The Devil in the White City ...by Erik Larson

This is a recount of Chicago in the late 19th century, the 1893 Chicago World's Fair to commemorate Christopher Columbus' 400th anniversary of his arrival to the New World, America's first recorded serial killer and an educational insight to life during that era. 53 chapers, 54 if you count the Epilogue and even before the first 10 chapters were done, I was reminded of the construction of the Tower of Babel. Man has never tried to stop reaching the heavens since then, going bigger, taller.

I learned that the Masonic Temple in Chicago, 1895, was the tallest building back then at 22 stories. We've hit 3 digits in the number of floors in a building, just slightly a century later. The current tallest building is Burj Dubai. And I finished the book convinced that despite what we think, know or feel about something, nothing is new. Everything that is, has been.

This is a non-fiction, another random pick. I seem to have a penchant for picking non-fiction these last few months. Anyway, this is a book packed with the history of Chicago. The reader is brought into the life of Herman Webster Mudget a.k.a H.H. Holmes, a doctor and a serial killer, much like Jack the Ripper who was on a killing spree on the other side of the Atlantic at about the same time.... the devil in the gleaming temporary city, the World Fair in Chicago.

It was an age of great innovation too. If we think ours in a generation of great innovation, it might be sobering to read about the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well. Each era has its own innovations and amazing discoveries. The city of Chicago had bad pollution problems back then too, with all kinds of putrified stuff oozing their way into the waterways from petrified animals in the slaughter houses and stench hanging in the air. Horses' manure polluted the environment much like our cars do today. We traded one evil for another without realizing it.

We read about the great architects like Daniel Burnham, Frederick Olmsted, John Root who lived in an era of greats like Edison, Eiffel, PT Barnum, mark Twain, William Cody; just as America was beginning to stamp her mark in the world. Currently our greats are defined by names like Gates, Jobs, Brin, Zuckerberg and so on. Some eras are marked by great conquerors, others by great architects, inventors, thinkers, explorers, engineers, musicians, 'war mongers', scientists, physicists, entrepreneurs and so on. To put it crudely, one can actually also see 'peer pressure' at work here. And they come in waves too... interesting, isn't it?

I got my girl to play these notes on the piano.... LOL! Everyone knows this tune! I always knew it as the snake song. Sol Bloom who developed the Midway Plaisance (the amusement park area) at the World Fair, apparently plinked it out as an adhoc measure for the belly dance show for the fair because the musicians had no idea what to play to accompany the dancers. Belly dancing was a new thing then. He was only 23. The young geeky entrepreneurs of our era shouldn't be a surprise to us. Young successful entrepreneurs have been there for a long time, with that same sense of dare to dream.

Also, the rise and fall of the financial markets are more common than one thinks. For every news of impending economic meltdown that sends the financial markets into frenzied worries and sometimes collapse, I learn that recorded history has many of these events too. Every fall precedes a rise... the law of gravity is at work here too. Right now we have the Greek and European crisis. Well, the world has seen many of these. Too bad that the only reference of an economic meltdown that our kids get to read is that of The Great Depression in the 1930s, and that also with such brevity. Our history books in Malaysia are muted to the turmoil and despair that plagued the lives of those badly affected by it. Depressions are more common than we think and I think the study of History in our schools does no justice to prepare us for the global world. People go through depressions too...

One thing I like about reading these days is the speed that I can do cross references on the net. Ours is supposed to be a generation of information free flow. Yet I find it disheartening that many of our kids do not make full use of this innovation. I learned a great deal about the different architectural designs from the wanderings into Google-world in between chapters. And one more thing, the Ferris wheel. The World Fair had the biggest ferris wheel on display. At full capacity, more than 2000 people could be rotated on it! And the engineer who designed and built it was George Ferris.

But above everything else, I realize too that for all that we achieve and own, they matter not to us when the final curtain is drawn. All that is left eventually are just memories and they too, turn hazy after a while. The memories we carry in our head get distorted over time. The same goes for great events. What we remember are basically what is written, rehashed, rephrased to the sway, bend (call it by whatever term) of the writer. It is interesting to note that as Holmes, the serial killer sat in his cell, he wrote his version of his life. In the end, no one really knows how many murders he committed.

I like how one section of the Acknowledgement by the writer very much.... as he acknowledged his wife for her help in his work, daughters for showing what matters and dig this.... his dog for showing that nothing matters but dinner! That basically sums up life... Our lives are enriched by our help/soul mates. The kids? Well, they're a joy to have but also a humbling experience too for they teach us priorities. And finally the dog - life is about the present. We should neither dwell too much on the past or the future. The past is a lesson, the future unknown. We can plan but we have no total control over it. And it's for one simple reason. Mortals do not go on forever.

Book 13. Very, very good read. Insightful.

Heaven Is For Real ...by Todd Burpo & Lynn Vincent

This was a random pick. I didn't know what the book was about until I was half way through. Yup! I sat glued to it cos I found it intriguing and insightful. The writer claims that the narrations in his book are collected from his 4-year-old who had a Near Death Experience (NDE), went to heaven and saw what it was like. Heaven... I mean, I've been taught about it. I think it exists, though sometimes, I wonder all sorts of thoughts. Often I am like DoubtingThomas...

And so mid way through, I decided to pause a while and google the book. Suffice to say I got a clearer picture but by then my eyes were giving way and I had to give them a break. Some hail this book as being too narrow because it works from the view point of Christianity only. These days, that kind of view point is considered offensive, I mean the 'one-angle-viewpoint'. We try to be inclusive. And very likely imagine how that argument will go. Then there are those who will be totally inspired after reading this book. The fact that this book made it to the Times Bestseller's shows the level of interest in the afterlife. We still want to cling on to that hope, I think. Anyway, after an afternoon of spring cleaning my cupboards, I went back to the book. I managed to finish it before the night was over, in part because it's written in easy language and less than 200 pages thick.

Does heaven exist? Through a 4-year-old who had a NDE (near death experience), it does. For him heaven is for real. And over the next few years (7 years before this book was published), his parents 'collected' the recollections of his experiences which he blurted or mentioned in various situations. So what do I think? For me, I think heaven is real. But that doesn't mean that I believe everything that is written in the book, as much as I may want to, in many instances. These are days where people try to turn (or create) whatever opportunities into something that sells. NDE is something that that has fascinated researchers and lay people. I guess deep down, everyone wants to know where they are headed after this life on this earth is over....

I enjoyed the book. One part of my mind tells me this might be one of those books written for profit. But another part reminds me that I don't know everything. I'm but a mere mortal, with an expiry date, and I wonder too, the beyond. But if one is encouraged to walk more faithfully in his faith because of the book, well, that takes conviction too. Not everyone is willing to let down their veil of self sufficiency for something that is beyond our mortal strength. It takes humility. We'd still like to rely on ourselves, many of us.... we'd like to think of ourselves as self-made, not created by some higher being or get where we are by grace.

The co-author of this book is Lynn Vincent who was Sarah Pailin's ghost writer for Going Rogue, and so some say this book has an agenda, anti abortion, gay, etc... which, for me, are okay agendas. We live in a society that is trying to accept everything these days. They can't be all that good! The first week isn't yet over and I'm already done with my second book this hols... and Book 12 for 2012! Happy!

I'll Walk Alone ...by Susan Cain

This book follows a formula... Everything that can go wrong, goes wrong at the beginning and the opposite happens as the story moves to its ending. And almost every chapter ends with a cliffhanger which makes you stay glued to the novel. It's enjoyable read in the sense that all ends well; everyone likes a happy ending.

The main character, Zan's 3-year-old toddler gets kidnapped. For 2 years her life turns topsy turvy. She buries herself in her work. Her life is a sad one. She lost her parents and then got divorced from the guy who helped her piece together her life. She didn't know she was pregnant when she left him. But they ended their marriage on good terms, at least that's what appeared on the surface.

Her nightmare begins after meeting Ted, her ex, to remember Matthew's 5th birthday. Soon after that everything unravels. A photo which showed that she kidnapped her own son, suspicious transactions on her credit card and business, an arrest warrant, an attempted murder on a priest who heard a confession of a murder to be; everything that could go wrong with her.

And then just as things started to be real bad, events started turning around. Everything that went wrong at the beginning of the story began to right itself. That's why I felt the book was rather formulaic; predictable. This is the sort of entertaining light reading that's entertaining but not the sort that you'll want to read too many of.

Book 11.

Mid year break...

Am truly glad to be out of school, a badly needed break. Teaching isn't much fun this year cos most of the time I seem to be hitting the wall most of the time with students. Mid year exam has just ended too. And in 3 out of the 3 upper form classes that I am teaching, most of the boys were more interested in sleeping through the exam. I do not understand why they bother going to school at all. It's as though by being present will somehow magically change their results. I have my reservations. It's not that I am not hopeful but it's rather difficult to see light at the end of this tunnel cos most of them don't seem able to will themselves to move beyond their attitude. And how can I tell? Easy! Many boys handed in blank sheets.

Some would be asleep before the first 20 minutes are over. And the school is conducting extra classes during the hols for such students when we can't even get them to listen during school. Sometimes, I wonder the purpose of those extra classes. Is it to show that we are doing something? School discipline has been on the downhill slide ever since we started this Sekolah Penyayang thing. The management contributed too by being benign.

Yesterday, as I walked through a corridor there were 2 groups of boys squatting by the sides. They were hooting and taunting the younger kids and girls who were walking past. I chased them away with some difficulty but I heard the same hooting sounds when I was upstairs. They went back to doing what they were doing as soon as I was out of sight. Most teachers have stopped reprimanding such behaviour, which is why things are not getting any better. I met a colleague when I was going down later and asked her whether she had heard them. And her reply? She has learned to turned a deaf ear and a blind eye. What they they need is a firm hand but these days, we are told to be soft on them. Well, it's not working.

The school has tried Bacaan Yassin too, once a week. It's supposed to soften their hearts, make them better. That's another failure too. Instead, I think this has demeaned faith. Religious grounds are getting porous. My jaw almost dropped as I watched the video of the uncouth behaviour of the men doing the butt protest at Ambiga's house. And the response when Ambiga offered them 100-Plus... since when Muslims don't drink it. Yet, I often hear utterances in same vein. And on the last day of the term, I sent out 6 warning letters to my class students for absenteeism too.

So I am looking forward to some peace and quiet for the next 2 weeks, to do some housekeeping, read and perhaps just go for relaxing swims at the pool. Maybe some morning workouts at the gym. A break from dealing with juveniles to catch up on other things. Am making myself available to some of my senior friends for iPad lessons this hols. I've been teaching a few what to use it for. My oldest students are 76 years old! A sweet couple. Have a few more in their 60s. They started off with one iPad but they recently bought another one. LOL! I enjoy seeing their eyes light up when I show them what the iPad is capable of. I'm more convinced that it's a liberating tool. And they find it an amazing tool too... 8)

But for now, the break is good cos I am nursing my second flu in a month.... I blame it on the stress of handling difficult classes this year. I think the body can only go that long before it starts to protest. Those classes (that's 4 out of my 5 classes) usually leave me drained.

So holidays... am too tired to even hurrah it now... maybe in a couple of days, when the spirit is renewed, I might feel differently. One good thing, moods are like the weather... they can change.

How Do We Teach Values

We have Pendidikan Moral and Pendidikan Sivik dan Kenegaraan in the school timetable. Values and civic mindedness - how do we teach them? Students have been poking fun at Pendidikan Moral for years. A student is expected to memorize the definition for each moral value and identify the moral values in situations given. Anyone can tell you the right thing to do. But not everyone can do the right thing.

The funny thing is both subjects are supposed to provide that missing link to a holistic education, turn us into better citizens. And on the same vein, we have Pendidikan Islam for the Muslim students. All 3 subjects have one similarity. They are subjects that deal mainly with the building of good character; for this world and the hereafter. One edge that Pendidikan Islam has over Pendidikan Moral is it is an examinable subject in PMR. Because of that proper teaching takes place. But soon it'll be on equal footing with Pendidikan Moral with the abolishment of PMR.

I've seen over the years, the sham of Moral Studies in lower forms. Students are often asked to go to the library or computer lab where they will be asked to do their own things. Teachers teaching Pendidikan Sivik and Kenegeraan would often replace their lessons with library periods. Sometimes I think such teachers are basically getting paid for sitting around, not doing what they are paid to do. It is also for this reason that many school heads and administrators opt to teach such subjects. It gives them the freedom from conscience if they skip classes. Teachers who teach such subjects have it really easy, I feel.

I recently went out for dinner with an old university mate. She posed me a question whether teachers ought to be put on a time-based promotion and get paid so much. According to her, Associate Professors with postgraduate qualifications are on the DG52 scale and we teachers get there too on time-based. It made me think of the examples I mentioned up there.... of those I know whom I'd rather not be teaching my own kids. Because I see around me, examples which make me wonder whether conscience really exists. And the alarming thing is they are teaching subjects which are supposed to develop a conscience.

According to the data given out by the Minister in this year's Teacher's Day speech, 390 teachers were promoted from DG52 to DG54, 676 from DG48 to DG52 and 3938 from DG44 to DG48. The time taken from DG41 (where all trachers start) to DG44 is 8 years with 8, 6 and 3 for the subsequent time based promotion requirements. One only needs to do his Maths to see the financial implications in the longer run too for the county, I mean. If salary goes up without an equal increase in productivity, any economist will tell you that is bad for the country.

Yet time based promotion is good for the group of teachers who are capable yet get bypassed for promotions. In a system like ours where race comes into play also, apart from the usual office politics, where promotion is concerned, there are few opportunities cos skin colour will always be a feature. As a result we see a lot of under performing schools these days, mainly because of poor leadership. And these days, I think even capable Malays are being bypassed. Once the rot starts, it spreads.

There are plenty of teachers who deserve the acknowledgement but there is also a big number who treats their vocation as a right, that the country owes them a living and not the other way around. And why is that so? Ours is a system of benevolence, one that works on a dasar ketuanan which uses race as a right. And that mentality has seeped everywhere!

So how do we teach values when subjects where values which are supposed to get caught apart from being taught become the sandpit which buries them. Kids watch and catch the values from our actions. Head knowledge is mainly to get the A(s). It doesn't mean that they will be keeping them even though they are well versed. And having multiple systems, vernacular, national and now international schools does not help national integration. Nor does it ensure proper learning of English too because everyone is busy being chauvinistic, championing their myopic rights. It is divisive.

So, time based promotion? Every teacher wants it cos it involves more pay and perks. But if we really do some soul searching and come clean, many of us will not deny that there are many teachers who are basically just hitching a ride and getting a good life out of it. I think if we dig deeper, we'll probably find the same problem besetting subjects like Literasi Komputer, Pendidikan Jasmani dan Kesihatan too. Many PJK teachers sit and watch their students.... in class or from under the shade or just send them to the library too.

Declining values... It's already difficult as it is to impart good values. But having poor examples as role models? I wonder. Listen when the kids talk about their school and teachers and you'll know what I mean. They're not as ignorant as we'd like to think of them. We can teach values but if we fail to show those values in our lives, they are noted by our learners and then ignored too. They learn by watching, remember?

Take a look around us... we now have political leaders who act as if they are above the law. Yesterday's news about the government suing the Bersih Steering Committee for losses is unbelievable too. For demanding a clean election process, we first had a court order to prevent a supposedly peaceful protest, followed by barb wires to keep the people out. And then there were the tear gas and chemical water sprays, police beatings, shutting down of the LRT stations to prevent people from leaving and then burger stalls and butt exercise outside the house of only one of the Steering Committee heads, who also happens to be a lady and an Indian. It should make us think why only Ambiga gets intimidated for demanding that we clean up our act.

Why not engage the Bersih demands? If a student comes to you with some grouses about the school about some things which he feels are unreasonable to the students, like being made to stand for assembly every morning. Do you engage him and discuss with him or do you come up with more punitive measures to shut him up? Do you go after the messenger and ignore the issue, especially if it's a valid issue. What do our actions imply about us then?

How did we ever arrive at this state? Did we teach our kids wrong? Didn't these people catch the right values from school? Whatever happened too to the religious teachings? Did it too get hijacked by the teachers? How did we ever end up with so many leaders who remain silent despite so many questionable incidents? Have we all been part of this 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' culture. In recent years, we've had gua tolong lu, lu tolong gua becoming election catch phrases or baits to fish for more support. Well, however good some quarters may feel now, I think it will come back and hound us some day. As it is, bankruptcy may await us... but our journey there will also prove us bankrupt of morals and values too.

Teaching values... We teachers have to set ourselves right first too.

School Based Assessment

One of the things we need to do for school based assessment (PBS - Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah) is to assess students. And the yardstick will be the instruments used to measure their progress. There is a lot more paper work for the teachers for sure. We also have to key in the marks online too. Given that class sizes are still quite big, anywhere between 30 to 45 in many schools, we'll be buried under more administrative and clerical work.

Recently I was given a set of 'instruments' to gauge my Form 1 students' mastery. Now these are simple questions like 'What is your name?, How old are you?, Where do you live? and What is your hobby?' My colleague had this look of disbelief on her face when I told her that I did not expect one of my classes to be able to clear those questions to qualify for Band 1.

I went into the class and proceeded with the 'measuring'. About 3 could handle 3 of the 4 questions. They tanked at the 'Where do you live?' question. Another 3 could answer 2 questions. The rest simply sank into their own sea of ignorance, with 2-3 students answering 'bola' for the 'What is your hobby?' question. I guess the word 'hobby' saved the day for them since it's also 'hobi' in BM. Interestingly too, all 6 students who could answer either all 4 or 3 questions came from Chinese vernacular schools. And there only 6 Chinese in the class. The rest of the students came from national (kebangsaan) schools. Both sets of students are weak students but one set was able to qualify for Band 1 quite easily.

This is the 5th month I'm teaching them. It took me about 2 months to make them sit still in class and another 2 months to finally knock some sense into the really recalcitrant ones that it's better that they do the work given... even if it's just copying the questions into their exercise books. I feel more like a babysitter and sometimes taskmaster when I am in this particular class and 2 other Form 5 classes. This is secondary school and I am supposed to work on the skills that they are supposed to have, like being able to construct sentences, have a certain amount of vocabulary, basically some language skills. Yet all the years they have spent in the classrooms have amounted to almost nothing. But for the Form 1 kids who came from Chinese vernacular schools... (these include the Malay kids who studied there), compliance is high and there is less discipline problem. I think there is something the Chinese schools are doing right....

I am a firm believer that language being a skill is something that everyone can pick up. When a kid has no command at all of a language they are supposed to have been learning for 6 or 11 years, it points to a few things. One, the students have shut their minds. Why they are shut would be an interesting study. Two, language is a skill. If I were to put a Malay baby in a family that speaks Swahili, the kid will grow up speaking Swahili.

I started teaching my girl Science in Mandarin this year. I learned Mandarin to do it. I could read because there was a need for me to master it - for my kid. And so now I can read enough Mandarin to understand the questions. These kids basically don't see the need for English in their lives. And instruction probably has something to do with it too. Add that to the point that they are not academically inclined, the years in school will be wasted.

I have 2 other Form 5 classes who are no better than the class above. After spending 11 years in school, most of them can't even talk about themselves in English, let alone read and understand a simple passage. We seem to be coming up with new policies but they have not done much to solve anything. The standard of English has continued to slide. And it's getting worse by the year. As much as fhe authorities will deny, one main problem is the quality of instructor. Less than competent instructors will not be able to produce competent students. And because of that too, PPSMI never had a chance. It was doomed to fail right from the start because the most important component wasn't able to deliver.

I think the School Based Assessment can be good for such kids as it might draw our attention away from scoring in exams and allow us to ensure that students are equipped with the necessary skills. Learning might actually become fun. But other factors come into play here too, which might require real political will to overcome. There also doesn't seem to be any urge to look into the plight of these less academically inclined students. Instead of allowing them to languish in an academic environment, we should have more vocational training for them. Skills are what they need to be useful and productive. And that sadly is lacking from our current system. What is the point of PBS when it does not equip these kids for the real world. They go out worse, in fact... worse from the years of negative reinforcement.

It's exam time for the other forms now. And my boys from my two Form 5 classes have been spending most of their exam time sleeping. The scenario in my Form 1 class is repeated in these 2 classes. Five years down the road, that's how my Form 1 boys will be like. Teaching loses its meaning for me sometimes because instead if teaching language that I am supposed to be doing, I am spending most of my time dealing with behavioural problems. And this coming from a school standing in the 50th percentile in the national list. It speaks volume of the situation in our nation too.

Look around us... From the crowd behaviour in Bersih 3.0 to the knee-jerk responses that we've been getting, there are indicators of positive as well as the negative. It's heartening as well as worrying....

Quiet ...by Susan Cain

Restorative niche, high and low reactive kids, orchid and dandelion children, introvert, extrovert - this book tries to understand how we tick. There are those among us who are reserved and then also those who seem to be the life of any group that they are in. In trying to understand our temperament and personality, we understand a little bit more our of ourselves and also those around us. And that I believe will help us deal with each one as an individual better. And this book is about all that.

My first exposure to the different temperaments came in the form of classic temperaments of melancholy, sanguine, choleric and phlegmatic. But it's easier to just have two broad categories - introverts and extroverts. In between, there're many personality tests like the Myers-Brigs and Keirsey tests which will help us understand our temperaments. It's been so many years since those days when psychology was more of a study of theories. These days, we have fMRI machines which can show scientists how our brain works, the role of amygdala, prefrontal cortex and so on. We can take peeks into our brains and see how they react and respond and in the process understand a little bit more what sets us apart from other animals

I wished I had this book when my kids were younger. Though it doesn't contain all the solutions to understanding my kids, it would have helped me understand them in a way that might have enabled me to avoid some of the mistakes I made because even though I was aware that different temperaments interact and react differently to our surrounding, there are many areas which the writer helps me see clearer. Her examples were funny in a way but I could identify with many of them. And being an introvert myself, reading the book, I found myself identifying with many of the situations.

Today's world is more ideal for an extrovert cos our culture has made virtue of the extrovert ideal. By understanding myself better, I think it helps me understand and cope better with life. It helps me accept that it's okay that often times, I relish being alone, even in a crowd, or why I often seek solitude for my timeout or why I can box people out of my life. It also helps me in my work because I deal with teenagers, understand that each kid behaves differently. And it helps me see why some methods work on certain kids and not others. I learned too I should focus more on encouraging our introvert children to be productive instead of pushing for confidence. Come to think of it, that's what MYF did for us - focus on productivity. The confidence came as a byproduct.

Teenage years are more about gregariousness and vivacity. If we focus on confidence, many of the quieter kids would be lost in the sea of extrovert idealism. It's hard for the introvert child to find his niche. And trying to make them fit into that extrovert ideal is tough on them.This is a book that describes us, the different us. Relationships are us. And in reading this, I realize the mistakes that I made with my boy as he was growing up, because I missed the signals. But I learned too that because I am an introvert myself, I tended to reflect a lot on my actions. And that helped somewhat in balancing some of the actions.

In quietness there is great strength, but introverts are like orchids. They can wilt under unsuitable conditions. They are unlike dandelion children who can adapt better. I think new parents should at least flip through this book, and couples too. Communication breakdowns can often be avoided if we learn the right way or understand our spouses, children or friends better. A spade is sometimes not a spade but it takes a lot of discernment to be able to see that sometimes. But introvert or extrovert, both compliment each other. It's always good to understand those different from us and work to include them into our world.

This is another non-fiction in my list this year. Book 10 and 7th non-fiction for the year.