My Little Thoughts About Malaysian Education System

I have never blogged about any big issue or serious matter regarding my nation but this article has strongly provoked my thought and I feel a strong urge to blog about our Malaysian Education System. *I feel good about using the word 'our' because it makes me feel that I am not actually THAT far apart from my beloved nation despite the fact that I have come to UK for 3 months.*

So, what's wrong with the education system in Malaysia? Well, perhaps 'wrong' is too strong a word for me to use. After all, I am just a first-year undergraduate who possesses no credibility to judge the system. But hey, I have gone through six-year primary school and five-year secondary school in Malaysia! My experience in the schools should allow me to make some fair comments on the system, right?

I know it is rude to say this but most of our teachers are not good. Ok, so now you're asking what is the standard of a good teacher. Possession of a wide range of knowledge and skill to impart knowledge is a MUST. Patience, approachability and willingness to accept others' (students', to be more precise) idea are also keys to be a good teacher. Most of the time, our teachers possess a great deal of knowledge but the problem is with the imparting of knowledge. My schooling years saw a drastic increase in the use of IT in classroom but to be honest, I do not see it being helpful. Ok lah, too harsh to say that it's totally unhelpful because it does help to attract students' attention. Attention to the class or to the computer/slide show? Haha. I shall let you to decide. So, taken IT away, what's left? The teacher's skill, of course! The way our teachers teach can be summed up in one word—BORING—because all they do is telling us things that have been written in the textbook (or reference book) rather than explaining them. Even if they do, they do it in a way which makes us passively absorbing the knowledge. And now you're asking what should be the right way of teaching. The key is fostering curiosity and inquiry. Once a student is curious about something, he or she will actively seek for the knowledge; this is far more effective than a teacher 'forcing' the students to learn something, isn't it?

Nonetheless, it is not sufficient just to make students curious and feel like wanting to learn. Teachers should be available and approachable when students want to ask something or clarify something taught in class. My personal experience in this issue is terrible. I remember it happened during my Form One. All my siblings hated History so much and did quite badly in the subject. To prevent myself being like them, I tried my best to be interested in the subject. Whenever I had a question, I always asked my teacher even though it might make me sound stupid in class. But one day, my mom told me that a teacher complained to her that I had asked too many questions in class. Apparently, my History teacher 'shared' about my 'bad habit' of asking question, with his colleagues and one of them told my mom about it. After that, I questioned myself: was I wrong for asking questions to make myself understand the subject better? I started paying less attention in class and diverted my questions to my tuition teacher who was always willing to answer me. Fortunately, I did not lose interest in the subject because of that teacher and his 'kind' colleague but this incident forever reminds me of how important a teacher's role is to a student: a teacher can spark, as well as causing one to loss, interest in studies.

My application to the teacher's training course makes my impression towards our education system even worse. I will never forget that the interviewer asked me whether I was sure that I want to be a teacher, after seeing my almost full As SPM result. I cannot understand where the mindset that the occupation of teacher is for mediocre people comes from. Excuse me, do you not know that a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, a lawyer, an accountant, everyone including you and me is taught by a teacher? For this very reason I believe if someone is to be a teacher he or she must be someone better, more clever, more capable than anyone else! The fact that our Ministry of Education has been all these year setting too low requirements for those who apply for teacher's training course is simply ridiculous! Not only are they not recruiting the right candidates but they are also cultivating the absurd mindset that anyone can be a teacher!

Even though I have graduated from my secondary school for almost three years, I constantly pay my school a visit when I am free. Without fail, everytime I return to my school, I will hear that new teachers have been assigned to my school but I have never heard that a good teacher has been sent to my school.  I cannot help to admit that our education system is deteriorating "[b]ut the World Bank also pointed out that Malaysia already has a notion of how to arrest the decline, in the form of the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 that was launched last month." Well, I hope things will change, for the sake of my dearest nation and of my future generation.

Dream

When I was still small, I used to have ambition of being a successful and well-known entrepreneur. Meeting big shots and dealing with multi-millions businesses seemed to be so fascinating to me at that time.

Later on, when I was about 14-year-old, I dreamed about reading environmental science in university and being an environmentalist. I had a strong urge to protect our Mother Nature from all sorts of undesirable pollutions.

Two years later, under the strong influence of my mom, I gave up all my previous ambitious dreams and opted for a more stable life—to become a teacher in government school. A civil servant job always comes with loads of good perks—extra allowance, medical benefit, regular working hours, more holiday—and most importantly, a teaching job in Malaysia government school is like a half-day job. It means, there will be more time for family. Family is my FIRST priority ALL THE TIME. 

I have to admit that I had no genuine interest in teaching initially but as time went by, I started discovering that I enjoy teaching. I like sharing knowledge. I love knowledgeable people and really hope to help out in improving my nation's literacy level. 

When I thought I'd finally found my real dream and went on pursuing it by applying for teacher's training course after my SPM, there came a detour in my journey—I received a scholarship to read law IN UK! Never in my life I had thought about studying overseas because I know the cost is so high that I will not want to burden my parents to finance it. The scholarship is a golden opportunity for me to step out from my comfort zone and venture into a brand new world independently. I know and I know that I just can't miss this chance so I accepted the offer.

Yet, my heart still belongs to education career. When most people around me told me that being a lawyer is WAY BETTER than being a teacher in terms of income and reputation, my parents are always there to support me. "Reading law in university will not stop you from entering education field. You can still teach after that. Be a law lecturer, it doesn't sound bad, right?" This is what my parents told me. Yes. They are right. There's a Chinese saying which reads, "every roads connects to Rome." It simply means whichever way can bring you to your destination. So, why bother taking a detour? ;)

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This post is written to remind myself to keep holding on my dream. 

Dreams are meant to be achieved, not to be forgotten or changed when there is obstacle. HOLD ON YOUR DREAM! 

A Short One

This is definitely not a good time to blog—the deadly paper is coming in two-day time—but I just feel like SCREAMING OUT LOUD to give vent to my anger towards my short concentration span! I seriously have to do something about it. Ok. This is gonna be in my to-do list during my 1.5 months holiday. *DETERMINED*

<3 Relationship

This is not gonna be a long post as my notes and books are staring at me as if leaving my eyes off them is a crime. 

W said I always have close relationship with guys. I kind of agree with her actually, although I tend to deny this in front of her, perhaps even in front of everyone. The close relationship I mean is like those BFF kind of friendship which will easily be misunderstood as love relationship given in the context between a guy and a girl. To be honest, all this while, I never think that a guy likes me unless he tells me so. I have very a short antenna for receiving hints regarding this kind of matter. Without the three golden words, it's almost impossible for me to know a guy has special feeling towards me. Even if people around me think he has and keep telling me so, I will regard them as thinking too much. No why. I just think it's highly impossible for us to know and understand how other feels without the person actually sharing with us. That's why I never really want to guess or find out if a guy likes me. Also, I am not the type of girl who will make the first move for a love relationship. I simply have no courage for it. So finding out a guy likes me doesn't seem to do me any good because if I have the same feeling towards him, I would probably be wasting half of my time thinking about the possibility between us. XD

I should stop ranting. After all, this kind of matter is unpredictable and most of the time, needs no reasoning. ;)

_______________________________

I think I have turned my blog into a place where I can pour out my random and disorganised thoughts, and then sort them out so that, after sending the processed thoughts back to my mind, I know what I should do. My big head doesn't seem to provide ample space for sorting out thoughts. :/

To turn this explanation into economic terms, it will be:

My brain is now facing a diminished return to scale in thoughts processing. Any additional input will require more brain juice to process it. So I have to outsource my thoughts to overseas, which is actually this blog, and then import them back to my brain again. ECONOMICS IS AWESOME! XD

Quit A Bad Habit

Everyday, it takes me quite a while to get off from my bed after I have woken up. I'm not sure how many of you are like this but I think this happens to quite many people. Usually after I wake up, I will try to figure out whether there is more time for me to continue sleeping and even if the answer is no, I don't wake up immediately, unless I'm late. I will take my phone and go online. Instagram, Whatsapp, Line, email and then Facebook.

The reason why I'd like to talk (write, to be more precise) about this today is not because I've finally come to realise this is a bad habit but it's because I would like to make a change.

Here's what I think about making a change:

Identifying weakness is easy, 

deciding to improve it is difficult, 

taking action to change it is even more difficult.

Nevertheless, I'm not gonna let this to deter my determination to change.

So in order for me to change this bad habit, I've sorted out the reasons which constitute to it so that I can tackle it to its deep root. Here're the reasons:

1. I always put my phone near to me bed. Usually before I sleep, I tend to check my phone again. The same "procedure"—Instagram, Whatsapp, Line, email and then Facebook. This is another bad habit which I wanna change. So it is very convenient for me to get my phone after I wake up. To solve this is easy: just put my phone far away.

2. I think checking my phone is important. This is different from the first reason—it has something to do with my mindset. And both you and I know changing mindset is not easy. Yet, I'm still gonna do it! Solution: constantly remind myself that those photos, chats, emails and Facebook statuses are not gonna disappear or cause any loss to me if I check them out late.

3. I think I have time to waste. Recently, I have no class to attend except for my one last exam paper on next Thursday. So I tend to think I have plenty of time but yeah, I know this is wrong. I should spend more time on revising as I really need to secure good grades, I mean A, to get into the Uni I want. Of course, I'm not gonna do my revision all the time. There're many more things I should spend my precious time on such as exercise and reading. So basically, the problem here is time management. Solution: have a clearer picture of what I have to do for the day. It's should be something like a schedule but a more flexible one which I plan and keep in my mind. I think this can be done before I sleep. Oh yay, it can deter me from checking my phone before I sleep too! One stone kills two birds. :)

Despite tackling all these problems, the most important things I need to have is DISCIPLINE. I can't change without being disciplined. Yes. It's time to be more strict to myself. I'm 20 and I should be more serious about my life. This bad habit is minor as compared to many other things but a small thing  may affect a great plan, isn't it? ;)

         

Think

Recently, the idea of restarting to blog keeps wandering in my mind. So now, here I am, blogging again. :) 

I always wanted to blog but the urge to blog didn't appear very often nor strongly until recently. There are just too many things happening around me, giving me lessons of life and I feel like, I'm really growing up. Growing up to be a mature person.

But I'm still me.

Then how have I grown up to be?

I'm growing to learn more about myself and to understand why I do certain things. Last time, I used to think about how things work but now, I also think of why I think of something. Sorry that it sounds a bit complicated but I'm gonna give an example:

What I thought last time: why this person like that one?

What I think now: why this person like that one + why/what makes me think of him/her as such a person?

Yes. I'm thinking more than I used to last time. And I still remember I like asking him not to think too much. But I realise thinking is what a mature person always does because while we're always encouraged to act what we say instead of just saying, in reality, we have to find the right time, the right person or the right place to act what we say. So, we're left to think.

So today, there's this guy, who is my high school friend, started a conversation with me in Facebook. To be honest, we're not very close. We're from different class and didn't have much intersection. Unlike most of my friends of my age, he's now working. Working as a professional cyclist, instead of studying in college or universities like what the others and I are doing. I'm not discriminating him. Instead, I look up to him very much, for being able to know what he wants to do and brave enough to do what he wants, despite being looked down by some people and the difficulties he has to face in his career. We had a very nice conversation. We exchanged our mind which we rarely share with each other and even our own friends. It's by telling him what kind of person I am, I now can see myself more clearly.

So here's what I think of myself:

Since I have come to college, I haven't been speaking up my mind as often as last time. The reason is that I can hardly find people whom I think I can share my mind with. It's not because I've became more introvert. I just feel tired speaking and explaining my thoughts to someone whom I think cannot understand or isn't interested in listening to me. No. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I cannot accept people who have different opinion from me. I mean, they are not interested in the topics I'm interested in. For instance, during the most important event of our nation recently—GE13—I suffered a hard time because there're very few people whom I could talk to about this very sensitive issue! The others in my circle are either not interested in politics, or they are too swayed away by the populist party.

I can either be very quiet or very talkative, depending on whom I am with. When I'm with those who don't share the same interest with me, I don't really talk. But being such a person actually bothered me for a while because I felt that I wasn't being myself. I was putting on a mask and I hated it so much! But thanks to growing up, I have realised something: I'm not being fake. I just prefer being who I really am in front of the right people. This realisation makes me love myself more and I'm now happy with myself and my life. And it also makes me understand why as we grow up, we're less likely to get more close friends. It's because we see things more clearly and think more. We become more selective as we know what we want. But this fact of getting less close friends doesn't make me feel sad because at the same time, we also understand that quality is more important than quantity. :)

Sorry. This post is not very organised because it's just like my mind—it's filled with different thoughts.