Die, die also hers....

It is mind boggling how selfish we can be at times these days... especially when it involves kids.

I recently helped a friend's kid figured out a concept for a Science competition. The way I ended up helping her was actually rather crazy. Her Science teacher had threatened them to deduct marks from their monthly test if they did not complete the project for this competition, which was to come up with an idea or concept that is workable based on the United Nation's Envision 2030 plan. Basically it was a vision with 17 goals to transform the world, with sustainability at the core of its vision.

The purpose of the competition was to identify kids with talent to be discovered, our future engineers and scientists so to say. It is a good competition, I would say. Students had to come up with an idea that meets the Envision 2030 goals and produce a video as well. However, this is where things went wrong. The threat of mark deduction was really effective in getting to students to produce something. The teacher only wanted them to produce a video and upload it. They were to put her name as their mentor. Somebody was on her back and she wanted to show that she could... minus all the work, of course. These days, many teachers work on the premise that students are capable of doing everything themselves.... makes me wonder why they even need teachers then?

Well, my friend's kid was flustered. And so she asked me for help. I tried to give some pointers but a week later and still clueless, the kid was even more flustered. And with the school hols coming to an end, the sense of urgency increased. So, with all that, I sat down and typed out an idea for sustainability of city living, complete with the script. What the kid needed to do was just to put it down in video, which she did. In the process, she learned quite a bit about the subject matter and video making too... and so the video got uploaded, just as her classmates. Marks saved.....

Or so that's what we thought... until the results came out. Her work got shortlisted... Was it supposed to be a big deal? It was the only one from the state that got into the list. One of 15 nationwide and her teacher provided no guidance, no comments or anything whatsoever.

This where the whole thing becomes a joke... teachers idea (you could call that guidance, I supposed..). And it got shortlisted. Oh ya! I forgot to add. The said teacher praised a work done by another group saying that it was really good. But ah.. that's just her way of crapping. I took a look at that particular video... it was just a lot of verbose presentation... but did not meet the requirements. So, who should accompany the kids for the selection round? The best 4 will get to represent the country... 8) Their Science teacher is now dead set on being their mentor... LOL!!! Or might I add, this is an international competition.. in English. She can't write well in that for squats... but she wants credits to put on her resume for she is eyeing for so many things... from the lofty menara gading to the acclaimed guru cemerlang.... Makes me wonder... (and no.. I am not keen to go, dread the travelling and waiting. The latter can literally 'kill')

This is the state of our education. Rather a sad state... a script hashed in 10 minutes without much thought is warranted good enough of an idea. Either I am damn creative or the teams could not figure out anything better... And a teacher who is clueless and might I add, without the lingo mastery feels that it is her right to showcase her 'work'.... We are after all in a show and tell system... So, die, die also hers.....

Tell me, what is right anymore???