Saturday School...

One week of blogging about my last weekend has been kind of nostalgic... and it fortunately provided a distraction from the crap at school. Today we have Saturday school; to replace the extended CNY break. I would of course prefer not to replace... 8)

Boss is retiring soon... But how endearing can a boss be when the teaching staff is made up 80% ladies but the other 20% gets a new toilet? The lady teachers have a greater need where toilets are concerned. Then we have this Oreo biscuit advert being replayed at work everyday... probably will not be missed by most. Anyway, the students were not allowed to leave the assembly area this morning till they paid their RM1 dues to show their appreciation to their retiring Ayahanda.... kesian! (Update 28/1 - 50 sen were returned to the kids, somebody finally remembered that they had only announced that amount earlier!)

Today my gal went to school with a small pail and a cloth. They had a gotong-royong to clean their classroom. But she was happy to do it. Even kinda eager.. that's the difference between small and big kids. She came home and was full of stories about how they went barefooted, how the bomba came and sprayed their classroom floors... she said it was lots of fun. And when we took her to the bookshop at night, she asked whether she could buy some mints for her class teacher. I asked why and she said the teacher seems to be clearing her throat very often. They want to give when they like a teacher.....

Back in my school... time was also set aside to clean the classrooms. One of the things we worked on was the notice board. But unlike the above, these older kids are shouted at and told how uncreative their boards are. My students were even told that they cannot put up the board the way they want it. Every article must be glued on another cardboard or coloured paper before being put up. Even in things like this, we try to control. I wonder whether we are trying to churn out robots. Things are forced and we don't make an effort to make the students understand why they need to do it themselves... it's hard sometimes... and I guess we'll have to go by discretion too but forcing the better classes???

Notice board serves to give notice, information.... we serve information which turns stale and remains stale for the rest of the year. That's what we do these days... mementingkan keceriaan without considering functionality. You know, I even have teacher's tables with skirts all around it. And lo! When you sit at the table, the skirt makes your legs really hot cos there is no movement of air under the table... and it stays there unwashed in this dusty and humid weather.... geli. Brain matter obviously not at work when the skirts were suggested. And the feminization process seems to be taking place a lot at schools these days. Too many teachers of the fairer sex and too many of the opposite of the too few left in the profession who actually care enough.

Looking good on the outside.... some of the more discerning students are beginning to voice that up too. We don't pay attention to details that should matter.... we spend much of our resources and energy on the look-good-outside stuff.

The tragedy of the Chung Ling students (this is an account from one of the team members) highlights that. No safety measures, a teacher who cannot swim being put in charge of a water sport (he was there cos he was one of the younger teachers; "bully-able", I guess)... Same goes for the bridge collapse tragedy; big donation but lack of so many things in the process of construction (again things which cannot be tayang-ed). Notice how we're reading about more tragedies involving schools on a greater frequency now... the incompetence of our policies and corruption are now slowly moving closer home. Just like all those roofs and buildings which are starting to collapse around the country.... Too much focus on keceriaan, seen as being the biggest, tallest, etc, etc, all quantifiable by sight or sound, we've failed to impressed on a whole generation the underlying qualities that build a successful nation - integrity, persistence, doing things for the right reasons....

Anyway, this is one of the few Saturday classes we'll be having for the year. We can't seem to stick to the prescribed hols.... cos we seem to be prescribing more hols for the already prescribed hols...