Teachers-to-be on ROS

ROS stands for Rancangan Orientasi Sekolah or Orientation Programme for Schools... we get 'em every year, these trainee teachers; for observation and as an exposure to teaching practice. They hang around in the school for 2 weeks, watch the going-ons...

These are from the confines of my small world...

The latest group here... all 6 of them doing English and going to continue their training in various unis in the UK. I was asked to mentor one. She's a nice enough girl. Good attitude, seemed willing to learn. But I was rather disappointed with her command of English. She's not your debater material, neither is she your poet wannabe. Her sentences are punctuated with errors and lacks confidence in delivery. She doesn't even read English novels! I told her that if she wants to be a good language teacher, she needs to improve her skills. She is going to UK for the next 3 years. I told her to grab the opportunity to mingle with the local community so that her spoken skills can improve and to travel a bit.... and read! That's the least I can do. *sigh*

In one of the classes, an English teacher had a spelling bee. Another different trainee teacher tried to answer... OPPORTUNITY became OPPU... that was as far as he got cos my colleague stopped him so as not to further embarrass him. The kid who attempted got it right. We cannot fault these trainee teachers. We should fault the selection process....

All these teachers-to-be whom they are sending into the profession; many of them don't seem to measure up. Language teachers who don't speak or write proper sentences. Reading one of their journals was enough to make me squirm inside. But they're actually nice 'kids'. They were arm-twisted to come back for today's cross-country and they did even though their ROS ended on Thurs....

Race which precludes ability; 2Malaysia in selecting teachers-to-be. If anything, teachers ought to come from the best, and race should not be a factor in the selection process. How can we expect to inspire the next generation with people who have never been truly excellent? What with things getting diluted along the way.... Another ROS group... I hope their time in UK would be an eye-opening experience, one which would propel them to try to be better than what they are now.

While still on the subject of teachers-to-be. Last Thursday, a new 'teacher' was sent to school. She was employed under the Skim Guru Sandaran Tidak Terlatih. She was trained as an Electrical Engineer from one of the better universities. I talked to her and I noticed that she is different, confident with a mind of her own. Later I saw her walking and again the impression that I got from the way she walked and carried herself was different from that I am used to seeing. This morning she came to talk to me... very happily she told me that she had been offered a job at Agilent Technologies with a good salary. They want her to start next week. I know that company. It's not easy to get in as you need to have good grades and they have a rigorous selection which involves a few levels.

I was happy for her... the teaching profession actually needs people like her. But people like her too would probably rot and get trapped in the show-and-tell mentality had she remained.