As reported in the New Straits Times, the Integrity Seminar organised by the Ministry of Education together with the Malaysian Institute of Integrity, was attended by some 440 teachers from all the schools in the city and Putrajaya.
These were some of the responses from the teachers:
"Integrity is a life-long process. I don’t know how we are going to learn about it and teach it in five hours.I think both the Ministry of Education as well as the Malaysian Institute of Integrity needs to be going back to the drawing board, or we'll just be wasting both the teachers' valuable time as well as our public funds.
"Virtues are not picked up in school, but at home from the family," said a primary school English teacher, who wished to remain anonymous.
"I don’t know how my headmaster will implement this in my school," said the sole representative from his school.
Another primary school Bahasa Malaysia teacher, who did not want to be identified, said the seminar was pointless and ineffective.
"No one is even paying attention to the lectures. I don’t know what seminars like these will do for the country."
I completely agreed with the last two responses. Integrity has to start from the top level(behaviour) and policy making(implementation). These kind of seminars are pointless and at most, just creating publicity for the government. Somehow i think that these people leading the country have forgotten that they are the "agent" whereas the people are the "principal." If the "principal" realise that the "agent" can't carry out the mandate given and satisfy their needs, the "agent" can always be changed.
ReplyDeleteI think the principal has have enough jokes on them. Faith is eroding steeply.
Integrity comes from a person with good character. Character is who you are when no one is looking. A person of integrity lives according to a set of moral conduct.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with our society and education system is that it focusses on Behaviour rather than the Heart (within). A person who behaves rightly in front of authority but breaks the law when no one is there has no integrity. How do you teach that......???
I believe it is caught rather than taught. It has to be seen, fostered in a environment (family), parents who live in integrity.
Can the father crab which walked sideways teach the younger crabs to walk straight?
ReplyDeleteThe people up there simply got the knack for organizing time wasting seminars....
more rot learning of the nilai-nilai moral for SPM would certainly solve the problem :-)
ReplyDeleteDude,
ReplyDeleteIt is "rote learning" not "rot learning"..... or perhaps you purposely meant it as a pun... cause as we know it, the education system is already rotten to the core... :)
Forgive him Ah Piau,
ReplyDeleteJien sing is also known as "is me, the student"
neah,
ReplyDeleteupstair cronies are more interested in
contracts for buidling schools,
softwares purchases etc. tangible cheeses,
than nurturing TOWERING software capital improvement.
piao"
My first reaction when I read it in the papers was how much money was wasted on this stupid seminar and who organized it or more correctly, who pocketed the dough.
ReplyDeleteIt was such an exercise in futility where nobody seemed to know what went on and it seemed many actually disagreed with the concept.
I think the MOE, instead of these lofty ideals should revert to old school civics lessons, where simple civic consciousness and good manners were taught. We learned how the sing Negara-ku properly, and were taught the meaning of the lyrics, the Rukunegara, why and how we show our respect during the raising of the national flag (and we didn't even need to give the national flag a name), how to handle the flag with respect and many other things which I believe many of those who attended the seminar didn't even know in the first place.
Leave religion out, abandon the abstract concepts and concentrate of the basics common to all and sundry.
yeah dude, i'm the product of the system...
ReplyDeleteyours sincerely,
jiensing
Your 2-word topic " Teaching Integrity " reminds me of author Qu Chunli writing about great philosopher Confucius ( in his book "The Life of Confucius" reprinted 1989) :
ReplyDelete" Confucius advocated moral reform and was a great thinker, statesman and educationist in the period 770-476 B.C. who has taught tirelessly all his life. The contribution of Confucius in history is exceptional. It is said that he taught a total of 3000 students in his lifetime and his political and educational thought has influenced China for over 2000 years."
much inspired,
ellie
Integrity can be tough?
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....hahahahahahaha. ..HHAHAAHAHAHAHA. (trademark laugh borrow from freelunch2020).
And I must agree this statement with hidden message, "Virtues are not picked up in school, but at home from the family". And the unspoken word are "example shown from the parent, teachers and the leader".
I think some of you are wrong. Integrity can be taught in school. In fact it should be a major task of schools, with the weakening of function of family. But it cannot be done the way we used to do thing now. It should be done the way schools do things in our grand parents' time. E.g when students do not hand in homework on time, what do the teacher do? let them go "unpunished"? (the word punishment here need to qualified. There are many ways to punish a person, it may not always need to be negative). How serious are schools about cheating in Exams or assignments? Students will learn integrity, when schools are serious about things.
ReplyDeleteOnce I caught a student with long hair, I asked for his name tag, som that I can send it to the discipline master, and the discipline master will check his hair the next day. He told me his name tag was in his car not far away, he will get it and send to me. He disappear thinking that he can get away with it and I will not be able to remember him (there are more than 1 thousand students in the school). I went in to every classroom to look for him and I caught him again. He was punished with a punishment of his own suggetion. Of course, he had a hair cut. This is how we can teach integrity, we mean business.
I kinda agree with the above statement.... with weakening family institution around in Malaysia, teachers and school need to step it up a little. I know it's tiresome enough work with the teaching jobs and all the admin work some more that teachers have to do nowadays, but sometimes they just have to do it. teach them integrity and manners,etc to our students even though they're rotten. It 's a long shot but somehow, maybe ,just maybe one out of the hundreds can change the rest. Yeah I sound a little optimistic, but in the end it's never too late.. isn't it. Do what our forefathers have done before; teach with discipline, values and compassionate so they will someday change. There's always a limitations even in spoiling a kid, punishing them and helping them.
ReplyDelete