Work.....

For the first time in many years, I actually find myself numbed at the beginning of my work year... numbed cos it's just so pointless to hope for the better. Anyway, public examination results seem to indicate that we're doing very okay. We've just had the best PMR results for a while. Other indicators seem to tell us that things are okay...

I taught vocabulary and tenses to a Form 5 class yesterday.... and one word which I taught was hurricane. Along with it I told them stories of how hurricanes can force us to be supermen and women, even brought them half way round the world to New Orleans apart from our ASEAN neighbour, the Philippines who often gets pummeled in full ferocity. And today when I walked into my class and asked them whether they knew the word hurricane... I had to ask 15 students before I landed on the one and only student in the whole class who knew that it was ribut taufan. And this brings me to this point... You can bring a horse to the water, but you can't make the horse drink. That is the state of many of our students today.... Being the early part of the year means resolutions are still strong.... I am predicting that a few will start missing classes and school in 3 months... when everything gets too daunting again or when they feel that they aren't getting anywhere where school work is concerned.....and they'll just be another statistics.

Resources... human resources are probably the most valuable resource in any setting. It's a matter of getting the right people. Good leaders will probably be the most important prerequisite. Next of course will be the worker.... Yet, we waste so much of our resources on mindless ramblings.... One hears lots of sounds, noises.... clanging away. These days, people ramble incessantly more than do the actual work. Throw in the cloak of religious piety, what you get are wannabes of all sorts.

I just came out from a Form 1 class where I gave them 6 super short situations. They only needed to simplify those situations with the key words which I gave as well. 80 minutes later, I discovered that more than half can't even copy properly let alone read. Corrections after corrections they did... on the same exercise. One thing I observed though, the kids who did their primary schooling in Chinese vernacular schools were neater and more conscientious in doing their corrections. The national school kids had very unpolished work ethics. Bear in mind though that both groups are weak.... the only telling difference is their attitude towards work. And that is telling too about the human resources responsible in educating both groups, don't you think? So much for all this boasting about how great our education system is.

And leadership.... Up the hierarchy, one actually gets to hear those in position of authorities daring to verbalize preferences which benefits them, personally..... with no understanding of what it means to be a leader at all!  And these same people have no qualms abort screaming at a student for showing a hair; many pots are calling the kettles black, thinking that they are pure, not realising that they too are soot-marked. Passing the buck, making demands because they see it fit......these are products of our education system. A lot of talk but very little substance of the talk... the listener tends to develop headaches which can be quite debilitating. Encouraging hypocrisy????

Wanting and seeking personal relevance, yet not willing to be of real relevance. A lot of schooling, giving a pseudo feel of a lot of education taking place but actually very little learning takes place. The human resource we have now..... many are the products of this too much, too little......