Saturday, May 16, 2009

Omigosh, last updated post was in March.

How embarrassed I am, yet I am still so lazy to update my blog regularly. I simply couldn't find the drive to blog. Come on, I wonder how do others can blog non-stop and write so much, and how do some people actually update several blogs almost every day and make their blogs a readers' magnet. They must really really love blogging.

Okay, now cut the crap and remorse, I should start writing something at least.

I am chinese educated and recently I have been thinking about the issue of our education system. However, I am not going to talk about the language medium of teaching science and math but I am going to talk about something else that impacted my childhood directed.

There is a conception that most chinese school students, particularly those who are from the better classes when they are in primary school, are usually more hardworking and passive in class as compared to the other students. They are thought to be 'good' students by the teachers and their classmates. But in the first place, why there exist this sort of stereotyping and how are these students brought up to be 'more hardworking and passive' ?

Many chinese primary schools in Malaysia still practice a traditional, grueling educating style that focuses on doing many home works. On each schooling days, students have to finish a sheer amount of homework of different subjects and homework are mostly discussed in class the next day, hence home works must be finished on the same day. Moreover, students from the 'better classes' have to study for spelling and memorize synonyms, antonyms, chinese proverbs and chinese phrases almost every day and are tested by teachers. Hence, it becomes a daily routine to study for language test. Other than that, mandarin is not easy to learn and the words are not as easy as spelling a, b, c. Learning to writing chinese words require a great deal of consistent efforts to nail it in into our brains. Therefore, students have to write 'sheng zi' ( writing various chinese words repeatedly) as a home work on most days. For example, in a day, we can have one spelling test, two essays, 'sheng zi' and other exercises. Speaking from experience, for my whole standard six year, music class, PE class, moral and geography were replaced by chinese lessons because these subjects are not tested in UPSR. I also had extra lessons for English and BM in the afternoon two days a week for 2 hours. This practice is still prevalent in many chinese schools and this is all only for UPSR.

That is not all. With other subjects in hand such as BM, Maths and Science , homework can pile up easily. To make matter worse, students are punished for failing to finish their work on time. When I am still in primary last time, caning is still the method to punish 'lazy' students. I was caned a few times in front of class and suffered from humiliation and guilt. The pain from caning lingered on for many days. It was such an ugly and disturbing experience for me then and it prompted me to do my home work. My class mates were not sparred. The 'hard working trait' is not as easy to learn as it seems.

When I was younger, it seemed normal to do my home work or to be the so-called hard working person. But, sometimes I wondered whether it is necessary to pour primary school students with home works and punish students for not completing their homework. The homework that we do is beneficial to the students but the sheer amount of the homework is daunting and stressful. I lost part of my childhood to doing homework almost every waking hours of my primary school life. Hence, I think it is a failure of the chinese education system to force many students to be kept busy with their homework everyday without letting them to enjoy their childhood without the stress of homework. And, it is all for the sake of UPSR.