LET’S BE CIVIL SHALL WE?

How does one define civilization? Is it with the buildings and structures that people build, or the amount of money that flows between people or that the people are all very up-to-date, trendy? Most people think that a country that has no twin towers, a crooked bridge or highways as far as the eye can see are ‘not there’ yet. However, these physical evidences are just not what define civilization.

I remembered when I was 18, I attended a lecture by Dr Sulaiman Nordin. He was the one who explained that people were often misled into thinking that to be civilized we must have big tall buildings-“peradaban sesuatu tamadun itu bukanlah dicapai berdasarkan lanskap, nah negaraku punya bangunan-bangunan tinggi, kami punya pusat membeli belah terpanjang, tapi ia diterajui oleh peradaban budaya bangsa itu sendiri”

Which means, a civilization, or in the present context are developed nations, are nations or countries that have highest level of wealth of knowledge and intelligence and highest degree of ethics. Not by having more money or physical structures, a civilization is measured through how the people live, are they good neighbours, well behave and understanding, highly educated, sensible and rationale.

Now tell me, are we a developed nation?

When we go to pasar malam, we see mothers telling children to just throw the rubbish on the ground cause “there’ll be cleaners to clean them later”

When we see dogs, which are harmless, the children throw stones or try to kill them

When we see a child being kicked by his parents, we keep quiet

When we go to the libraries, they are empty and the books are collecting dust

When we board a bus, not only no one gives seats to the disabled or elderly, we don’t do nothing in our seat but to stare at nothing

Another question,

How is Singapore, who has no twin towers, bridges, natural resources is a developed nation? Don’t you ever wonder why our country, so rich in everything God could give us (except cooler weather darn it’s soo hot) is still lagging behind?

Read about GDP and HDI

SHIKEN NO SEKAI

Who are the stupid people who propose this? I bet they just did this in a whim. They NEVER consulted anyone especially those in the education field. The experts and people with PHDs are doing nothing. They just sit and have their nice chit chat with the education system and then just decide to change. I bet the people in the ministry are not qualified too. Though they were ex teachers with at least degrees, but hey what do they know about the education system rite? Even the street peddler who didn’t go to school know that UPSR and PMR are good. The exams have been going on in Malaysia for like FOREVER. And you know what people say when something lasts that long it must be good. Remember when Galileo Galilei said the SUN is the centre of the universe, not the earth? Since the Dark Age people have learned and known that everything revolves around the earth. Go to the edge of the ocean and you will fall. Serve Galileo right that he was almost killed for saying such blasphemy. Yeah, serve him right! Remind me not to go oversea for fear of falling off the earth. *shudder*

LET ME SHOW YOU THE RESULT OF GOING THROUGH (AS THE SECOND BATCH) OF UPSR, PMR AND SPM. (Yes, I am NOT OLD please. I’m just 31. Old is like, what 67?) I will list down the reasons why EXAMS MUST GO ON AS CONSTANT AS THE FLOWING RIVER AND THE RAGING SEAS TO SHOW THE SUCCESS OF EXAM-ORIENTED STUDENTS.

1. OMG. Then the students would not know HOW TO SIT FOR SPM when they reach form 5 if there were no major exams. Sure, they are already harassed with TWO intervention exams, ONE mid term, ONE diagnostics and TWO TRIALS all in ONE YEAR(that’s one exam every two months) before SPM, but it will NEVER BE ENOUGH. It will be an added bonus if the teachers don’t teach at all but just give them exams till SPM arrives. That way they would be so used to it they would feel numb doing SPM thus they would excel in SPM.

2. Students are still young and naïve(aka stupid) they cannot do their own decisions and they don’t know how to study independently. By spoon feeding them ALL the knowledge that the teacher knows, they would memorise more and would act and decide according what are told to them. They are just like robots you know. You have to push their buttons and insert commands so they can move. THINKING? Why should they? Being obedient and just nodding their heads are enough. If there are no exams, how are we gonna know how good a robot they are. A robot has no ideas and opinions. Students should too.

3. STRESS? What stress? The children go to school happily la early in the morning with the heavy bags. Aiyah it’s okla. Still young, their bones can tahan for sure. Then they have clubs and sports but not too much aiya (cuz it’s not in the exam). If they are too tired they cannot go for tuition class later. At 6 go for tuition. Return at 8pm, eat and then go do their homework. Much better this way. They should just study, study, study. Childhood is no more play play. Where you see children play now? Going to school should never be fun. If it is fun then the teacher is not preparing my children for the real world(which sucks really) So their childhood years must be filled with stress, pressure, exams, to be excellent and they must suck.

4. The schools and teachers are now very exam oriented. Why is this bad? If they are not exam oriented, meaning the teachers are allowed to teach their subject according to their creativity and initiative, and the school would be more fun. And God Forbid, students could actually ENJOY learning. This cannot be for the reason that has been established above (because real life sucks and miserable, students must learn to feel miserable when they go to school)

5. No PMR and UPSR, how are we gonna stream those excellent students to go SBP, MRSM or Technic school? Regardless of the fact that those school could actually release sign up forms, and have the school’s own entrance exam. This means we’re doing it the way other developed countries are doing- the school itself comes out with its own exams and picks up the candidates suitable for the school. For example SESERI aims to be the leader in Traditional Dance and Bowling. SESERI would ensure she should pick out those students who are very good with Traditional Dance and Bowling besides academic. Yet, this is a WIN-WIN situation therefore it should not be done because the school cannot be trusted to be fair in selecting students. (The current practice is the practice is the ministry is the one doing the selection on whatever basis they did. So don’t wonder why are there so many Amirahs and Fatins in SESERI and so many Aizats and Khairuls in STAR. That’s VERY FAIR you see)

6. Who cares if a students’ knowledge, ability and experience in school would be assessed once and only in SPM and if they fail that then that’s it. You have no more potentials and a BAD student, regardless the fact that you were the best student in academics and clubs and you excel in every school exam but when you sat for SPM you had a fever. Resulting in you not being able to answer the questions excellently. Imagine this, you are the best student of the year but because you were sick during SPM, you didn’t get a single A in any subject, and thus denied of your dream of going to university. THIS IS HOW WE REWARD HARD WORK AND PERSEVERENCE? All those hard work and knowledge just disappear down the drain, not your fault, but it is FATE. And you wonder why kids as old as standard six committed suicide when they didn’t get the results they expected in UPSR. And though the suicide rate of students keeps increasing day by day, this is DEFINITELY not the reason.

7. If we implement the entrance exam, how can we trust the school teachers to test our students and how would we not know if the teacher only gives good marks because she wants to be an excellent teacher that year? Even though all this time, the same teachers are the ones who mark the PMR and UPSR papers but when it comes to their own students they wouldn’t be objective? If the teacher is not objective during marking and keeps rewarding undeserved good marks, sooner or later you could see the kind of students she produced. If no one ever performs later or got offered to go further their studies, you could tell that the paper was marked incorrectly and the teacher is doing something fishy..

In conclusion is, keep the exams and we will stay the same and never change( change is bad rite?)

Campus = Fun

Varsity registration usually was a hassle and a waste of time. I remembered going through 3 different registrations, by the time it was finished, so did my energy. This was immediately followed by orientation week, which was, rather than preparing students for the campus life, they gave us hell. I remembered running around campus non-stop and attending so many seminars that would seem unnecessary. Malaysians and their fixation with ceramah..mehh. 

The schedule was already rigid, then the seniors would be pretending like they were the towkeys of the campus. I once fainted in a morning assembly, when I woke up, this one senior accused me of faking it. And saying things like low blood pressure does not affect health. Stupid boy! 

There was this one senior who kept telling me (during orientation he was my fasci) that he was like the best student ever and he had good looks and people kept falling on his feet (what? Are you Orlando Bloom something?) and told me people without looks should just be grateful and study hard. Somehow I ignored his comments but I was sure that he directed it to me.. pfff..Vainpots are always vainpots. 

I remembered during our college dinner later when I was called to the stage to accept a reward for being the best student in the college(I beat 300+ students for it hehehe). I went up, took my rewards and went down and saw his face, looking at me incredulously, as if saying OMG this ugly chick is actually badass! I’m so embarrassed to have even thought of her based on her looks. That nite was the best nite for that year cause I remembered his expression. Till today *grins*:D

Well, the original story was yesterday I went to my brother’s UM registration for first years. He got in telecommunication engineering. We sent him to Kolej Kediaman Pertama in UM. I must say my first experience in UM was good. The registration was all done by students, except one staff on the Health Desk(well you can’t put any John Doe there). It was marvelous. It was breezy, the weather was fine. A lot of parents but they were so happy :) My brother registered by himself (parents can’t help:))) and we were asked to relax at the Parents’ lounge and watch the multimedia presentation. We even had hot tea and some kuih to savour. 

The UM students bodies were everywhere assisting us. And when  the sky turned dark, the parents were reminded to retreat into safer camps. When it started to rain, the student bodies went out with their marvellous yellow umbrellas. We were not allowed to bring our cars up to the rooms but because it rained, we were then allowed to. As the cars parked and people coming out from their cars, the student bodies ran with the umbrellas to shelter the parents and students who did not bring umbrellas. It was truly a sight to behold. 

Oh, and at the main entrance to UM, there were many female undergrads giving out maps and water bottles to cars coming for registration. They were smiling and waving and holding up banners ‘WELCOME TO UM’ ‘WELCOME FIRST YEARS’ . I was impressed because I thought this kind of reception only happened in developed nations. Needless to say, I think UM is a pretty cool place as I like what the student bodies had prepared for us. Compared to my own varsity registration which took 4 hours just queing and doing tedious documents, yesterday's registration was like a breath of fresh air. Oh how I miss campus life! <:p