The right way to study maths

Here is a fantastic presentation by a maths teacher, Dan Meyer, explaining what is wrong with virtually every maths textbook out there:



What I like about his idea is that it focuses on first understanding the concept, and only then applying the maths. It harnesses your intuition about a problem you would normally encounter in the real world to get you on the hook, so you have no choice but to learn the maths to get your answer.

He speaks as if this is a problem unique to the US, but it is not. As he says, teachers from all around the world have approached him about his ideas, because they resonate on a global basis. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman has a famous essay on the irrelevance of mathematics textbooks in a similar vein.

Notice that Meyer identifies five symptoms of bad maths teaching. I think all of us in our school system have suffered from these symptoms at some point; the aversion to word problems and the over-eagerness to harness a simple formula must ring a bell for anyone who's ever stepped into a classroom here. Now the question is, how can we bring this new philosophy of teaching into our classrooms and textbooks?

Wants to Teach, but Degree not Recognised

The following is a letter I've received from Anucia with regards to the recognition of diplomas and degrees from some of overseas universities.

I am a student almost completing the Graduate Diploma in Education in the University of Western Australia and have been very much looking forward to serving the country. I completed my undergraduate Science degree in USM Penang and opted for an internationally recognised teaching qualification for security purposes. Before I go any further, I would like to apologise if this piece comes across as emotionally driven.

I recently applied online on the Ministry of Education’s website for the Guru Sandaran Terlatih position and have been regularly checking the site for updates since getting through to a person I could speak to about my circumstances has proved to be very hard.

I managed to speak to an officer from the ministry last week and he informed me that the route to a permanent post is via the same route, ie initial probationary period subject to confirmation, and that it was the same for teaching students from public and private colleges. He however could not offer me more information and suggested I call back at another time. Today I spoke to someone else in the office about the process and she told me that I would need my qualifications recognised by JPA before I could be granted an interview and she did not know what should be done after obtaining the JPA recognition.

Anyway, I duly called JPA and was curtly told that my qualifications are not recognised, never mind that it is internationally recognised. I was too distraught to proceed with further questions like where do I go from here, etc. I do not mean to sound pompous, but my practical reports and academic results have been outstanding and I have even been offered a teaching position overseas. I however declined because I wanted to come home to serve my country. To be presented with such news is disappointing and shocking among other things. I guess I can still apply to local private schools but my desire is to make a positive difference in the public education system – a system that I am proudly a product of.

Now I need to figure out what to tell my parents who have funded this course with their life savings. I know I will be faulted for not finding this out before enrolling but really, who would have thought that an internationally recognised qualification is not recognised in Malaysia. Which part of 'international' does Malaysia not fall under? Needless to say I am disillusioned and extremely disappointed that my qualifications and big dreams have no place in Malaysia. Do we even need to wonder why young people are forced out of their own country?

What next? I really don’t know.

Anucia Chacko

Science & Maths in BM Again II

Some on this blog has called for my comments on this issue. Some have even emailed me privately to "declare my stand". Well, I wrote on my Facebook early today a short note on my position, which I copy below. I've also taken the liberty to also include some of the 40+ comments on this issue so far in this post.

"Tony Pua hopes that schools in urban areas where the students, teachers and parents are keen to retain English as the medium for Maths and Science will be given a choice to opt out of the switch back to BM/BC, especially in secondary schools."

I've also made the following short comment to another Facebook friend who had asked the same:

"My stand is that PIBG should have a say/choice in the language use, particularly in urban areas where competency in English is already fairly high and in demand. You/we should push for this.

Rural areas can't help it, especially with teachers who can't even string a sentence together in English."

The above is my personal and public position which I will highlight in parliament. I've also written on the same in my Chinese column in Oriental Daily a few months back.

DAP's position, for those who are interested, is that urban national primary and secondary schools should be given a choice by the parents on the language to be used. Some have accused the party of staying silent on the issue. I beg to differ. Both Chong Eng, MP for Bukit Mertajam as well as the party Secretary-General, Lim Guan Eng has made the party's stand known for a while now. But if the press doesn't print (or print it often enough), there's little we can do.

Selected comments from my Facebook update:

• Vivian Chiang at 10:13 on 09 July
  i totally agreed that ..hopefully
  
  
• Bee Hui Chuah at 10:21 on 09 July
  yes... agree!!! especially secondary school!!! Education, is not Experiment!!!
  
  
• Justin Wee at 10:22 on 09 July
  It's a silly thing to scrap of, the malay lingu 'experiment' was conducted ever since the early 70's, & it's almost 30 years project. For a mere less than 10 years project on english medium being scrap of, it's not a pronounced fair campaign
  
  We cant compare our so called 'looking at other nation', whereby the japanese still maintains their language, and the french themselves. but bare in mind that these nations have 'comparative advantage'.
  
  Japan has their advantages on technology, and the nation is a pioneer export to America, so they eventually 'do not have to worry on language', but anyways, they do learn english, but i bet their learning is WAY better then here itself... Read more
  
  
• Kong Chia Yew at 10:25 on 09 July
  You should put this suggestion up to Parliament if you get a chance. Will be a pain in the ass for administrators of the policy but then the old maxim takes over "it'sfor the best of us"
  
  
• Steven Fung at 10:29 on 09 July
  can they do that?
  
  
• Lim Yong Keat at 10:31 on 09 July
  what is the ministry doing? we are not like Japan or US or Germany.
  
  
• KhengTeong Goh at 10:32 on 09 July
  In a LOCAL university. Some of the lecturers allow us to answer in English although the questions were in BM. In final year, we are strongly encouraged to write our thesis in English. And our exam papers were in 2 languages, English and BM....
  
  
• Eoh Teng Kor at 10:32 on 09 July
  why not creating english medium school for the option no 4. since we can allow "international school" , i dont see why we cannot have one more option.
  
  
• Terrassie Lau at 10:40 on 09 July
  At the end of the day, for the younger generations, it is again ' head you win, tail I lose" We may soon ended up without english lessons too if the money spent do not generate good english teachers, in accordance to the DPM's silly statement. Just scrap english la.
  
  
• See Hong at 10:48 on 09 July
  Actually good result not related wt language. Japanese, Germany, Italian, France ppl also not study in English, but today they still advanced country. It is the matter of education system. Correct way is study in mother language in Primary, English in Secondary. Since so good why need to wait another 3 yrs ? To prepare for the changes & objection of TDM ~ the idiot who initiate this plan few yrs ago ?
  
  
• Felix Leong at 10:59 on 09 July
  Japan, Germany, Italy and France ARE PART OF G-7! They are the world's economic power house and their domestic markets are huge! What are we ???
  
  
• Albert Tan at 11:00 on 09 July
  For those in Form 1 now should be allowed to use English in Form 4 and Form 5 in 2012 and 2014 so that continuity is maintained.
  
  
• Claire Khoo at 11:05 on 09 July
  eh hello ... to implement immediately, where to find books? Excuse me, you wanna scold the gohmen also think before you scold can? its like the Dong Zong head who said we should implement this immediately. Buku mana nak cari? Guru mana nak cari? (I think our education system really failed, that's why obviously malaysians don't think before they comment.)
  
  
• Leroy Ng at 11:13 on 09 July
  The decision is political and politically backward mindedness. Unfortunately PKR's Anwar Ibrahim and PAS support this decision. Why DAP kept silence b4 decision made?
  
  
• Chin-Huat Wong at 11:21 on 09 July
  revive English schools as a form of mother tongue education!!!
  
  
• JooLee Tan at 11:27 on 09 July
• I believe that DAP is also in favour of this reversal. Tony, I think it's futile to even suggest an option that hasn't been discussed. Frankly, the whole exercise has been futile and our children and grandchildren will be paying the price for generations to come.
  
  
• Eoh Teng Kor at 11:31 on 09 July
  Agreed with See Hong, it is about system. We just allow BM/BC/BT/English medium in Science and Math. Let parents have a choice/option. Let parents decide which is suitable for their kids...
  
  
• Lillian Danielle Khoo at 11:36 on 09 July
  I am surprised the DAP was in favour of the reversal. Meanwhile UAE has just announced that they plan to teach Math & Science in English. http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090702/NATIONAL/707019852/1019
  
  It just seems like Malaysia is taking 1 step forward and 3 steps back in our education system. They made a good decision to make it compulsory in passing English - I couldn't believe that it was optional to pass in the first place. Then they decide to revert Math & Science back to BM. During my studies, I had the opportunity to share classes with ...
  
  
• Cheryl Witha at 11:52 on 09 July
  what's new with the education system? Student have always been lab rats, they constantly change the system to suit whoever is currently in tht position(at their whim and fancy). It has always been absurd and still is. They never think things through, ever. What is to happen to our education system, I feel very sad as an educator..
  
  
• Fok Kuk Fai at 12:00 on 09 July
  I agree with using mother tongue as teaching medium at the primary school level. But I strongly advocate to shift it to English medium in secondary school level and above. This is not only for enhancing English proficiency, but also for the future generations to easily access to the science and technology as well as social science knowledge pool ...
  
  
• Juliana Yoong at 12:00 on 09 July
  What a shame! I totally agreed...
  
  
• Cheryl Witha at 12:07 on 09 July
  I teach at college level and every batch that comes in..well most of them can't even speak English let alone write a simple application letter. What is to become of them in the future?
  
  
• Chong Hou Yin at 12:22 on 09 July
  learn from singapore please, stupid najib
  
  
• Joseph Ng Swee Wan at 12:28 on 09 July
  malaysia will be back to those 1970's day ...... we are going backward and not forward. let's see in the next 6 years, where are we heading? oh, maybe by then DPM wil be out of job and poor PR has to take over this baby and to answer to everyone for such absurd policy.
  
  
• Ho Kok Kuan at 12:28 on 09 July
  All for PPSMI to be retained. Dual languge in primary, follow by full English in secondary school. Person will be fully equipped when leaving for uni/college.
  
  
• Marsha Maung at 13:21 on 09 July
  YES PLEASE!! I am so sad with the switch to BM/Chinese!
  
  
• Walinong Sari at 13:28 on 09 July
  No. Follow the MOE directive.
  
  
• Alwin Lim at 13:38 on 09 July
  Havent we done enough damage to our brilliant childrens ?
  
  
• Steven K C Poh at 13:58 on 09 July
  I'm bewildered by this news. We have a flip-flopping government that's playing Russian roulette with our children's future. What now? How can we stop this madness?
  
  
• Lee Wei Jie at 14:02 on 09 July
  secondary schools should retain English as medium for Maths and Science so that pupils can have a bright future to study overseas and be linked to the world trend...it is good to switch back mother tongue for primary school level as it is a good way to build up the basis of children, let them hv a effective learning process and happy childhood...
  
  
• Ooi Beng Sun at 14:21 on 09 July
  agreed with Lee Wei Jie. secondary students should be given the choice to choose the medium of instructions. we should not deprive our gifted students who are proficient in English acquire more knowledge to pursue their career. reverting to malay is like chaining our children with big stone, stop their progress, making them going backwards to the dinosaur age!!!
  
  
• Daniel Hong Aan Lee at 14:22 on 09 July
  YB, I believe that Science&Maths for primary education should be taught in mother tongue (esp for SJK(C)/SJK(T)), however secondary schools should teach their science&maths in english, so that the Malaysian english teaching system will not deteriorate.

Science and Maths to be taught in BM again

Thank you to the anonymous commenter who brought this to our attention; I am sure Tony and Kian Ming will have a lot to say about this. Here is the story from The Malaysian Insider, and here are some graphs from The Star. My take is as follows:

This is horrible. But anything which had a realistic chance of happening would be almost as bad.

In a perfect world, students would be learning all subjects in the best language for them individually, and also learning Malay and English perfectly fine regardless. But we do not live in that perfect world. In the next best world, we would have a consistent policy (sticking to either English or Malay for Science and Maths, if not all subjects) and competent teachers able to implement this policy.

This being Malaysia, and our politics being our politics, what we got was a silly compromise that made nobody very happy, and a paralysed bureaucracy uninterested in making this policy work. One of the most telling graphs in the link to The Star above is the last one, which shows only 20% and 10% of secondary and primary school science and maths teachers respectively scored 67 or higher on an evaluation of their English proficiency.

The fact is, this policy failed. But was the old policy working? As far as I can tell, no. That's why we tried this policy in the first place. Our students were not doing as well as they could in science and maths, and their English was atrocious. So our politicians got this bright idea to try teaching them science and maths in English.

But the execution was fatally cocked up. The Education Minister says that now they will try a different approach to enhance English learning: English literature will be reintroduced as a subject, along with grammar and composition. (I wonder if that is a misquote by The Star, because that would make a total of four subjects for the English language alone.) The Minister also said that they would rehire retirees and foreigners if necessary to supply more English teachers.

All these are things which should have been done before! In particular, it's not like the government had no idea our science and maths teachers were so fatally flawed in the English department. Rather, they completely ignored this, and rammed through this ill-thought-out policy anyway.

Maybe teaching science and maths in English is a fatally flawed idea, but we have no way of telling that from this six-year experiment, because the government so thoroughly messed up its implementation! (There is also the counter-argument that teaching these subjects in English worked perfectly fine for thousands of schoolkids before we switched to Malay as the national medium of instruction in the 1970s.)

What really angers me about this decision is that the government virtually knowingly had this cock-up of a policy going for six years, when they should have bloody well known their science and maths teachers could not teach in English. So we had a whole generation of students undergoing this massive change, all for naught. And now we will have another generation of pain as thousands of kids get stuck in educational limbo while the government phases out this failure of a policy.

All this was completely unnecessary. The government could have at least tried to make PPSMI (Pelajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Math dalam Bahasa Inggeris) a success by not virtually sabotaging it, but they did not. They could have increased the allocation of time to English, refocused the curriculum, and hired professional English teachers six years ago, but they did not.

More importantly, the government could have avoided all this and successfully transitioned to teaching science and maths in English if only it had been patient and first prepared the teachers to use English in the classroom. But they did not. They pushed through the policy when it was plainly not ready.

In short, we spent six years spinning our wheels doing absolutely balls, and we have nothing to show for it. It is infuriating, but I don't blame the government for ending this now. I do blame the government for keeping up this ridiculous charade for six years, when it was obvious to almost everyone -- even people who might have otherwise favoured this policy -- that this could never have worked with the way they rammed it through.

Thoughts on the university admissions process

A friend of mine, Rajan Rishyakaran, has written a good blog post critiquing the Malaysian university admissions process. While I don't know enough about local universities to comment on many things he raises, there are a couple of points which I think are worth emphasising: the difference between policy in theory and policy in reality, and the importance of decentralising some decisions.

There are many illustrations of the difference between something in theory and something in practice, but Rajan's example of coursework is as good as any. In principle, adding coursework to the evaluation process for university admissions would be a good thing.

After all, a major problem with our education system is that it focuses a lot on examinations which only assess students at one point in time, and often encourage rote memorisation instead of actual learning. If you fall sick during exam period, it can dramatically change your life's course, because you might not get into the university you otherwise could, or not pursue the degree you otherwise would attain. And because the format and style of exams is so predictable, all you need to do is practice with enough exam papers from previous years to be prepared -- you don't necessarily need to understand anything on the exam (I have found that understanding too much can actually be detrimental to your marks in some Malaysian exams).

If we emphasised coursework more, then one-off incidents which might negatively impact your exam performance would matter less: you have a substantial amount of time to do your coursework. Because the key element of your coursework is usually a report on something you have researched, you actually learn something useful: you learn how to write academically, and you learn some basic research or factfinding skills.

That's the theory; the practical reality is something else altogether. When I was in school, nobody took coursework seriously. Or rather, they took it the same way they took an exam: they figured out the best way to game the system, and they did it. Everyone would Google their topic, and instead of writing up a report about it, they would plagarise the most relevant websites. If they were too lazy to do this, they would plagiarise from one another very openly -- there was no stigma to copying or cheating off someone else's work.

It's not that they were lazy; it's that they knew this was the most efficient way to get things done. Teachers don't really care if the material is obviously plagiarised -- to them the coursework system is often a burdensome imposition on them because they have to read through dozens, if not hundreds of reports. Students know this, so they intentionally put a lot of work into making their reports more burdensome on teachers. One teacher's son told me that he intentionally put lots of irrelevant diagrams and photos in his coursework because this would discourage the teacher from looking too hard at his work -- she would see he had obviously worked hard on the report, and give him high marks.

The problem with coursework is that it is an arbitrary, artificial system of evaluation imposed by the central government with little thought as to what the schools and teachers can do, and little thought for what universities want to see. As Rajan notes, our university admissions process is extremely centralised -- everything is boiled down to a couple of numbers, which are then fed into the government's system. The government then tells you what university you will attend, and what degree you will pursue.

Likewise, with coursework, the government tells schools how to grade students' work, and it tells universities how these grades must translate into admissions decisions. There is no room for a teacher to assess students in his or her own way, to try something different. Neither is there room for a university to assess students in a different way, such as through tailored interviews or personal statements.

Obviously, there are pitfalls to granting educators more autonomy. But I don't think there is any question that at the moment we err far too heavily on the side of ridiculous centralisation. The government has attempted to standardise the education system to an extreme, and the result is something easily gamed by the pretence of ability, instead of actual demonstrable results. The government needs to grant universities more leeway in making their admissions decisions, and at the same time experiment with giving schools more freedom in coming up with alternative methods of assessment.

Treating students with respect

Amidst the political turmoil in our country, this little story headlined Student alleges sexual assault by teacher appeared in Malaysiakini. For the benefit of those without a subscription, a Form 2 student claims her male teacher physically assaulted and sexually abused her in front of her classmates—and when she reported it, the discipline teacher told her to keep the matter a secret. She told her parents, who confronted the principal—but the principal claimed the teacher had only scolded the girl for not bringing her Malay grammar book to school.

Sexual and physical abuse is a clearcut issue, so let's talk about a related problem: discipline. I am not opposed to caning in the household or in school; I think used properly, the cane can reinforce a good lesson. But the problem is, caning is difficult to do responsibly. And the reason it is hard to cane responsibly is that it is hard to discipline young people responsibly.

A big problem with expecting schools to enforce discipline is that it is hard to respect children and young adults as people who have their own thoughts and feelings. I've attended many different schools, all of which had their own approaches to discipline. But in almost every case, I think the approach would have been very different if the teachers had been dealing with someone their own age and size, instead of someone younger and smaller than them.

You can argue that young primary schoolchildren need harsh discipline; I am inclined to disagree, but I can accept that. What I cannot accept is the idea that young adults in secondary school still need to be scolded and caned like primary schoolchildren for things like forgetting their books. How is this supposed to reinforce the lesson? These are young adults who are already in a position to think for themselves. If canings and harsh scoldings are supposed to work on young adults, why don't bosses cane their subordinates?

Yes, there are bosses who do yell at their employees, and there are some who even beat them. The latter is illegal, and the former is just bad business. It may be better to be feared than to be loved, but you should at least be feared for the right reasons.

I think a lot about my primary school headmistress when it comes to the question of fear, because everyone in my primary school was deathly afraid of her. I can't remember ever seeing her cane anyone; she never even yelled at anyone. There was just something in her demeanour which told us she meant business, and that she would not look kindly upon anyone who let her down. If you did let her down, you would get a stern talking to from her, but she wouldn't beat you up. She wouldn't shout at you. She would tell you what you had done wrong, and what she expected from you—and you would scurry away, tail tucked firmly between your legs, knowing you never wanted to get another such talk from her again.

The difference is that my headmistress knew that people will respect you when you first respect them (a lesson some politicians on both sides of the aisle could learn). She treated us as responsible people who knew what was right and wrong, even though we were just primary schoolkids. She made us feel shamed, not because we had been punished, but because we had let her and let ourselves down. That is the kind of shame and fear which works. This is why my headmistress was both feared and loved.

Because so many teachers do not understand that fear and love have to go hand-in-hand, we get incidents of teachers beating up and humiliating pupils. While this might work in the short run, it eventually makes school even more unpleasant for students, and makes them even more disinclined to learn.

I am presently reading a book by actor Keith Johnstone—a former teacher who hated school. One fantastic observation Johnstone makes is that we misunderstand the difference between good and bad teachers. Education, he points out, is not a quantity, of which good teachers dole out a lot, and bad teachers only a little. Good teachers, he says, really make you learn. Bad teachers really make you unlearn. This strikes me as true in a variety of ways, but I cannot think of an area where this applies more than discipline. Good teachers give you lessons in discipline which last for life; bad teachers only wind up making you even worse off than you were before.

Class size or teaching?

I've found that one of the most controversial debates when it comes to education, especially in developed countries, is what is the best way to spend the scarce money we have on education. The debate often boils down to a choice between two things: smaller classes, or better teachers.

Personally, I've always felt it's obvious that we should pay teachers better, especially in Malaysia. There is no reason to hold teachers to a rigid pay scale based on seniority, let alone the pay scale of the civil service. Teachers perform a much more important job than civil servants, and I daresay deal with a lot more stress. It only makes sense to pay them more, and especially to pay the outstanding teachers more.

The argument for smaller class sizes seems rather vague to me, and it's predicated essentially on the notion that it's hard for good teachers to pay attention to more than 20 pupils at a time. While I think there is probably room to rethink the traditional classroom dynamics of one teacher lecturing/supervising a classroom of pupils, I think that diminishing marginal returns kick in pretty quickly past the point of 30 pupils. While I don't have much data, from my personal experiences, the rowdiest classrooms have been those of 35 or more, with not much difference below that, especially not below 30 students.

Recently my attention was drawn to a University of Auckland study, which claims to have brought together 50,000 different studies and looks at a total of 83 million pupils around the world. The study's conclusion is that class size is not very important, and that the quality of teaching easily outstrips class size in terms of importance. The professor who authored the study is John Hattie, who I have not heard of before. He seems to have published quite a bit on this subject, but I was unable to turn up much about this latest study of his, so it is worth taking with a grain of salt.

Nevertheless, I think it's still a question worth asking: what matters more, teaching quality or class size? Obviously Malaysians have some other things to worry about, such as our horrible exam system, but there already seems to be a general consensus that we need to raise the standards of our exams, and try to orient them away from general memorisation of facts. There is, however, nothing close to a consensus on the question I'm raising.

What do you think? Should we spend more money on hiring good teachers to teach to classrooms of 30 or 40, or should we spend more money to hire the same quality of teachers but with smaller classrooms of 20 to 30?

What Went Wrong In Our Schools?

If you had read my other blog, you'd have know that I'm kinda tied up with a writing project for my "work", so I didn't really have time to post a "Merdeka" message. In addition, I've been receiving requests for comments on the latest Higher Education Action Plan launched by Dato' Mustapa Mohammad and the Prime Minister recently. In particular, whether the hype over autonomy for our local universities as well as the highly commended "Apex University" concept are justified. Well, I have my reservations but as I've not read the report in detail except for the media reports (you'd probably need to give me at least a week), I won't say too much as yet.

Anyway, I thought it'll be good for everyone to read an article by R Nadeswaran of The Sun on "What Went Wrong in Our Schools?" published earlier this week, which I'll take the liberty to republish here for all to read.

At the sound of the engine, my late father, who was returning home from work, stood at attention. Others who were cycling got off their bikes and did not move until the Austin A40 went past.

I watched this drama unfold almost every other day - circa 1956.

I remember these scenes vividly as it gave me early impressions and would have a great impact on me decades later. Innocently, I asked my mother what it was all about. She said: "Ithu Vellakaran vatcha sattam." (This is the law of the white man).

When the estate manager was on the move, everything else came to a standstill. The mandore would chide even children if they did not give the manager his due respect.

I was considered lucky because my dad was an estate conductor or kerani as they used to call him, but for the other workers, they were at the mercy of the management and its systems.

Being the son of the kerani, I was forbidden to go to the "labour lines" as they used to call the one-room wooden houses that housed Indian immigrants brought here to tap rubber.

That was my first glimpse of apartheid a'la Malaya, and fortunately, I was never to see such class polarisation and discrimination, when the family moved out of Ebor Estate in Batu Tiga, to Klang.

In town, the initial adaptation was difficult because the boys in the neighbourhood spoke English and I had spent two years in the estate Tamil school.

But those I befriended had no inhibitions. We studied together; walked to school together and played together. No one, let alone my friends who came from the Special Malay Class to join me in Standard Four classified me as kaum pendatang.

I learnt to sing Negara Ku with others, with Mrs Nora Eu on the piano. We did not have to raise flags or write slogans to show our patriotism.

We were all Malayans and we never saw any barriers - racial or religious - in our interaction.

While I was representing the school in the oratory contests and debates which were open to only non-Malays during the Bulan Bahasa Kebangsaan, the Indian Muslims and Pakistanis, in order to take part, proudly gave their full names including son of or daughter of - not bin or binti.

Today, the same people have conveniently dropped those words and assimilated themselves with the majority. I have no problems with that. Good for them that they have learnt how to work around the system.

We had two Abdul Halims in class and in order to avoid confusion, we called one Halim Kichap - referring to skin tone - and he had no qualms about that.

We learnt about the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Francis Drake, Christopher Columbus, Gandhi, Mohamed Ali Jinnah and the like.

We were taught that a Javanese Hindu named Parameswara founded Malacca, but we are now told that someone is trying to re-write history by obliterating his name from textbooks.

My Standard Six teacher, B. M. Das, used the cane sparingly and those who had contemplated complaining to their parents were politely told that "if your father comes to school to complain, you can sit at the back of the class and watch me teach".

There were only 13 "A" graders in the trial exams before the government exams proper.

"If there are more than 13 who pass with an A, I'll eat your shoes," he ventured. Our class produced 33 and it goes to show how teachers used to motivate the pupils. Das never ate our shoes and we never asked him to!

In secondary school, we had inter-class games, inter-house games and inter-school games. We all got involved. When the class was playing, everyone was on the field - cheering the team on.

Besides, everyone was encouraged to join the literary and debating society or other extra-mural activities, as they were called. But then, there were no computer labs or clubs.

We never identified ourselves by race and the only "segregation" came when we had to attend "Pupil's Own Language" classes in the afternoon. Everyone ate from each other's tah pau from home, and nothing was taboo.

In Form Two, our literature teacher P.K. Singh made us read a book a week, and then write a synopsis and identify 10 new words that we had learnt. It was this that helped our generation excel in the language.

Cikgu Idris, who taught us Bahasa Kebangsaan, told us that letters should end with Wassalam, an Arabic form of greeting which has now taken religious connotations.

We had the like of Lee Mun Yew and D. R. Daniel as headmasters of two schools - Klang High School and Anglo Chinese School respectively - which had a strong rivalry be it on the playing field or the debating halls.

They were there when the inter-school matches were played, and of course, like all school sports days, the main event was the inter-school relay.

Fifty years on and as a parent of a school-going child, I wonder how these great school days just disappeared and how well-versed they are with some famous names and places. Thanks to the Internet, some children know that the American Independence Day falls on July 4 or that Captain Tasman sailed to Australia with a boatload of convicts and that at one time, the sun never set on the Great British Empire.

What went wrong? Why are children now embroiled in colour, creed and religion at such a young age?

We are blaming the schools for all the ills that afflict society. Can it be changed? Can we go back to the times when we gained so much knowledge within six hours? Can we re-live the times when you had to fight tooth and nail to find a place in the school football team?

I don't have the answers, but as the nation turns 50 tomorrow, our policymakers should put on their thinking caps for a solution.

Happy Merdeka!

Happy Merdeka to you too! ;)

Teach for America

Justin wrote to share his thoughts on the Teach for America movement in the United States and thought he'd like to share his ideas with the readers here.

I am Justin Wong, a Malaysian currently studying in USA, and I try to keep my ears open to the socio-economic issues back home (in fact I wrote a paper on it). I have stumbled across a movement that is gaining support and impact here in America and I can't think of a more appropriate person to share this with than one such as yourself.

You might have heard of it but allow me to introduce Teach For America (), a non-profit organization that addresses the achievement gap in the not-so privileged areas in the country. It recruits ready and willing college graduates who commit two years to teach in places in dire need of educators. I find this to be a noble effort indeed.

I have always felt for the 'situation' of the Malaysian education system, though it may not entirely be the case such addressed by Teach For America. With proper planning and execution, I believe that education issues such as lack of capable teachers or unemployment rate can be addressed. If the government is taking its time to do something about the pressing need for better, fairer, or further spread education (regretfully, I do not know every issue there is), a committee of dedicated learned individuals can.

With this letter I am not asking you to act upon my thoughts, instead I'd like to hear what you and perhaps some other capable persons think about an idea to put together an organization that benefits Malaysians. A simple discussion would suffice, regarding any ramifications, possibilities, limitations, or maybe even visions for anything our good countrymen can do for the future's generations. Forwarding this to anyone else who would like to share and add would do much good, I believe.

I intend to see Malaysians help each other for the nation's betterment. I hope you receive this letter well.

- Justin Wong
Junior of Towson University, Maryland, USA

Of Meritocracy & Top Universities...

There were small snippets of news in the last week with regards to higher education in Malaysia. Firstly, the Ministry of Higher Education announced that it will only "hire the best" for the 20 Malaysian public universities. And secondly, the Minister, Datuk Mustapa Mohamed also announced separately that 1,800 overseas Public Service Department scholarships, 300 more than the previous years, will only be made available to students who obtained places in "renown foreign universities".

Both pieces of news are not new. In fact, I've blogged on the latter here.

While I certainly welcome both "announcements", what appears sorely lacking in the news reports are the details of its implementation. As highlighted many times on this blog, the success or failure of our 'noble' policies lies pretty much in their implementation (or lack of).

In trying to "hire the best" for the local public universities - how will the Ministry or the local university administration approach the delicate issues as to how the "best" is decided?

For example, I'm personally aware of an extremely experienced returning academic overseas who was offered a position by a senior academic at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). However, the offer was apparently vetoed without any reasons given by the "higher ups" (whoever they may be). One man's loss is certainly another's gain, for he is now working in Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) of National University of Singapore (NUS).

Will underperforming deans of local faculties be keen to hire talented academics who might threaten his or her position in the university for example? This is without even taking into consideration the politics of pay and research funds, or for that matter, the issues of racial discrimination in the universities.

Similarly with regards to the scholarship application to "renown foreign universities" - which exactly are these universities? Wouldn't the current crop of students seeking these scholarships require the relevant information in order to prepare the applications to the 'right' universities? How big is the pool of "renown" universities and who decides on this pool? Is Iowa State University included? Or is it restricted to purely the Top 100 in any of the popular global university ranking tables?

Tok Pa, it's good to hear that you are (or at least appear to be) doing the right things - at the very least, it's good for press write ups. However, with no accompanying details to the relevant policies, the announcements are really as good as idle chatter. We certainly hope to hear more (hopefully positive) details on the proposed policies.

Teaching Integrity

I thought this little bit of news is quite amusing.

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.

"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 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.