I still haven't found what I'm looking for

The first thing that came to mind when Dad asked for a song to go with the powerpoint presentation of photos he had prepared for the YWC reunion, was Jim Sturgess' cover of the Beatles' Revolution. Tried it. Didn't work. Too lively. The second thing that came to mind was the a line from the Postal Service's Such Great Heights: "everything looks perfect from far away." How fitting, I thought. Tried it. It worked. Sentimental not sappy. The lyrics were a bonus.

However, when we arrived at the reunion we experienced a bit of technical difficulty. The track was missing. Dad, in a panic, was about to insert some random CD from his car when I remembered I had some stuff in my thumb drive. I could have sworn I felt a light bulb ding over my head. There in my thumb drive was U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Urgent vocals. Iconic theme. The lyrics were a bonus. Perfect.

Kind of an in-joke, I guess.

It was one of those reunions where the past was not entirely welcome. Every project started at the YWC has either stalled or failed. Half the project members have vanished. The other half, lost and disillusioned. Few showed up at the reunion. This was understandable since we were all expected to deliver reports on our projects. Nobody relishes reporting a failure. Except perhaps me. I had maintained during the camp serious doubts about how far these projects could go. It was sweet vindication and bitter shame to announce that our project Vox Discipuli was, in effect, a failure. The camp's facilitators are (and I have it from a very reliable source) close to despair, which is saying something since most of them are hardened optimists. I can imagine them shaking their heads: why can't we get those bloody kids to do something that sticks?

Hence the scheduled pep-talks. Hey kids, you weren't asked to succeed. You were asked to try. This mantra was repeated again and again, each permutation more encouraging than the last. I assume it worked because by the end of the meeting we were feeling like success stories waiting to happen. Our failure was only temporary. A minor setback, that's all. Lack of motivation be damned, we felt like running out and singlehandedly reviving our projects. Almost.

In truth what happened was anything but wildly enthusiastic revival.

It was a sober wake. The reports were eulogies. The short speeches were the words of consolation one offers to the bereaved. Although one might expect otherwise, no fingers were pointed and no names were mentioned. There was a hint of humility and great personal responsibility in the air because we recognized that the true mess-ups were not our projects, but ourselves. At last there was some semblance of closure. Now the projects had officially failed, they could be put to rest. For good. We could stumble on if we wanted to - which is why Vox Discipuli will remain standing - but consider the matter closed. Hey, we tried. In a room full of optimists, one might dare say we did good.

Our projects might not have fulfilled their objectives. The reunion might not have been what it was meant to be. We YWCers might not have been everything we ought to have been. Perhaps everything we didn't want turned out to be what we needed. Heck, there wasn't a thing that turned out the way we wanted it to. But since when, really, did we have a clue about what we were looking for?

prepare us properly

The Malaysian education system needs to be upgraded for the better of the Malaysian citizens.
Year by year, the standard of the education system goes lower to the cater for the laziness of the students of today. If the government feel that a certain topic is slightly tougher for the students to comprehend, they simplify it, so that students' results in their report card looks better.

In order to accomplish Vision 2020, the country needs to generate higher quality students. Developed countries such as America, London, Japan and Singapore continues to raise their standards so that students will learn a wider range of topics and become more well informed about the world. They continue to progress based on the world's development.
However, in Malaysia, we tend to move backwards and allow students to rest.
Malaysian students should be given more challenge to be more determined and to study further.

The government should prepare the students from a tender age so that they are capable of competing with students overseas in the future. Besides that, exams too should be made more challenging for students.
Today, when students sit for exams like PMR, almost half of student population obtain 7As.
If one doesn't, people think they're stupid.

The fact is exams are too easy. Public exams should be diversified, for example by slotting in general knowledge or latest happenings in the world so that students are more filled in about proper education.

Engrish

'If I caught you two making noise again, I'll threw you out of the classroom,' threatened the initially shy and timid teacher who finally had enough of the troublemaking duo in the classroom.

By then, sitting from the back of the classroom, I had heard more than enough to know that this wasn't a slip of the tongue, and I began to wonder if my teacher was even capable of constructing error-free sentences. Good Lord, I know of younger kids who speak better English.

Oh, by the way, this shy and timid teacher, was my English teacher. Wow...

Throughout my schooling years, I have amused myself during English classes by observing my teachers and their grammatical mistakes, though sometimes I grew indignant when they had to search the dictionaries for the meaning of simple words and made glaringly obvious pronunciation mistakes, such as 'fury' to 'furry'. However, I have to admit that once I went a bit overboard and got hauled up by the Assistant Supervisor for making my teacher feel, *cough cough*, "uncomfortable" in the classroom. Hem hem, moving on...

Not every English teacher in Malaysia is bad of course, but there are always cases of teachers being hauled up to the classrooms to teach the English language because of lack of "teacherpower". However, the sad thing is that some or most of these "teachers" only know enough of the English language to survive, and I'll bet that even most of that will consist of the Malaysian standardised Manglish. I pity them, especially if they get students who are actually good at the language and is more than capable of embarrassing the hell out of them in the classroom.

It's a known fact that the standard of English in Malaysia is low. If you need proof, all you gotta do is look at the Form 3 English text-books, or any other Malaysian English text-books for that matter. Anyone who has done a reasonable amount of reading would scoff at the books, and even up till now, my English exam papers consists of simple questions regarding grammar, common idioms, and stuff like that. Acing it is a piece of cake.

Exams.

New school semester:


At the first week:


At the second week:


Before the mid-term test:


During the mid-term test:


After the mid-term test:


Before the final exam:


Once know the final exam schedule:


7 days before final exam:


6 days before final exam:


5 days before final exam:


4 days before final exam:


3 days before final exam:


2 days before final exam:


1 day before final exam:


A night before final exam:


1 hour before final exam:


During the final exam:


Once walk out from the exam hall:


After the final exam, during the holiday:

Thought counting

Burma, Burma, Burma.

Not Myanmar.

Stick it to the junta.

From Wikipedia: In 1989, the military junta officially changed the English version of the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar, along with changes to the English versions of many place names in the country, such as its former capital city from Rangoon to Yangon. This decision has, however, not received legislative approval in Burma.

Why?

The Eventual of Education

The eventual purpose of education is to discover new knowledge. If we think of education in general, of everyone studying at the moment, wouldn't you say that the purpose should be enrich the fertile field of human knowledge?

One person might want a good education to get a good job but education as a being of the world is a platform show us new doors to new discoveries.

We do this by asking questions and challenging the establishment. With knowledge, and understanding, we can ask insightful questions based on knowledge.

So we learn and understand to ask questions and which will eventually lead to greater knowledge for the race of mankind!

Can you hear the people rant?

It came as a surprise when I happened across a rant that actually made sense from a blog titled - honest - "Substance-less." Nicole (one of the founding members of this blog) rails at the general disdain and aversion to the Arts.

She rants and rambles and raves, and in doing so, she spills her SPM fears and wonders how scholarships can be given to students who excel in both their studies and extra-curricular activities when Malaysian schools focus on nothing but their studies.

But then… When people said that LKW or Arts are for students who can’t excel in their studies… I felt VERY upset.

Whats wrong with Arts???? Whats wrong if people who can do well in their studies want to do Arts???? So stupid people take Arts???? ‘Stupid’ people become successful designers- even Millionaires????? LKW is for stupid and rich people???????? Like dumb blondes?????

I hate… Detest the fact that people usually categorize the Arts students as the ‘not-so-smart’ ones. Not just the society, schools but the government as well. Do you see the government encouraging students to take up Arts?? To be in the Arts stream or encourage us to be creative??

I don’t think so.
At least not in my school, I don’t see that.

Read all about it here.

Lacking Curiousity

'It's not necessary to know that. Just study what the teacher teaches. Don't waste your time memorizing all that.'

This, dear readers, was the typical dismissive reply accompanied with a dismissive wave of a hand that came from several of my friends when I asked questions such as why copper was such a good conductor, or what is tangent, sine, and cosine in a right-angled triangle. To them, all that they needed to know is that copper is the second best conductor after silver, and the formulas to calculate the tangent, sine, and cosine in a right-angled triangle. As for the why and what of it... Who cares?

Notice anything lacking?

Like Ethan said in his post, A textbook example, all that students need to know has been encapsulated into textbooks. All they need to know, people. Which literally means: No more, no less.

Few students ever questioned the why and how of things nowathesedays, but hey, who can blame them? From the students' point of view, if it doesn't show up on the test papers, it's not necessary to know. And if it's not necessary to know, why bother reading it up?

I may not be in a right position to say it, for I too am guilty of it, but sometimes I'm amazed at the height of ignorance. Take for instance this incident: I once sent my friend an e-mail regarding the (in)famous President of the United States of America. The next day, he came up to me and asked: 'Who is this George Bush?'

Words failed me...

Curiousity drove Thomas Edison to find out how to make a lightbulb, which in turn made him the father of inventors. Curiousity also drove Isaac Newton to find out why that apple went down instead of up, which in turn led him to discover gravity. In fact, learning and curiousity nearly always come together, and it's also a fact that a curious person always learns better than one who is not.

Just like a seed of faith, a seed of curiousity can go a long way. And if that seed of curiousity was planted into students, can you imagine the difference it would make?

'The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiousity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.' Anatole France

Take curiousity out of education, what do you get?

Memory work

The Malaysian education system is all about memory work. From primary schools onward to the tertiary level, we’ve all been taught to memorize and only by memorizing will you score Aces.

I remember since primary, we students were taught to memorize essays. It was claimed to be the most effective way to score an A1 in the essay papers. We were told to memorize as much as we could in hopes that what we remember would come out as a question in our exams.

It’s like picking numbers for a lotto bet. If what they ‘pick’ comes out on the paper, they score a jackpot.

What I think of the Malaysian Education System

To me, I think that the Malaysian Education System has gone through drastic changes compared to last time. There are spaces where improvements can be made. Just like any other country, we have our own ups and downs when it comes to education. One way to improve it would be to prepare students for college/university life. This can be done by having more oral-related activities such as speeches on any subject the teacher chooses, which the whole class should participate in.

Unnecessary exams, for instance, UPSR and PMR should be abolished. These exams are not a must.

The government also should be fair when giving out scholarships. Give it to those who deserve it, not to those who don’t deserve when they’re going to leave the country anyway.

The English language should be a must as it is a language that everyone speaks.

-Wong Wei Lyn
Student, 14

A textbook example

I had the privilege of having lunch with a friend of mine the other day. We had a curious conversation which deserves mention here.

This friend of mine explained how people were either book-smart or street-smart. She obviously considered herself among the book-smart, a select group of people populated by intellectuals, mathematicians, and logicians. "Street-smart" was merely a term used to describe people who weren't book-smart. Or so she believed.

I smiled sarcastically and attempted to steer the conversation to different waters.

I'm ashamed to say that I failed.

She carried on with her intellectual train of thought to a very logical conclusion. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? She asked the question with utter seriousness. We were on the brink of slipping into an endless debate concerning the most pointless question on the planet. Time to avert boredom. I threw my hands up in exasperation and declared it an impossible question. Nobody knew and nobody would ever know. The chicken-and-the-egg question was really a metaphor for the unanswerable, I said. Then, with a self-satisfied smirk, she revealed that she knew the chicken came before the egg. She read it in Reader's Digest. The chicken descended from some dinosaur. Reader's Digest said so therefore it was a fact. The chicken came before the egg. She said it all with a sober expression that betrayed an unwavering faith in the timelessness of a Reader's Digest article.

Since a vast knowledge of science has long been a point of pride for this friend of mine, I felt duty-bound to remind her of the limits of science. Science cannot prove anything, I said, it can only tell us what we know at this point. I mentioned Micro- and Macro-Evolution. I believed in the former and not the latter. There can be variations within species, certainly. But I didn't think a chicken was going to evolve from a dinosaur. I went on like this for a while only to discover she had no idea what I was talking about. She stared at me blankly, puzzled and lost, her book-smartness gone with the wind. Micro-Evolution? What? It isn't in the textbook, she mumbled. It isn't in Reader's Digest either, I thought to myself. Aloud, however, I proceeded to enlighten her on matters curiously absent from her textbook.

Then I began to question the authority of school textbooks. She looked flustered and asked what on earth we can believe in if not the things carefully researched and compiled by the souls who wrote her textbooks. What's the point of education if we don't believe everything the textbook says? She challenged.

I laughed. Her question was supposed to be rhetorical, evidently. I wasn't supposed to laugh. But I did. I just succeeded in making her even more flustered. This friend of mine would undoubtedly be offended at being the subject of this post. She'd insist I misunderstood everything she said and deliberately twisted her words to my advantage. I don't care. I heard what I heard and I laughed because it was funny. She completely missed the point of education. And if you don't know what the point of education is then you haven't really learned anything at all. The irony was almost tangible.

I realize that she is but a member of a large and influential tribe who believe in blind faith and unquestioning belief when it comes to receiving information. Our education system has given rise to a breed of students satisfied with what they read in textbooks. They don't think to question the government-approved brand of truth simply because it has to be true. All they need to know - no more, no less - has been encapsulated into those textbooks. If that isn't enough, hey, there's always Reader's Digest. In the words of Syed Husin Ali taken from Malaysiakini:

Higher Education Strategic Plan - A Critique

At present, learning at that level is almost by rote, and independent and critical minds are not encouraged. Even at the university level, a critical and creative mind is not encouraged or nurtured.

Oh yes, I agree. Our education system has indeed succeeded in raising a book-smart generation. They're whizzes at doing what computers can do. What's lacking are minds capable of critical thought and analysis.

To make a tiresome politically correct statement, of course there are minds in the Malaysian education system capable of critical thought and analysis. Yes, there are bright sparks. Yes, it is grossly unfair to paint everybody the same colour. Yes, yes. I know. I've heard it all before. But it is also grossly unfair to say the Malaysian education system is consistently producing students of the sort. The outstanding students, the ones who go far, never do hold much stock in school and school alone anyway. They have the ability of looking beyond textbooks.

It's when the average student places a blind faith in school to teach him everything he needs to know that things start to go downhill. He memorizes a few dates, a formula or two, the Theory of Relativity, and he begins to feel smart. He commits entire textbooks to memory and he feels spiritually closer to Gregor Mendel. He begins to equate school with education and education with memorization. He begins to boast of book-smartness. In doing so he misses the point of education altogether. As my encounter with this friend of mine proved, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The point of education, my dear friend, is not in believing everything the textbook says but asking why we should believe it at all.

Never let your schooling interfere with your education.

Malaysian Teachers Aren't That Bad

Time for a little humour break, if you'd please. Hannah recounts a particularly...funny incident in her class. If I may quote her:

The latest joke in 1 H has officially been created by none other than our teacher... Mr. Salted Egg (I'll save his pride.. I won't embarrass him). We were learning about polygons. So he devised the LAMEST way to remember them. And it only works if you have bad English like him. It went like this (I purposely wrote it in his retarded English grammar)

SE : Okay today we learning about polygons. Cikgu ada cara nak remember.

1 H: (bored)

SE : First saya doing work with my PEN (pentagon) and I eating a HEX (supposed to be Hacks! Hexagon) sweet. Lepas tu I tercekik kat Hex sweet tu. So I shout HEP! HEP! (supposed to be ''help'' Heptagon) sebab saya ada OTAK (octagon)...

1H: (Laughing and ROFLing. Salted Egg thinks we're laughing ços it's really funny. But actually we're just laughing ços it's FREAKIN lame. xP)Okay, how lame can anyone get?! Even my mom thought it was lame. And he was grinning like mad, showing off his PEN, HEX, HEP and OTAK. (He pronounces ''octagon'' as ''otagon''.) Well, at least he achieved his objective. I certainly will NOT forget any of the polygons he taught us. Cos I have an OTAK.

Kudos to the teacher for his creativity but rotten (salted?) eggs for being so lame, as it were.

Attention

Childhood TV viewing can cause teenage problems:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Television rots your brains, kids.

I remember religiously waking up every Saturday morning, without fail, to turn on the TV so I could catch the Saturday cartoons. The sun could hardly be described as "risen," just yet. The TV stations wouldn't even have begun airing anything, not even their glorious cartoons, and not for a good hour or so. I'd turn on the TV and gaze at static and imagine I could see a drama unfolding in the flickering nothingness. Then when the cartoons started I'd sit there from dawn till three in the afternoon. After the colours and noises had stopped coming and real people took over the airwaves, I'd switch off the TV with the immense satisfaction of having spent at least six hours in blissful oblivion.

This was my Saturday ritual for many, many years. I think it'd be safe to assume that had my parents brought Astro into our home I would have become a certified couch potato. And I might have serious attention issues today. Thank God local TV stations only splurge on cartoons for hours during the weekend. But hey, I'm seventeen and I'm all fine now. I don't really watch cartoons anymore. It's safe to get Astro now, dad.

A lesson in latin

Vox Discipuli, not Vox Discipulus.

A thousand apologies.

Errare humanum est.

Students = Humans or Robots?

This is an article from The Star, 5 September 2007:

MPs: Review education system
MPs want the Education Ministry to re-examine the education system to put less emphasis on tuition.

The trend of sending children for tuition was creating a generation of "soulless robots," said S. K. Devamany (BN-Cameron Highlands).

He said he made a study and found that children were spending eight hours at school instead of the usual six.

Apart from the school hours, he said, the students had to do their homework after school ended at 1pm. They then attend tuition classes given by the teacher until 3.30pm before they go for their co-curriculum activities.

"Don't forget about the homework and studies that they have to do at home.

"Are our youngsters humans or machines? We have completely forgotten about the students in our efforts to improve the education system," he said when debating the Supplementary Supply Bill 2007.

Devamany urged the Education Ministry to re-emphasise the importance of the schooling and teaching mechanism, which he said was the basis for the national education excellence.

Datuk Raja Ahmad Zainuddin Raja Omar (BN-Larut) suggested that the school examination system be replaced with a points system.

"Teachers can give grades on the student's personal behaviour and classroom participation in addition to the reduction in the number of examinations," he added.

Speaking as a student of the national education system, I couldn't agree more. Everyday, I cannot help but sigh as I walk through the school gates and see the big yellow board that shows the days left before my PMR (the reason why many parents send their kids for tuition) and I'll inevitably end up muttering away under my breath about the education system which requires students to stuff their heads with 3 years worth of textbook-knowledge and finally vomit it all out in 5 days of hell.

More than half of my friends go for tuition classes. A few of them have one or two tuition classes for every day of the week! Even I, who only go for one tuition class a week, have to practically drag my feet and sit like a zombie in the car as my mum fetches me to the centre. With the current education system, half the time parents are more worried than their own children are, which usually results in parents sending kids for tuition, tuition, and more tuition in the hope that it will help their offspring get good results. Unfortunately, that is seldom the truth, for sometimes tuition only saps students' time and energy because they arrive half-dead at the tuition centre after school, piano class, and etc.

In school, more often than not we memorize, but seldom really understand. Many students could solve complex mathematical problems in a short amount of time, but few even know what it's used for in the real world. More often that not, students are only taught what is necessary to pass the exams. No more, no less. In a way, we are like robots.

Though I hate to say it, but exams are not completely bad. The pressure of exams does help us build a better person for the future. Exams exist for students, but in some cases, it seems that the students exist for the exams. Some would go to the extreme just to get a line of A's, but as inhabitants of this present world, shouldn't we learn more about what's happening in it instead of always being engrossed in getting A's for our report cards?

For many, failing an exam means getting a hell of a time back home, but the sad thing is, sometimes it even makes the student a failure in the eyes of his peers, and sometimes even his or her own family. However, I still stand by what I believe in: Exams aren't everything.

People, we are students with all our feelings and human limitations. We're not stereotypes that record historical facts and mathematical formulas for hours on end, nor should our worth be judged by mere exams. We're not robots, for goodness' sake, we're students!

National schools failing popularity test

An excerpt from Malaysiakini.

MP: National schools failing popularity test

The Education Ministry was today asked in the Dewan Rakyat to explain why Malaysians tend to shun national schools.

Firdaus Harun (BN-Rembau) said these schools, especially at the primary level, are the catalyst to achieve racial harmony and unity for younger generations.

Answering the question, the ministry’s parliamentary secretary P Komala Devi (BN-Kapar) said the ministry is aware of the problem.

“The Education Ministry is aware and realises the importance of national schools, especially the primary ones, as an important phase in inducing racial unity and integration,” she said.

She said the ministry has strived to make national schools the ultimate choice for education and one strategy was by embodying the Guidelines to Strengthen National Schools in the Central Planning on Education Development (PIPP) 2006-2010.

Komala said the ministry has constantly conducted research to strengthen the appeal of national schools and as a result of the research, it has introduced Chinese and Tamil language education in national schools, increased the professionalism of teachers and ensured that the infrastructures are adequate.

Apart from this, she claimed that national schools are doing well in attracting non-Malay students as well. For the rest of the article, click here.

I don't think P Komala Devi answered the question.

In the beginning...

There was the Young Writers' Camp. It succeeded in moving its participants to socially and politically conscious projects post-camp. What you see is the result of the proverbial mustard seed planted at the Young Writers' Camp to make a difference, no matter how small, in the world we live in.

Vox Discipuli is Latin for voice of the student. Which is precisely the reason for this blog's existence. This blog seeks to explore the vast and ambiguous realm of education. It's out to give place to voices and opinions and ideas. For we are all students. We never cease to learn and are in a perpetual state of change. Stories, rants, misadventures, exams, education, or even a lack thereof - it could be anything, depending on our contributors.

As of now, from the very beginning, there are the five of us.

Brian.
Darren.
Aidee.
Ethan.
Nicole.

Hopefully, as time passes, people may read and contribute to constitute what can be called a healthy, vibrant blog. Only time will tell. None may be touched by what happens here, none whatsoever. But we will. For now, that's all that matters.