If you read me a couple of blogs ago, I was writing about the peace I have made with my sense of being incomplete for not having chosen an academic route. I remember, years ago, I was asked, "Why not just complete a few more units and get a degree in Australia?"
The allure of overseas or local universities has never appealed to me. It's not a superficial rebellion against authority; it's just that I've always known that the sort of knowledge I want to gain, the sort of insights and discussions, must be worth the price and time I'm paying. I've just never found any incentive great enough or the idea of something tantalizing enough for me to want to risk the time, money and effort pursuing that.
Fast-forward 10 years and universities everywhere, especially Australian and non-ivy league American universities, apart from Malaysian ones, are riddled with scandals of tampered passing marks, doctored results, plagiarism, etc. Anyone who's been keeping up will know the full monty - otherwise, consider this a course assignment to read up on education crisis in the past decade. I've always suspected that a good number of Malaysians who are applying for jobs with 'degrees from overseas' actually got theirs from paper mills, coz it is simply not possible, based on their (lack of) eloquence, vocabulary and research/writing skills, critical thinking and ability to think maturely nor solve problems efficiently that they are 'graduates'. And now we know that a good number find their way home with a doctored degree or transferred to 'colleges' with lower academic requirements in order to get that piece of paper.
I say the problem is three-fold : Parents who think degrees guarantee a good life without ever understanding the merits of what an education was supposed to provide (I'd have to write another blog specifically dedicated to my belief of what education is supposed to do for the student) are at fault. Yes, it was an honest ambition, but it is a symptom of the destructive ambitions of human beings (had I already written a blog about what I think is wrong with ambition?. Speculations like that created false demand that, needless to say, exceeds supply. When funding and hiring (or keeping your job as an academic) depended upon the number of enrollments and passing rate, academics are served a dish they have to swallow, however unpalatable it is.
I had a conversation like this with an academic friend when I told her how a former student of mine, had, out of a sense of moral obligation to the sort of ethics I preach, asked for my permission to plagiarise. I said I cannot believe a top student, a clever one too, would consider plagiarising! My friend then tells me of one episode where she argued with a student over the legitimacy of his work - he argued it was his original work and she opened up a book where she had highlighted the whole chunk he had tried to pass off as his own. This was in Australia.
It's happening all over the world - this blind ambition of 'wanting my child to go to university' - what sort of a romantic dream is that? So what happens? First, we have students who would have otherwise taken a different route in life, force-fed into an education system that purges them out on a conveyor belt that carries them en route to universities. The social pressure from parents keep them under-pressure to stay on a course not best suited for their souls.
And when these fees-paying students backed up by either their parents' hard-earned savings or their mortgages and bank loans, arrive at the door of universities and colleges around the world - what happens? Universities don't pay for themselves and their research and lecturers didn't slave that many years earning their academic mettle just to live like a pauper. The money has to come from somewhere - and who can turn good money away - even if it comes from bad students?
If I were an academic, I'd of course blame A-level teachers. And if I were an A-level teacher, I'd blame the whole gamut of high school teachers. And if I were a high school teacher, I'd blame primary school teachers, who in turn, blame the government and parents.
Wouldn't it be really, really simple to just stare a bull in the eye and take it by the horn? When you go down the rabbit hole - even students themselves pin the blame on parents.
Interview with the parent :
Why do you put so much pressure on your children and create this chain-reaction?
Parent : It's not me! What if they can't get a good paying job? Nowadays, everyone has a degree! No degree cannot get a job!
So what happens when everyone has a degree?
Let's just go to the root of the problem : Greed; which is cultured from Fear, which is rooted in Ignorance. (also known as lack of awareness.)
Human beings are greedy. They've always wanted more. What was this line I heard in a movie or came across in a book once : "Humans have an insatiable hunger for things, like hungry ghosts, never enough, and they will destroy everything and yet not be able to fulfill their cravings and lusts and desires."
They want more money, more status, more prestige. More than any other person they can compare themselves to, and if they are forced to concede defeat, at least not less than the other person.
Getting a 'degree' is just another way to legitamise their greed, their ambition for more. YES - that is it! TO LEGITIMISE (this time, I spelled it correctly) their greed, ignorance and sheer stupidity. It is simply another pattern of Man's destructive nature in his lust for ambition and greed. It is that greed which has eroded the excellence of thinking, the credibility of academia and coming down further, schooling, learning, etc. Everything that we could've excelled at, in the end, gets destroyed by this insatiable greed. Nature is destroyed, creativity is manipulated to create more illussions, technology becomes weapons of mass destruction....etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Now look what they've done. Once upon a time, humans created an ingenious method of proliferating knowledge and ideas through exchanges that can be reviewed by peers and where checks-and-balances are in place to legitimise the ideas and thoughts that would most benefit mankind and society. This method created a genuine proliferation of value for society by maximising the intellectual capacities of the most able, creative and sharp minds in a society. Going to university, or school, really meant something.
Let's stop the stupidity. Let's just pull out all the clogs. It's really not that hard. I did not have to sit under a banyan tree for one score and a decade to be able to arrive at this. Let's simply not let greed, fear and ignorance rule over us and call all the shots and be Masters of our destiny. Who or what is this imaginary power over us that makes us conform, feel like we have to, or would be left out? That is the collective power of Illussion - and illussion that everyone makes real by subscribing to it and conforming to one another.
Showing posts with label About Learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label About Learning. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2008
Hey, who knows....one day?
I gotta say, the one thing I love about blogging is that you can have absolutely no talent in writing and yet produce a piece of writing for possible mass consumption - albeit selectively, here in cyberspace. It's like writing a diary you want people to find - and I've had a tendency of doing that. I remember this one time when I was a teenager, and I let a friend 'read my diary' - which was, of course, embellished with timelines that extended beyond my actual age at that time. She said I reminded her of Anne Frank blah blah ....until today, I have not read that diary though I have come across the knowledge that she was some kid stuck in an attic during the Holocaust. Now, to my point...
Now, blogging adds this aspect of being able to spin fantasy, real-life drama and opinion in a diary-form which can be selectively public. It marries all the issues I have about writing; on one hand, I can only ever write from a voice that is very me, very personal, which would make it sort of like a diary, wouldn't it? However, a diary isn't sexy unless it's read by people who are anonymous to you at the point of them savouring the fruits of your writing ;).
This blog is going to be the witness to the birth of my published-self. ...even if my blog is self-published :).
Now, blogging adds this aspect of being able to spin fantasy, real-life drama and opinion in a diary-form which can be selectively public. It marries all the issues I have about writing; on one hand, I can only ever write from a voice that is very me, very personal, which would make it sort of like a diary, wouldn't it? However, a diary isn't sexy unless it's read by people who are anonymous to you at the point of them savouring the fruits of your writing ;).
This blog is going to be the witness to the birth of my published-self. ...even if my blog is self-published :).
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Being free without a license
How useful are academic qualifications when it comes to actually solving the problems on the ground? I'm talking about academics in general and the problem of declining English-language proficiency in Malaysia in an age where English has become the medium for science, math, technology and just about everything else. It's a chicken and egg situation : If you're not an academic, what you say must be not valid, and is unsubstantiated and its insignificance highlighted by the fact that it's merely anecdotal evidence. If you become an academic, the years of having to conform to the rules of academia in collecting, analysing and interpreting information ends up muddling the distinction between what is your insight and awareness, thus, practical and applicable versus what is the sum of the addition of other people's ideas and opinions.
Have you ever realized though, how in writing an essay for academic purpose, half of the word count is attributed to quotes and annotations? It seems that an opinion can only be valid if it is based on evidence from an existing and accepted thought or opinion. Then how is one to remain fresh? How is one to separate and validate one's own opinion from the conglomerate of third party observation, information and opinions?
The years that it takes, the eating, breathing and drinking a certain code and environment en route to becoming an academic alters the intellectual DNA of a person. It is a widely held belief that an academic route makes the mind sharper, more brilliant and more superior. But how many academics really drive the direction of society and creativity? The divide between the world of the academics and the realities of society at large is so huge - no wonder the term, ivory tower.
So, it begs the question : In order to make a significant shift in thinking, does one need to first be an academic? But how can one still retain that fresh, creative thinking after a process of adding and quoting and referencing and validating others' opinions over yours? Who would want to be unconformist in an area notorious for its conformity by suggesting a revolutionary-type theory? If the theory catches on with enough peer support with the correct timing and momentum, it becomes a valid opinion that might be able to ride the wave against the current of objection and counter-argument by other academics. If it doesn't, all is wasted. Then one is labelled with negative opinions. If one had to go through academia just to be shot in the foot, one might as well spend the same amount of energy being a Dale Carnegie type.
When resorting to writing a paper with an opinion, in order to present at a conference, it cannot escape the structure and decorum conference papers must adhere to. Such a voice is not the most appealing to the general public - the same public one is supposed to benefit by being an academic.
There will be mavericks - those who have successfully married academic achievement with what seems like rogue behaviour. And if the stars and planets are aligned perfectly, you win a Nobel prize.
Can we pursue and make change without the stamp of approval from academia? Is it worth being a Dale Carnegie instead of being a paper-chaser? And especially so, can we pursue and make change from within ourselves, from within the context of the circumstances we find ourselves in amidst our very own society, instead of pursuing the lingua franca of those in ivory towers in order to get permission to make those changes?
The same way becoming a self-made millionaire belies a blueprint that has been altered through the course of time, becoming an academic also changes the core person that embarked on that journey. Maybe at first it seemed like the most rational thing to do, to exploit the scholastic aptitude one innately possesses and to benefit from the status and luxuries an academic life can offer. And 7 to 10 years later, the person who lived in the shadows of society behind the shiny shade of ivory towers eventually find themselves a prisoner of their own cleverness. And this is my argument against pursuing an academic route all these years.
It is possible to argue that in truth, i simply do not possess the capacity for graduate and doctorate studies - that i simply do not possess the faculties of designing, observing, collecting empirical evidence, referencing and interviewing and adding and adding knowledge to oneself or the reading skills to deal with tonnes of dry, academic reading and their jargon and semantics. And add to that the lack of discipline of denying oneself the freedom of partying as a young person, being employed in a diverse selection of jobs in the open market, living frugally and being dutiful in meeting budgets and assignments and protocol. I do not deny the possibility of all of the above.
At soon-to-be 32, I have managed to convince myself that whatever the path we have chosen to take in order to achieve whatever we set out to achieve - the journey in itself alters us permanently. That has always been my argument against fatalistic people like my father who believe that money, duty and narrowly-defined traditional responsibilities have to come first while he puts his dreams away in a lockbox. As we know by now, my father expired before he could even find the map he stowed away which showed him back to the place he put the key for his lockbox!
I believe that putting our dreams and hopes away makes us into that person, someone who is not someone we wanted to be, the same way pursuing our dreams makes us that person we dream about. I think, therefore, the Universe is very neutral about our choices; It neither condemns nor celebrates our choices, which gives a new meaning to the personal responsibility of Freewill.
I grew up in a society which demands academic endorsement to validate any opinion. A society that created in itself the loophole for doctored endorsements and a mushrooming of paper mills to certify anything under the son. For over a decade and a half, throughout times which seemed to make the choice of pursuing an academic route even more difficult and necessary at the same time, I had battled with the arguments for and being neutral about the necessity to validate myself through academic endorsements. What makes the decision harder was the fact that I knew, even at the most modest estimates, that I would be able to hack it, aptitude wise.
But Krishnamurthi was spot-on when he questioned why we pursue our degrees so. It is either for material or intellectual ambition. It is for the ego, the self-identity which can be found and strengthened by such endorsements. It might sound like I am anti-academia, but no. I think the pursuit of knowledge in itself for the sake of itself is perfectly fine. But along the way, the temptation to escape into the shrouds created by the additive process of information and knowledge and to cocoon ourself in an ivory tower overcomes a person, overtakes the freshness of mind that one first entered with, over-ridden by the general ambition of society at large as we wear out our own innocence and naivete within the structure of academia.
So this is my declaration. This is my acceptance. That i do not need to seek acceptance and validation for my opinions. It was my own demons seeking recognition and face. It was my own demons telling me my validation and endorsement can only come from putting my energy and creativity on hold and pursuing an academic route to its end.
Have you ever realized though, how in writing an essay for academic purpose, half of the word count is attributed to quotes and annotations? It seems that an opinion can only be valid if it is based on evidence from an existing and accepted thought or opinion. Then how is one to remain fresh? How is one to separate and validate one's own opinion from the conglomerate of third party observation, information and opinions?
The years that it takes, the eating, breathing and drinking a certain code and environment en route to becoming an academic alters the intellectual DNA of a person. It is a widely held belief that an academic route makes the mind sharper, more brilliant and more superior. But how many academics really drive the direction of society and creativity? The divide between the world of the academics and the realities of society at large is so huge - no wonder the term, ivory tower.
So, it begs the question : In order to make a significant shift in thinking, does one need to first be an academic? But how can one still retain that fresh, creative thinking after a process of adding and quoting and referencing and validating others' opinions over yours? Who would want to be unconformist in an area notorious for its conformity by suggesting a revolutionary-type theory? If the theory catches on with enough peer support with the correct timing and momentum, it becomes a valid opinion that might be able to ride the wave against the current of objection and counter-argument by other academics. If it doesn't, all is wasted. Then one is labelled with negative opinions. If one had to go through academia just to be shot in the foot, one might as well spend the same amount of energy being a Dale Carnegie type.
When resorting to writing a paper with an opinion, in order to present at a conference, it cannot escape the structure and decorum conference papers must adhere to. Such a voice is not the most appealing to the general public - the same public one is supposed to benefit by being an academic.
There will be mavericks - those who have successfully married academic achievement with what seems like rogue behaviour. And if the stars and planets are aligned perfectly, you win a Nobel prize.
Can we pursue and make change without the stamp of approval from academia? Is it worth being a Dale Carnegie instead of being a paper-chaser? And especially so, can we pursue and make change from within ourselves, from within the context of the circumstances we find ourselves in amidst our very own society, instead of pursuing the lingua franca of those in ivory towers in order to get permission to make those changes?
The same way becoming a self-made millionaire belies a blueprint that has been altered through the course of time, becoming an academic also changes the core person that embarked on that journey. Maybe at first it seemed like the most rational thing to do, to exploit the scholastic aptitude one innately possesses and to benefit from the status and luxuries an academic life can offer. And 7 to 10 years later, the person who lived in the shadows of society behind the shiny shade of ivory towers eventually find themselves a prisoner of their own cleverness. And this is my argument against pursuing an academic route all these years.
It is possible to argue that in truth, i simply do not possess the capacity for graduate and doctorate studies - that i simply do not possess the faculties of designing, observing, collecting empirical evidence, referencing and interviewing and adding and adding knowledge to oneself or the reading skills to deal with tonnes of dry, academic reading and their jargon and semantics. And add to that the lack of discipline of denying oneself the freedom of partying as a young person, being employed in a diverse selection of jobs in the open market, living frugally and being dutiful in meeting budgets and assignments and protocol. I do not deny the possibility of all of the above.
At soon-to-be 32, I have managed to convince myself that whatever the path we have chosen to take in order to achieve whatever we set out to achieve - the journey in itself alters us permanently. That has always been my argument against fatalistic people like my father who believe that money, duty and narrowly-defined traditional responsibilities have to come first while he puts his dreams away in a lockbox. As we know by now, my father expired before he could even find the map he stowed away which showed him back to the place he put the key for his lockbox!
I believe that putting our dreams and hopes away makes us into that person, someone who is not someone we wanted to be, the same way pursuing our dreams makes us that person we dream about. I think, therefore, the Universe is very neutral about our choices; It neither condemns nor celebrates our choices, which gives a new meaning to the personal responsibility of Freewill.
I grew up in a society which demands academic endorsement to validate any opinion. A society that created in itself the loophole for doctored endorsements and a mushrooming of paper mills to certify anything under the son. For over a decade and a half, throughout times which seemed to make the choice of pursuing an academic route even more difficult and necessary at the same time, I had battled with the arguments for and being neutral about the necessity to validate myself through academic endorsements. What makes the decision harder was the fact that I knew, even at the most modest estimates, that I would be able to hack it, aptitude wise.
But Krishnamurthi was spot-on when he questioned why we pursue our degrees so. It is either for material or intellectual ambition. It is for the ego, the self-identity which can be found and strengthened by such endorsements. It might sound like I am anti-academia, but no. I think the pursuit of knowledge in itself for the sake of itself is perfectly fine. But along the way, the temptation to escape into the shrouds created by the additive process of information and knowledge and to cocoon ourself in an ivory tower overcomes a person, overtakes the freshness of mind that one first entered with, over-ridden by the general ambition of society at large as we wear out our own innocence and naivete within the structure of academia.
So this is my declaration. This is my acceptance. That i do not need to seek acceptance and validation for my opinions. It was my own demons seeking recognition and face. It was my own demons telling me my validation and endorsement can only come from putting my energy and creativity on hold and pursuing an academic route to its end.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Falling between the cracks
I think by now we've established the fact that I believe school is a good idea only for a minority of individuals who are born so well-adjusted and scholastically gifted but to parents who are incapable of providing them the kind of guidance they crave for. If we'd only recognized this fact, it would instantly dissolve the need for the tens of thousands of underqualified teachers we currently 'urgently need' to fill in posts in overcrowded excuses for cram schools. The school population would be reduced by at least half and the social crime index will begin to fall, hopefully.
Speaking of which, I would not have been one of those people who would've benefited from schooling : Schooling as we know it in the past century is fertile ground for characters who find comfort in conformity, the sort of people who are most likely to rebel one way or another in the end. I, on the other hand, was meant to use my flair for words to humour myself and those who share the same brand of humor I do.
Now, to the point I was going to make; Today's Star newspaper in the section, Focus, features an article about second-chances for juveniles to pick up the 3Ms. It highlighted some aspects of learning which I always knew to be some of the reasons why students are falling behind, suffering low self-esteem and eventually resorting to misbehaviour and social maladjustment as a consequence.
There are simply too many people who cannot perform in even a few rudimentary subjects who are subjected to the torturous, maniacal routine of schooling. You can add an unhealthy learning environment and unnatural social order into the mix and you get the dangerous concoction called schooling.
Because of a system and world we've found ourselves in which measured achievement and worth with words and numbers, so many individuals who could've led a successful, meaningful life are bound and gagged by labels that cause such great conflict with their nature. That is why I believe the work of Howard Gardner is so important in putting the foot in the door in acknowledging the validity that there are so many other forms of intelligences apart from the conservative belief we now hold.
When you have too many students in a burgeoning system and not enough professionals, you have no choice but to lower the standards in engaging teachers - and because of the low incentives and the nature of high demands and accountability in the profession, the most qualified have been magnetized to the draw of incentives in the concurrently growing private sector; which left only the mediocre but most sincere students finding steady employment through teacher colleges a rewarding incentive.
Enrolling thousands of people into a system which promised a 'better tomorrow' and measuring these new thousands using a mold that only suited a few is a sweeping task in breaking the spirits of people and destroying their compass of discovering their purpose in life. Somehow, nobody ever noticed the paradox that when everyone is gunning for the top paying jobs the decade before (engineers, IT people, managers, accountants, lawyers,etc)it will eventually create an efflux of 'qualified' people into the market causing decline in demand and payment, or, alternately and synchronistically, the rising costs of salaries demanded by these 'qualified' people will automatically lead to an inflation that eats into the disposable income anyway. More affluence but less wealth in the end.
Doesn't this kind of world create such great conflicts in a human? To be born a certain nature with innate qualities, but forced by fickle traditional expectations to race inside a machinery that will press and repress, mold and shape you into something you are not. To shape one according to a model which was pre-determined by a flawed society a couple of generations before, with flawed motives behind its visions which has now erected a destructive mechanism enforcing a societal structure which it will defend for as long as it serves the economic advantages of the powers that be. Is the purpose of being born to be fed into the machinery of economic civilisation dictated by a few? A model of economics designed before we were born which we fuel with a misplaced sense of duty dictated by misguided tradition and loyalty and obedience to that tradition?
The really bad good idea of edumacating a future pool of human resources (that's beginning to sound like a dressed-up version of subtle slavery) through a fixed type of learning has generated a whole new science of addressing learners with 'learning difficulty'. (Could it also be a case where it is the method of teaching and not the learner himself that is inadequate?)Fortunately for these juvies, incarceration's silver lining is a second chance at learning where the factors that cause failure in learning usually found in our schools have been removed. It was encouraging to see Malaysian Prisons' Department Academic Sector head Shamsuddin Mustapha make this statement : "When we first started four months ago, we only planned for normal education like those you get in government schools. But we noticed many of them could not read or write. That was when we started 3M classes."
Now why the heck didn't anyone think about that? What with all the automatic promotion of students, and revised textbooks and millions of dollars and environmental damage caused by workbooks and copyright-infringing tuition centre drill worksheets? So much time and resources is wasted on tuitionmania, preparing and competing in school and national exams (right up to the decimal point), UPSR, PMR, smart schools, vision schools apa-pun-ada schools when the solution is simply providing children with the rudimentary stuff, investing in the time and effort it takes for each learner to grasp the material before they move on.
Learning is not a race, it is in the act itself that gives them the fulfillment and self-esteem they are seeking from the idea of learning. If they can deny Time as the determinant of learning and to leave that push-ahead mentality outside and embrace language learning as personal development, there will be no such thing as failure in learning when looking back 6 months, 12 months, etc ahead.
For the full article, do read
BACK TO BASICS BEHIND BARS - http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/9/focus/2491471&sec=focus
and SLOW LEARNERS NEED HELP - http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/9/nation/2489945&sec=nation
Speaking of which, I would not have been one of those people who would've benefited from schooling : Schooling as we know it in the past century is fertile ground for characters who find comfort in conformity, the sort of people who are most likely to rebel one way or another in the end. I, on the other hand, was meant to use my flair for words to humour myself and those who share the same brand of humor I do.
Now, to the point I was going to make; Today's Star newspaper in the section, Focus, features an article about second-chances for juveniles to pick up the 3Ms. It highlighted some aspects of learning which I always knew to be some of the reasons why students are falling behind, suffering low self-esteem and eventually resorting to misbehaviour and social maladjustment as a consequence.
There are simply too many people who cannot perform in even a few rudimentary subjects who are subjected to the torturous, maniacal routine of schooling. You can add an unhealthy learning environment and unnatural social order into the mix and you get the dangerous concoction called schooling.
Because of a system and world we've found ourselves in which measured achievement and worth with words and numbers, so many individuals who could've led a successful, meaningful life are bound and gagged by labels that cause such great conflict with their nature. That is why I believe the work of Howard Gardner is so important in putting the foot in the door in acknowledging the validity that there are so many other forms of intelligences apart from the conservative belief we now hold.
When you have too many students in a burgeoning system and not enough professionals, you have no choice but to lower the standards in engaging teachers - and because of the low incentives and the nature of high demands and accountability in the profession, the most qualified have been magnetized to the draw of incentives in the concurrently growing private sector; which left only the mediocre but most sincere students finding steady employment through teacher colleges a rewarding incentive.
Enrolling thousands of people into a system which promised a 'better tomorrow' and measuring these new thousands using a mold that only suited a few is a sweeping task in breaking the spirits of people and destroying their compass of discovering their purpose in life. Somehow, nobody ever noticed the paradox that when everyone is gunning for the top paying jobs the decade before (engineers, IT people, managers, accountants, lawyers,etc)it will eventually create an efflux of 'qualified' people into the market causing decline in demand and payment, or, alternately and synchronistically, the rising costs of salaries demanded by these 'qualified' people will automatically lead to an inflation that eats into the disposable income anyway. More affluence but less wealth in the end.
Doesn't this kind of world create such great conflicts in a human? To be born a certain nature with innate qualities, but forced by fickle traditional expectations to race inside a machinery that will press and repress, mold and shape you into something you are not. To shape one according to a model which was pre-determined by a flawed society a couple of generations before, with flawed motives behind its visions which has now erected a destructive mechanism enforcing a societal structure which it will defend for as long as it serves the economic advantages of the powers that be. Is the purpose of being born to be fed into the machinery of economic civilisation dictated by a few? A model of economics designed before we were born which we fuel with a misplaced sense of duty dictated by misguided tradition and loyalty and obedience to that tradition?
The really bad good idea of edumacating a future pool of human resources (that's beginning to sound like a dressed-up version of subtle slavery) through a fixed type of learning has generated a whole new science of addressing learners with 'learning difficulty'. (Could it also be a case where it is the method of teaching and not the learner himself that is inadequate?)Fortunately for these juvies, incarceration's silver lining is a second chance at learning where the factors that cause failure in learning usually found in our schools have been removed. It was encouraging to see Malaysian Prisons' Department Academic Sector head Shamsuddin Mustapha make this statement : "When we first started four months ago, we only planned for normal education like those you get in government schools. But we noticed many of them could not read or write. That was when we started 3M classes."
Now why the heck didn't anyone think about that? What with all the automatic promotion of students, and revised textbooks and millions of dollars and environmental damage caused by workbooks and copyright-infringing tuition centre drill worksheets? So much time and resources is wasted on tuitionmania, preparing and competing in school and national exams (right up to the decimal point), UPSR, PMR, smart schools, vision schools apa-pun-ada schools when the solution is simply providing children with the rudimentary stuff, investing in the time and effort it takes for each learner to grasp the material before they move on.
Learning is not a race, it is in the act itself that gives them the fulfillment and self-esteem they are seeking from the idea of learning. If they can deny Time as the determinant of learning and to leave that push-ahead mentality outside and embrace language learning as personal development, there will be no such thing as failure in learning when looking back 6 months, 12 months, etc ahead.
For the full article, do read
BACK TO BASICS BEHIND BARS - http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/9/focus/2491471&sec=focus
and SLOW LEARNERS NEED HELP - http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/9/nation/2489945&sec=nation
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