Chapter 11: 11th December 2016

21st Century Curriculum: Forward or Backwards? 

With just another 2 weeks left till school reopens, we were introduced to our new form teacher and mentor via a WhatsApp message. The 4 Angsana of 2016 has been "promoted" to 5 Angsana in 2017, guided by Pn Sharon Kaur who is our class teacher and our mentor, En Halim.

Our class timetable was then forwarded to our class group, and there were several glaring details we noticed about it at first glance. First, we have an extra hour of science electives we chose from, it was raised to a total of 3 hours per week rather than the initial 2 hours. Modern mathematics and additional mathematics were also increased by an extra 1 hour per week. We thought maybe it was just extra intensives that were used to prepare us for SPM, so we didn't really bother much about it. Then we noticed, school ends remarkably late on every Monday till Wednesday.

On Mondays, we will only be dismissed at 3pm, 2.30pm on Tuesdays and 3.00pm on Wednesdays. Some other classes will only be dismissed at 3,30pm due to extra electives. This hectic schedule really got me thinking, is it even productive for students to begin with? I guess it's hard for people who sits in their office 24/7 to understand it from the perspective of students and teachers, so let me break it down.

As students/teachers, we all live in different places. Some closer to school, others relatively further. Take myself for example, I live in Klang and I have to wake up at 5,30am every morning. Surely it isn't only myself, there are thousands of students out there who wakes up a this range of time in order to prepare for school. Then in school, we're greeted by long hours of studying and cramming until we finally get to have a break during recess which would be about 10am - 11am depending on which form you're in. And after recess, we're greeted by more hours of studying and classroom work. In all honesty, that half an hour of break we get every day isn't even enough to fill our stomachs and rest sufficiently. We often feel hungry and exhausted at the last few periods of class, but still are forced to go on with studying.

As Malaysian students, we try to do the best we can, And that means either of two things - tuition and/or co-curricular activities (CCA). Often times these activities take place after school, and that would mean more energy consuming activities even after a long day at school. Often times the government pressures us to be balanced as a student, to be equally excellent at academics and CCA, but do they really understand the psyche of students and our limited capacities? Let's look more into it.

Imagine this scenario, you are a student who wakes up at 5.30am to get ready for school, From 7.30am onwards you start studying, all the way until 10,30am for a half an hour break until 11am, that's 3 hours of studying. From 11am, you continue with class sessions until at least 3pm, that's 4 whole long hours of studying right after a half an hour break. At this point, you'e probably already tired because that break time was just not sufficient at all. At 3pm, you're given 1 hour of lunch time which I'd say is a fair deal. But what happens after lunch time is disastrous. From 4pm onwards until 6pm is when CCA happens, with all sorts of activities like house practices and clubs, it's physically and mentally draining. At 6pm, you'll feel so worn out that the only thing you have in your mind is either food or sleep. And if that isn't enough, you'll be greeted with tuition classes designated to help you perform better in subjects you're weak at. Often times tuition starts right after CCA or if you're lucky enough then at 7.30pm, which means you'll have an hour and half of dinner and rest. And tuition classes are often times 2 hours and 30 mins long, which means classes ends at 10pm at night. If that isn't torturous enough, we're forced to study, revise and complete our homework on a daily basis which we'll only complete after an hour or 2, sometimes even longer depending on the amount of work. It's not uncommon to sleep later than 12am, sometimes we're forced to burn the midnight oil until 2am/3am just to revise for upcoming exams or maybe we had a lot of work to complete.Guess what, we'll sleep for 3 -5 hours and we'll be greeted by another long and hectic day as such.

This cycle often goes on on a daily basis. At the end of the week, we'll be exhausted and dry to our bones. Unfortunately that's not the end of it yet. If we're representing our school, state or maybe even country in a sport or activity, often times training and practices takes place on weekends. Intensives, tournaments, training and practices take up our free time and we're left with just a few hours to spare - for some rest, homework if we can and that's it. We sleep it off on Sunday night and the hell-like schedule begins on Monday again.

So to you readers out there, I urge you to really think about it from a micro-perspective of the individuals experiencing such policies. Because essentially, we're human and not machines; and even machines break under pressure, what more humans who are merely covered in flesh? This is a cry from the young of Malaysia: please do not take us for robots, we are much more than your torturous policies pushes us to be.

Chapter 10: 4th December 2016

Unprogressive Progressiveness

Being a high school debater, one common goal we had was to be accepted into the World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC) Team Malaysia. In order to be part of WSDC Malaysia, a selections is carried out annually to handpick the top 15 debaters throughout the country.

Back in 2014 I was chosen to be part of Malaysia'a first ever developmental squad, and I couldn't wait to see if I can achieve a greater success in 2016. We trained hard - practices, factsheets, video-session etc just to prepare for selections in hope of success. The selections weekend finally came and we were all pumped up. First day was a written test and 3 rounds of debates, followed by another 3 rounds on the second day. On the third day, I was on the top 10 list on debaters who were there, and was placed in room 2 for another 2 rounds of debates as a deciding factor.

The organizing committee old us results will be announced at the end of that day, and those who were selected will be contacted by phone. I felt confident of my performance, feedback from judges were positive and I felt that I had a strong chance of making the team. I went out for dinner with my friends that night while we awaited for the results to be released.

Long story short, I wasn't selected to be part of the team. However, the results weren't based on merit and effort. We found out that the results were based on a policy that prioritizes Bumiputera and diversity of institutions. Which meant that Bumiputeras from a variety of institutions will be prioritized over their non-Bumiputera counterparts.

It was a sad situation, and a very disappointing one too. A circuit that argues so much for progressiveness and equality, now abide by policies that undermines the narratives we argue for; it's just such a sad scene.