Our education. Our destiny.

Assalamualaikum w.b.t

I wish everyone is in good health and praise be to Allah for His mercy and blessing.
I'll be having a meeting this afternoon so I've decided not to go home for a nap. I'm afraid that it won't be a nap because for my case, a nap could turn to be a long sleep. You know better if you live in Taiping. It's rainy most of the time. But I'll always love the weather and the greenery feeling that comes with it.

I'm not planning to write a long article today but I love to share with all readers what I've got upon attending a seminar recently. First and foremost, I'm not questioning the integrity of our education system but this post is mainly a discussion with the hope that we can imitate a bit from the best and make our system better.

Let me ask you one question. What is the purpose of education? Different people will give different answers. Certainly. But I'm sure it will lead to one common purpose: To produce a generation of students that have values in most of aspects namely JERI (Jasmani, Emosi, Rohani, Intelek). In a simple word, students born from our education system suppose to have good manners, excellent personality, confident, smart and well presented.

Unfortunately what happen today does not reflect out objective of true education. We might have been succeeded in producing students with lot of A's but where are the values? I'm not saying that they have no values but based on my observation, students nowadays lack in terms of values. We didn't really expose them to values concurrent to our academic lesson. They didn't realize what values we are trying to deliver. All they know are numbers, formula, theory etc.That's probably the main reason why a successful person still get involved in crimes.
What I meant by values is something like trust, brave, confident, good communication skills and I think you can continue the list on your own.

Look at us. Our students are very good academically but when come to interview for example, they will be a shy boy and just let others speak on behalf of them. There's no place for this group of people in business or corporate world. In fact if they passed the interview, how long are they gonna survive in their career? Then they will be a waste of our education product. Don't you think it is a sad ending for them after struggling day and night to get a good result? That does not include the case of students get involved in gejala rempit, rape, drug abuse etc

OK let me make it clear here. I know educating people is a huge responsibility and a complex issue. I've been working for less than 2 years in this field so I may not be a right person to say this but I strongly believe that we should make a change on this system. Not a change but rather improvement for the next generation if it is not for us. That's the correct word.

Lot of benchmarking visits to developed countries like Singapore, United States, Australia and Scandinavian countries have been carried out yet we are still the same. Always the same. I'll leave this one for you to think.
 To my fellow friends who work as a teacher, let us do something. I don't wanna grow up and feeling regret of things that I suppose to do when I was young.

In our teaching, let students take part, be active, allow them to raise their opinion and encourage them to speak what they believe to be right even we may think the other way around. And sometimes let them do a mistake so that they will learn the lesson. Teaching is not always in the class after all.
Let them play, let them plan a trip to somewhere as this experience actually will teach them a lot. They learn to respect friends, work together, accept their friends opinion upon planning for a trip for example. In fact they will learn to be brave to meet teacher or principal to present their proposal.These are the values that we trying to extract from them.

It's time to stop giving them too much homework, extra class etc. Note that homework is important but too much homework sometimes could be a burden. I have to admit that some teachers and parents are too exam oriented. We are killing students actually by having this kind of attitude. The fact that we should not forget is every students can be taught, they can learn to be a better person but not all will end up with straight A's. Some people might say, how about academic? As a teacher I know academic result is very important as it will determine where will you be, what scholarship will you be getting on? But this kind of non academic things should not be taken for granted otherwise we'll never change. The answer is simple we have to let them learn how to manage time properly between academic and those non academic. This is certainly one of the values. Isn't it?

Speaking of values, not every values are good. Some are bad. It the end, religion i.e Quran and Hadith are the two things that we must not forget. Those are our ultimate guidance.Last but not least, do not just rely on teachers but parents should always ask themselves what values have I taught to my son today? Let them know the values so they appreciate you more.

So that's it for today I think. Please forgive me should my opinion is in different side with yours. There's nothing personal. It just a little thought to make our country better. Little if not much.

p:s if you have time, why don't look for how Finnish education system is rated as one of the best education systems in the world