Alhamdulillah, I've had the opportunity to spend my childhood in England. I moved there in 1994 and returned to motherland, Malaysia, in 2001. I've gotta say, it was a blast. It wasn't all that exciting, it was a pretty normal childhood; sleepovers, walks in the park, mengaji kat surau kecik, sitting in shopping carts, not being able to ride the cool rides at the theme park, swinging upside down on monkey bars, etc. Oh, the innocent times... You can have such experiences in Malaysia too and in any suburban area for that matter, but one of the main differences i noticed straight away when i came back to Malaysia was the learning environment for kids here. It's so secularized, dead boring and tense, as compared to the experience i had in England. I'm not saying that everything in Malaysia is bad and everything in England is great and much better. In actual fact, I'm thankful that i returned home and i don't have the urge to leave or migrate to England or any other country. Tapi kalau pergi cuti-cuti tu nak lah jugak, hehe.
To sum up the learning environment in England in a few simple words is that its makes learning interesting and fun.
Here are just some examples of the things that made Junior school (sekolah rendah) cool:
- Writers introduction in year 5. Published authors came to the school (i forgot their names) and taught us how to improve our writing skills. They taught us ways to use adjectives effectively and everyone got a free storybook. We also had to write a story and everyone had one-to-one time with the authors. They would go through each of our tales and would point out ways on how to tweak our storyline and give a punch to it.
- Parachute preparedness, in year 4 i think. Even though our cheeks didn't flap like a pit bull putting his head out of a fast moving car, from any free-falling but we were introduced on how to use a parachute. They showed us how it worked and we played a game using an opened parachute.
- Swimming and tennis lessons. Its compulsory for junior school children to learn these two skills. We would go once a week for a set period of time (can't remember how many terms it was and what year though).
- Monday assemblies, all the classes would take turns to do a performance or demonstration of what they learned, for example class A in week 1 and class B in week 2. It goes on throughout the year, for all the years (the term 'year' here means darjah/tingkatan in Malay. Kalau guna grade pon boleh tapi most of the public schools use year. eg: year 4 = darjah 4, year 8 = form 2). The performance can be as simple as a demonstration on how to make a paper snow flake or it can be a mini theater production with costumes and characters.
- We made our own pizza's in year 4. The dough was already made for us but we rolled it out and chose our own toppings. Mine was topped with mushrooms, a lil' bit of chicken and cheese =) Plenty of cheeeeessseeee.. Mmm... Instructions on the temperature of the oven, how to use the oven properly, which utensils to use and safety precautions were given, but we were entrusted to do everything ourselves. Of course the teacher was there supervising, helping out here and there and checking on every single detail but at least we were given a chance to explore, have the self confidence to use the utensils correctly, try new tastes, figure out which combination of flavors worked best together, pop the lil' beauty's in the oven ourselves and enjoy the fruits of our labor. We also created and baked our own biscuits in year 5.
- We had a trip to an old water and wind mill that was used to grind flour (flower!!). That trip was wicked awesome though. I can remember every nook and cranny of the place and how the mills were designed. We also had a trip to a castle, in year 6 and even managed to go in the dungeons!
- We had Music as a subject. Examples of some of the lessons: design and construct our own musical instruments from scratch (in groups), bring your favorite CD to school, play a song you like but you have to justify your reasons (eg: did you like it just for the beat or the lyrics or was it because of the cultural elements in the song, etc), learned about other unique instruments like the nose flute, why and how its used, etc.
All these activities were not small courses or ideas that my school had and implemented by themselves, it is actually integrated as a part of Junior school curriculum and education system. This allows every child to benefit, not just the kids from private schools or schools that are financially better-off or supported. Every child has the opportunity to be exposed to more ideas, skills and thoughts, discover and learn not just from books but by do-it-yourself methods and 'get your fingers stuck in it' attitude. The British have a nack for such simplicity in their ideology of teaching and how to get it done effectively and efficiently. Less paper work, hierarchical structure and processes, more communication and discussion among students and teachers and more hands on activities. Even during the activities, children have to strategise for themselves or give new things a try and outline every experiment to what they think is appropriate, which promotes critical thinking. Kalau tak tepat pon tak apa, you are encouraged to try again.
The word 'wrong' was never used, just 'maybe this method would work better' or 'if you try this, maybe this would be the result'. We aren't told what is right and wrong in black or white, but we learned through trying, discovering, making mistakes, adjusting and making improvements. Some may worry about such an open way of teaching but having this approach for this age group raises a child's self-esteem and problem solving becomes a habit for them. They are less shy to ask questions or to suggest new ideas and they have a wider range of basic knowledge and general understanding. Yet rules are still enforced wherever needed and they are reprimanded firmly. There is such balance in the English system and every action is meant for a specific reaction (every activity/experiment/trip/game/lesson teaches the child a new skill/method/ideology/fact/knowledge).
Mannn, i can go on forever about this issue 0.0 Penat aku type, phuhh...
I guess this post will be continued.
My main point here is that Malaysia should take what is good from other education systems and leave the bad. Adapt it an a way to suit our culture in Malaysia, keep things simple and make learning fun for kids in school.
Don't kill the buzz.
Assalamualaikum..
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