Another Brick In The Wall
hey teacher, leave the kids alone
only all - we just another brick in the wall
This classic legendary line, a reminder from Pink Floyd serves as a stark reminder that eventually we will be part of a larger - all consuming society, where we will consume whatever, whenever and whoever, sucked into a society where the free for all, who gives a damn ruled the day, where we simply seek opportunities to trample in the name of progress, buying more stuffs and finally succumb unto stress, depression and someone will bury us.
Or we can CHOOSE to refuse, go against the grain and trapping of these tempting material mechanisms, go all out defy societal structure and finally seek and live on HOW WE WANT TO LIVE our lives. The benefit and this unforeseen prospects is never embedded, taught or given a chance to see the light of the day.
Study harder, work harder, consume more and die faster. So after years and years of our local education structure is been imposed with vigorous exams, where students are cramped, trampled with frivolous data, they either will score A like a damn automated machine or simply turned rebellious, choosing what to study, apply and practice. Of course parents loves to see their kid achieved something, wear something in the process of sacrificing their brain, mental and reasoning faculty and subsequently running on empty or worst became a grumpy useless rotting living and breathing entity.
Parents overzealously guarding their kids, rushing and driving like a madmen sending their kids to mind numbing tuition centres ( which grows like mushrooms ) coz they assumed that spending half a day in the national school is not enough. Not enough, they will lend a hand, supervised their ever growing kid like a 2 year old who began to walk. Any punishments is deemed not worthy and criticized, teachers flooded with judgmental perceptions and never ending paperwork - not forgetting dealing 45 kids in a classroom.
The ratio of 1 : 45
So with a new government, we have new politicians governing national agenda, our TUN highlighted the need of practical subjects in order to have them to be employable, sounds good, even Lim Kit Siang asking all of us support this never ending holistic struggle. But let me highlight something here.
Standard 1 to 3 kids no longer need to face the dreaded examinations and it will be replaced with a new assessment starting next year. I have no issues if i have Walter Benjamin or Arsene Wenger or even Yoda as my teacher, but let me remind myself, how objective is this objective? Years of experience dealing with kids is not easy. This responsibilities doesn't drop solely on schools, teachers but everybody. Its a tremendous huge process requires everyone to chip in.
An active one.
“Teachers MUST make sure that
minimum standard of the assessment must be achieved by each pupil. With
NO examinations, we raise the bar by ensuring students’ "grasp" of
higher order thinking skills individually.”
greeting someone GOOD MORNING or saying THANK YOU doesnt require higher order thinking skills ok.
Improving one mental, intellectual and most importantly emotional development is important, the issue is - how ready we are in this?
Lets take a look at the Maslow structure and have everyone take an informal personal assessment before going unto this challenge. Let me remind you again, from white shoes turning to black now successfully made everyone go nuts and now this?
We need to prepare to face all of these and have only 1 percent of luck to execute this. Forget and enough mentioning about Finland, they tackled this decades ago.
We can no longer point fingers, go unto fb voicing irrational issues and temperament, we simply need to collectively take FULL responsibility of this. Lets reflect and see what how we can solve this shall we.
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