a place with the same setting... curtains hanging everywhere, collecting dust, tables with long and short skirts, unwashed since the day they were hung up since the beginning of the year... the same show, the same 'merumahkan sekolah' thingy. Sometimes I think we take this.. Sekolahku, Rumahku too far.

And today... it's this merdeka celebration thingy going on at school. More than two thirds of my class students are not at school. The rain is beating outside.... and somehow, dampening the mood to celebrate....