A long week...

The past week was a long week for me, having to teach for 6 days with Saturday as a replacement for the 12th January 2009 when "the flood waters visited my school". Later, in the night, we had a farewell cum welcoming dinner with the ex-boss and the new boss.

Having to go through the routine of school work like conducting PLBS, checking the students' NILAM record and conducting PROBIM makes me ponder the fact that teachers now have a lot of paper work. Twenty years ago, teachers also produce very successful personalities in our society but they do not have that much paper work. I remembered my aunty, who was a former English teacher telling me that she asked her students to write an English essay every week and they did. That is how her students who were well-versed in Mandarin were able to master the language. These students were quite independent, not like students nowadays who are spoilt and "spoon fed". By right, students of today should be more language inclined as they have access to the internet and so on. Thus, my aunty's students are now successful businessmen who make their millions while their teacher is not as well off as them. But, she is rich academically, studying in the States until she earned her PHd.

Last week, we hear of cases that our Education Minister being sued for the PPSMI. Personally, I think we should be proud if our people are conversant in English. If we make it to the international arena, we do not need to exploy translators and can stand on our own. Few politicians claim that the rural students suffer. After spending billions to train teachers to teach Maths and Science in Mathematics, I feel it is a waste of money to stop. Like the saying goes, "If there is a will, there is a way" or in Malay, "Hendak seribu daya, Tak hendak, seribu dalih." Rural school teachers should take the initiative to use English to teach these two subjects, using teahing aids like pictures, realia especially if they are teaching primary school students. Do not use Bahasa Melayu (BM) to translate or explain to them. The rational is if you used BM to explain, they will be forever waiting for the BM explanation and thus, the PPSMI will fail. Researchers should look into the fact that if the English educated twenty years ago can master BM, why not the generation of today?

Think and ponder???