And The Student Called the Teacher Ah Gua

So, people are taking sides ... teacher vs student, public vs mother. The kid won’t get too much sympathy for sure. After all, she started it...

Somebody posted out the poor girl’s results. In the midst of all these, obviously many forget that she’s still 13. One tends to do lots of crazy stuff at that age. Emotionally they are also trying to make sense of themselves... 

Then the teacher who lost it. I cannot understand why so many condone caning. The marks on the kid were telling. It was caning done out of control. And he is the adult. If teachers cannot hold their temper or emotions in check, then students’ lives will be in danger.

The SOP on caning is clear. No caning for the girls. Say what we want but the guidelines are clear. And it’s there for a reason. 

Yet, caning... so many seems to swear by it. Nostalgia.

But imagine this...

A school where the cane reigns supreme. You are late. You get caned. You talk to your friends during the school reading time... caned again. You skip your ‘extra class’ ... yup, caned again. 

Then the hair issues in some Chinese conforming schools... 2 weeks after you have cut your hair. You are told it is now too long... lagi kena rotan. Then have your hair cut in full view of everyone who passes by... cane and more caning. The sound of whipping is the one common sound.... over hair which does not break the limits set by the MOE guidelines. 

Should we try this instead? Engaging students, making them understand, moving on with times, staying relevant... would an engaged student be calling a teacher Ah Gua?

Yet, you get bored kids. Those grades.. which have been displayed to shame this kid. You get lots of those these days. Some say it is the good life that’s causing them to lose focus. I think it’s more than that. Most don’t see relevance of what is taught in the class with their lives.

I see kids being lined up and whipped in public, right in plain sight of everyone. Girls being caned too.. now is everyone okay with their kids being dished that in school regularly. 

We desensitise the kids. We normalise caning as a solution to disciplinary problems. It is not. Caning, quick solution for quick adherence.

A walk down my own memory lane. Primary school. I was in Std 2. I always had perfect score for my spelling... cos one mistake ... and the cane awaited. Well, I am human... so like the fallible human... one day, after almost half a year, I made a mistake. The trepidation when lining up to be caned. 😂

Guess what? After that day, I didn’t really care much about being caned any more. It didn’t matter to me any more because my childish mind discovered that I could numb myself to the pain and humiliation. 

Oh! I continued to get perfect scores still for my spelling. But the occasions when I did not, I didn’t think the caning made a difference to ensuring that I hit the perfect score all the time.

Yah.. there might be bad parenting here. But that’s a mother being instinctive. Her language showed her not to be very polished. But put anyone of us in a situation like this... I think most of us would be tongue tied. The school office can also be a very intimidating place... 

There was excessive show of force in the Ah Gua teacher case. 

There was misbehaviour most definitely. 

And you also have a mother who got really, really defensive. 

And yes. The mother viralled it. Good idea? Don’t think so. But years from now, this video might serve as the starting point of a greater awareness for stakeholders involved.

Musings about Teaching

Am beginning to lose faith in the system. Thinking perhaps it is time to throw in the towel. People who know me laugh at me when I tell them that, saying that's not me. Lol! I guess they forget that here is a limit called 'survival' and when that is breached it's just survival from then on. We are generally expected to be conforming.. either to a set of values, image for example.

My last few months have been a rollercoaster of sorts because of a teacher bully case who was my colleague. Having believed that such behaviour should not be tolerated by anyone, I foolishly stood up. And even when the signals were there that our value system has changed, I still steadfastly voiced out for action. But still that didn't deter me because I felt kids needed an advocate... for the right reasons. And so, I wasn't too perturbed even by the fact that I was transferred by a system that went against its own for something so serious like a teacher bullying students. I guess too verbal bullying is okay... the message from all those people with pangkat seems to indicate so.

Then recently, an academic cluster of excellence school, suffered a drop in its SPM results. The drop was marked enough for certain quarters to voice displeasure. And suddenly, there was this flurry of teachers being transferred. We suddenly began hearing teachers with good credentials and from the non-bumi race being transferred from their respective schools into the cluster school. Now these were Guru Cemerlang, teachers with C2 in their CPT exams (for English), teachers who were 'acknowledged' as being good by proof of APC.... Their schools are those normal day schools which struggle with less than sterling students. The cluster school meanwhile gets selected students with excellent results in the UPSR.

This is where it gets really interesting. For years, many of us were reminded that all teachers are the same in terms of ability. But this whole incident smacks a peculiarity that defies that perception. Suddenly we have this transfers of non-bumi teachers into a cluster school who over the years have been seen a decline in its non-bumi students as well as teachers. And of course, in the process of the transfers, you have bumi teachers who had to be transferred out to make way for former. And this takes place in March, at a time all schools have set into a routine.... not forgetting to the teachers on transfer who now find their very own lives disrupted to.

Then yesterday, I saw the extra classes list. The weather has been very punishing of late. Temperatures soaring to 38-39 degrees Centigrades in the afternoons, less than desirable conditions of the class because of the lack of fans as well as the design of the school which makes it into a perfect heat trapper, in the pursuit of CGPA, there is this demand for extra class. Now why does the admin of a school demand extra classes without consulting the teachers? And even in some cases where teachers insist that they do not want to hold the classes, they are forced upon them?

Of late, Principals keep reminding the teachers that they need to carry out these Program Peningkatan (read that as forced free tuition to be given by teachers after school hours) because PPD/JPN will demand an explanation from them if the results drop. So holding a Program Peningkatan will be proof that something has been done.

And that's where too I think we miss another point. The Program Peningkatan in most schools, I suspect is not running. Teachers are too tired. Students too. The classrooms are uncomfortable. We are making kids stay back after 7-8 hours of enforced learning in sweltering heat. Holding these extra classes are just not effective without proper rest.

Teaching time during school hours... how much of that is actually happening??? How much of it is wasted? Yet we tax the teachers without realising that it's the heart of the teacher for the students that actually makes the world of difference.

The heart of a teacher, the effort put into moulding a kid and imparting values... those are the important things. Yet what I am seeing, is a system lost in its own labyrinth, one that is of its own making. A system that has been eaten away by its own policies of segregating and compromising.

An illustration. In the teaching of languages for example, a student is supposed to learn a few short stories, poems and novels. So, what is a teacher supposed to do? Teaching novel is always one of the more difficult thing to do. So what I am now being made aware is there are teachers who are clueless how to get students to read those novels. Yet the school admin breathe down hard on them to produce results. So what some teachers do is they give the question to the students before the exam, sometimes complete with the answer. Students sit for the school exams, get good scores, marks look good on the score sheet... teacher gets breathing space.

One would think that the public exam should be able to weed these students out. Yet, as a teacher of almost 3 decades, I am constantly surprised by the number of As and passes that I  seem to be hearing from students who actually do not show those qualities of a Cemerlang student. A student who has trouble writing cohesive sentences now can score A and even A+. And so, we tap ourselves on our shoulders and tell the world how great our students are and how effective our efforts are.

But that all stops when these same students enter the job market. We begin to hear laments from the market about how incompetent or unmovable these now young adults are. This shouldn't be as the students were A scorers in the public exams. Where did we go wrong? Have we compromised so much that we no longer are able to discern what quality actually is? Or are we just proverbial ostriches with our heads in the sand?

And so, in trying to maintain grades, more rote learning, more extra classes... more of everything that produces mechanical thinking and disinterest in knowledge...

We did have a good education system once... in an era without the need of PAK21 models. Those days we had thinking teachers but more importantly, teachers who were dedicated and taught. We didn't need extra class.... and we didn't turn out too badly. There weren't laments from the employers about the quality of graduates... if there were laments, it was from the graduates who lament about the market not being able to provide employment opportunities because of economic downturns......

PAK21 - Where do we go from here?

There is so much talk going on about PAK21 or Pembelajaran Abad Ke-21. As usual, when there is something new, changes are expected. It was the same with the implementation of PPSMI in 2003 which was then reversed in 2012. I think 2020 marks the last batch of PPSMI for those schools still teaching Math and Science in English. Soon after we had our MBMBI and then the DUAL Program. All in all, our Malaysian education is generally in a very confused state, having gone through many flip flops over the years. This flip-flopping is also a reflection of our nation's inability to grab the bull by its horn and move forward. 

But, now, with the Industrial Revolution 4.0's effects knocking on our shores, we basically do not have much choice but to bring in changes into our education system. Else we will be gobbled up by the waves of changes. While PPSMI is dead, there is the DUAL Program. In essence it is the same thing like PPSMI, only difference being not all schools are carrying it out. And so, there we have it, instead of our education system uniting and providing an equal platform, we now continue to build another new divide between the haves and the haves-not. 

In all this confusion, enters the PAK21. To me this is more of a pedagogical change rather than a systemic one. PAK21 is to prepare us for the challenges of this century. The challenges to come are going to be way different, so they say. Reason is because we will be up against machine learning. AI is going to change the way things work it. Changes are now happening at a dizzying pace and catching up comes with a whole new set of catch phrases these days.

And so, you have teachers the most confused lot as usual. Some are attaching PAK21 to gadgets. I think that is a mistake. Some are saying that we are already doing PAK21 and there is no need for fancy gadgets because most schools don't have them. They are wrong too, I believe. Yup, there is no need for fancy gadgets but I think gadgets like projectors (or smart tv screens) and tablets/computers should be making their way into the classrooms.

So what is this PAK21? PAK21 is about the skills that we need to get our students to have before they enter the job market, so that they can be the engine of growth to our country's economy.

And so what are those skills that they need? The usual list will include critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, leadership, initiative, productivity and social skills. What many sometimes forget are the following: media literacy, technology literacy, information literacy and flexibility. I might have missed out a few others. These are the other skills that we need to catch up with the world. Digitalisation has entered our lives and it has entered big time. And it is changing the landscape of jobs.

However, the point is this. For those who insist that PAK21 can go on without the gadgets, they are wrong. The workplaces of this century has changed. Computer literacy is a must these days and an educational institution fails if it cannot incorporate that into its classrooms. Computer literacy is necessary for media, information and technology literacy. And the latter are required so that the flexibility to adapt to the constant changes around us will be functional. But the gadgets and tools are just a part of the PAK21, a smaller part.

The bigger or more important part remains the skills - critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, etc. To train that is the main challenge because for that to take place we need people who can show the way to the students. Those would be the teachers. 

The bigger question would be this. Are the teachers able to cope?

In today's fast changing landscape, a teacher who teaches from the textbook is archaic. A teacher who does not have the linguistic skills (read that as English, in Malaysia) is also a katak di bawah tempurung because that teacher will find it hard to relate to many things as Malaysia cannot seem to churn out enough materials of substance in BM. Also, a teacher who doesn't read is also ineffective because things are constantly evolving. 

Teacher quality will remain the greatest challenge in the success of PAK21 and we have an uphill task because for a long time, many of those who entered the teaching profession in Malaysia, especially from the late 1990s to the early 2000s were basically those who could not find employment elsewhere. The teaching profession became a haven of refuge for many of these people... correct me if I am wrong. Over the years many have been comfortably entrenched... 

Many of our teachers have been conditioned by our exam oriented system too.Many teachers today are unable to bring the world into the the classroom because they, themselves don't read. Their comfort zones are so wide that many happily exist like the proverbial ostriches with their heads in the sand. Many teach without inspiring. All they aim for is just the A(s). Students are no longer challenge to think for themselves. Tuition classes prep students to answer exam type questions so much so that simple 'thinking questions' often baffle them. All you need to do is just take a look at the quality of answers of our students for the why and how questions and it will be painfully glaring how our students don't seem to be able to think much these days. 

Those who can be pushed continue to score the A(s) but many leave without the necessary skills. Those who cannot be pushed get bored to death in class and these become the lost numbers in our system. This group is getting bigger because they see no relevance in the lessons carried out in the classrooms. Relevance... most teachers are finding it hard to relate relevance to what is taught in class and it is boring kids to death.

So, PAK21. If we are serious about maintaining our place even just in Southeast Asia and not have 'newcomers' like Vietnam leapfrogging us, we really have to look seriously into proper allocation for equipment procurement and teacher training and continuous professional development.

My two sen for today... 

In The Name of Progress

The water pressure to my house was so low that water cannot go up to the tank upstairs during the day and the it comes out in a trickle from the garden tap at any given time of the day. The problem started about 4 years back, if memory serves me right... I wrote about it here. Back then we refused to install a pump because we felt it was not right.... And those old pipes... their diameter becomes smaller over time. Ours is more than 10 years old and the quality of water which we have been getting of late has deteriorated even more. These days, my garden water container always have sediments at the bottom. I supposed that too contribute to the pipe getting smaller.... faster. My own home's pipes only was change after 30 years!

Well, we have had to do a rethink. A couple of days back,  the water treatment plant in Bukit Pinang experienced a breakdown. After one particular heavy use on Monday, my house ran out of water. It was after I called the Helpline the next day that I realised water had not been going up for a while due to the problem at the water treatment plant. SADA has a website. While they do put up water disruption notices there, how many people make it a point to check SADA websites everyday... Schools, town halls, kopitiams... I think they have to be more resourceful in getting information to the consumers.

Anyway, after that 'dry spell', we decided it was enough and time to fix a pump to draw from the mains like everyone else. Much to my chagrin, water was still not coming in after that. Bear in mind that 4 years ago, SADA officials came to my house after I complained about low pressure. They told us to fix a pump. They didn't send anyone to check the pipe from the mains to our house this time around. This time around, toilets without water.... I finally caved in and fixed the pump.

After the pump was fixed, the problem persisted. This time around, due to my insistence and repeated calls, somebody from SADA called up. And this was what I was told... that I had to get a licensed plumber to lay a new pipe from the main to my house. And I have to pay for the laying of the new pipe. The plumber we called has yet to come. I think including online complaints, I made a total of probably 5-6 complaints over a period of 5 days, thereabout. 

This morning when I called their Helpline again, I was told that they deal with 60-70 complaints a day. And that they could not be sure when they will look into my complaints. I think back in those old days when JKR was in charge, the response time was way faster. So much for privatisation. Can't say we have better service. Can't say I am getting better advice too. 

As for licensed plumber.... I think most people don't even know where to find one. There is no online list on SADA's website. I think most of us just have to depend on the SADA people to recommend or point us to someone. There is always room for abuse when not everything is efficient or transparent.

Water is a basic necessity. And we have privatised that. Question is, when the water company does not deliver the service that is expected, who do we bring the matter to? Privatisation is supposed to mean better everything. But it feels like we are paying more .... for less?? Water metres get stolen and the onus is on the owners to pay for the replacements... for something not totally their fault. Metal water metres are an attraction as they fetch some value.

Progress ... it's subject to interpretation like everything else. In my line of work, better sets of results equals to progress. Winning more competitions means progress too... Owning a big car, living in an even bigger house... we call it progress. Progress is when we have things to show... the more, the more progress.

Progress for water delivery?? Well, I guess inside, outside... we have to pay to ensure delivery. That is the price for progress. We need to pay more for everything...

That water crisis cost me more than just $$$. The eventual cleanup that I had to do after the 'renovation' caused my old injury to revisit with a small vengeance. Sigh.... 

Two Years On... Still On CPT

Two years ago, I wrote about having to sit for the Cambridge Placement Test (CPT). And the results were finally released to the teachers. I happened to walk into the Staff Room a couple of days ago and my KP congratulated me and passed me a set of forms to be filled in. Apparently there was a one-off incentive given to the teachers who passed the CPT with a C1 or C2. I had no inkling of what she was talking about as I had forgotten about the exam. I wasn't even sure whether I sat for it.

Anyway, a colleague sent me the website to check my status, which I did. And my name appeared. It is strange that we needed 2 years to process a set of results. And during those 2 years, many teachers had already been asked to attend the APTIS course which is kinda like a remedial... they have a nicer sounding term. They call it upskilling.

The MOE took away our Critical Allowance last year. The PPSMI was supposed to continue till 2018... (I might have the year wrong) and the Critical Allowance was supposed to be till then. But I supposed, with most schools teaching Maths and Science in BM, it was only logical that the allowance be taken away. One of the reasons for the failure of PPSMI I still believe is the lack of teachers skilled enough in English... If a teacher cannot convey a lesson across effectively due to the lack of language, that is already problem enough.

If the CPT results are anything to go by, they point too, to (in)competency problems among the English teachers. Results were dismal, I read. And where I am, I think it's a real problem too. Grades for CPT are C2 (Mastery; 90-100), C1 (Effective Proficiency; 75-89), B2 (Vantage; 60-74),  B1 (Threshold; 40-59), A2 (Waystage, 20-39), A1 (Breakthrough; 10-19) and Pre A1 (0-9).

From among those I know, there were some C1(s) and fewer C2(s). And from the C2 group, many of them had retired. We keep saying that our education system is world class... if it is so, then there should be a big group of C2(s) and even bigger group of C1(s). Yet it is heavily skewed towards the B(s) and A(s). But like the proverbial frog under the coconut shell who has only a narrow view of one spot of blue sky, we believe that all is well.

This Merdeka Day... while many adverts keep heaping praises on our diversity, yet when you go out onto the streets... the Merdeka spirit seems kinda lacking. Fewer flags seem to be flown, the air of Merdeka-ness just doesn't seem to be in the air... It feels kinda dampened. I think many are weighed down by many things... being squeezed by rising costs, GST looms ahead... But I think too, it is hard to build a Malaysian race when so many policies around us still divide us by ethnicity. What has that to do with the CPT results? Well... the CPT result is an indication too at a nation blinding itself to our skewed values which has brought us where we are.

Well, maybe that's just me feeling it.

Valentine's Day

An Ustazah came out (it's in YouTube) and said that Valentine's Day is a day of maksiat, disco, couple bersunyi-sunyian etc, etc.... plus it's the traditions of the Christians. Read around and it's likely to find even more such statements from these narrow-minded 'religious' people... How is it that these pemikiran sempit people never get it that it is not in any religion's teaching for their believers to encourage wrong and maksiat definitely falls into that category.

Lots of religious people in our country are more interested in the do(s) and don't(s) of the narrow kind. And because Islam is politicized in Malaysia, it becomes a tool to sow seeds of distrust and suspicion. Many years ago, I was at the back of a class (there was a partition and sometimes the teacher would not know that another teacher was behind) when I heard an Ustazah teaching the students not to accept anything if they go to a non-Muslim's house.... the haram and halal thing. In Malaysia today, I think majority knows the food taboos of the Muslims... and also one more thing I'd like to note. I thought the Quran teaches its believers that what is given in good faith, the onus is not on the one who receives, it's on the one who gives. I'm sure they know their God is a compassionate God... yet they do not teach such things. They teach them only the do(s) and don't(s). And so, suspicion creeps in!

Sometimes I think they carry this too far... the air we breathe, pigs breathe them too. The water we drink, it's also recycled, water is a limited resource, remember? It goes in, gets filtered but these days with the environment so badly polluted, be my guess whether the filtration process is really clean... the water that comes out from our taps is yellow with lots of heavy sediments... LOL! Unless you kill all the pigs and boars into oblivion. But I could think of dozen other things which do us more harm than just pork. Makes me wonder whether God made a mistake creating the pigs.....

Anyway, back to Valentine's Day... Take a walk back into history.... in the old days, marriages were pretty much arranged by their elders. When a boy or a girl came of age, they'd be arranged into marriage.... I guess it was probably to kurangkan the maksiat since human beings are sexual creatures too...

Valentine's Day is just a day for people to 'commemorate' their love (and it's not necessarily the sexual kind) or infatuation .... over the centuries it has become something like an avenue for young people to let the one they admire that they've a secret admirer or for couples to affirm their love, etc, etc... It's just another one of those 'celebrations' for a reason, and very commercial too cos there are mega bucks involved. All the flowers and teddy bears (this year for the Chinese, it'll be the rabbits) that fly out from the nurseries and off the shelves... it's good for the economy. LOL!

We can never stop the young (or the old for that matter) to want to feel loved or to love. It's what makes us different from the other creatures. Anyway, I believe if the people want to commit maksiat, they'd still do it with or without Valentine's Day. Blaming Valentine's Day as a celebration that brings about maksiat goes to show how out of modal (capital) some people can be... many years ago, when I was in the university, there used to be a joke that we can never tell whether those girls who pakai jubah were pregnant or not... now will this same ustazah say that the jubah is a reason for maksiat too since it also can hide the consequences of maksiat??? That's me thinking narrowly now....

And go read up some of the tales about the origins of Valentine's Day... sacrifice and love were the themes... not the maksiat. The maksiat thing is our own doing, don't blame it on one day like the Valentine's Day.

BTW... I'm not such a big fan of Valentine's Day myself these days. It's way too commercialized. Everyday should be a Valentine's Day, if I have my way. He! He! Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day!

On A Cheng Beng Morn In A Bank...

Was at the bank this morning... I didn't realize that there were fewer Chinese staff and customers in the bank until I was 'forced' to listen in to 2 Malay tellers' conversation which could be heard all throughout the bank... they were speaking above the normal conversation tone. The topic was Cheng Beng. It was the tone of one staff which I found totally irritating and which seems to reflect more and more of our unpleasant Malaysian flavour.

Cheng Beng is obviously something he did not look favourably upon... I think he was not too pleased that many of his Chinese colleagues were absent from work.... anyway, the way he commented to the point of being personal and at a volume in which he did it were totally uncalled for.... full of righteousness of his own beliefs....this one phrase which I always hear - Kami orang....... (you know what the next word is going to be...)

Kinda funny I thought... cos the more I listened to him, the more I felt he was condemning his own faith; the more he opens himself to his own version of judgment. I've so often hear people of his faith, lamenting how 'tak larat' they are during the fasting month... or how we should 'pity' them cos they are fasting. Or how puasa is used for excuse not to do a lot of things.... or how they show their piety and then look away when something not right is carried out... you know, pakai kopiah and then the next moment they open their mouths, it's full of dirty talk??? Cakap and buat tak serupa bikin, kind of thing?

And Malaysian politics is in a great part responsible for such kind of behaviour.... cos we seem to be invoking the name of God for many wrong reasons... I wonder if someone can come out with an invention that can examine the niat (intention) in our hearts... would we all be able to come out clear?

Coming back to Cheng Beng... I see not much difference between the morning Raya visits to the grave of their loved ones and it actually. Everyone is just trying to remember their loved ones who have gone away.... Malays, Chinese, Indians, Iban, Bidayuh, etc, etc... life is also about remembering those who made it possible for our presence here on earth.

I'd like to think of myself as Malaysian first... then my ethnicity next. But in Bolehland, I keep being reminded that I am Chinese first then Malaysian first.... bukan-Islam and Islam.... bumiputera and bukan-bumiputera. The separation lines keep being highlighted again and again. Aiyo! You'd think the downtrodden lot is only made up of one race.... got a lot of poor people out there; yellow, brown, black, dark brown, light brown Malaysians, etc, etc... only no green little Martians.

So is it no wonder that I keep thinking about this 1Malaysia as crap concocted for political mileage? Forked tongues speak different things to different audience. Muhyiddin's version or Najib's version is true now? Muhyiddin says ethnicity first. Najib says 1Malaysia.