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What a waste of a good generation

Azly Rahman
Malaysiakini
Jan 25, 2014

Are we addicted to testing the child in school? Tests, tests, and more tests. Test anything that moves.

But what is the child’s mind and how to understand it to make Malaysian schools more than just training camps for dull young minds?

The mind is all these: active, ready to learn new things, always hungry for knowledge, for deeply engaging environment of exploration that can be offered by the system.

The mind is not a place to be made idle, or a temple of boredom, or a funnel to shove in mere facts, useless information that has no relevance to the idea of meaning and learning, or have no sense of connection to the child’s experience.

The mind has to always be in a mode of higher order thinking, of the excitement generated in the upper brain or the corpus callosum and not be placed in the reptilian mode of “fight or flight”, where the body is to be caned and punished for not memorising by teachers who wish to impose their own understanding of things, or by those who think they have the answers to everything, or for teachers afraid of children’s questions.

Learning that is not active will certainly activate the mode of resistance in the child’s consciousness. The more the child is bored, the more he/she will rebel – silently or violently – because his intelligence is not respected, nurtured, or challenged to greater heights. Continue reading “What a waste of a good generation”

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Lies, lies, and more lies

by KJ John
Malaysiakini
Jan 28, 2014

First there was the assertion that there exists an attempt by Christians to make Penang a Christian state; simply because the chief minister is reputed to be a Christian. No evidence was ever found or elicited for these unfounded rumours. The perpetrators of the crime were not charged. I believe they were Umno-linked bloggers.

Now there are ‘Jesus the son of Allah’ banners which, frankly, no Christian would ever make. The reason is simple: If we do, the whole sentence would be in Malay; never in English with the Arabic ‘Allah’ word. What will come next? Maybe a ‘Melayu balik kampung’ banner which then sparks another round of racial riot rumours, or pig-heads into mosques?

These were standard tactics since 1969 in Penang but it was stopped in good time because of the then chief police officer’s (CPO) quick response and actions?

But he was an outstanding Special Branch (SB) officer well-trained in the matters of psychological warfare, but there are no such people any more, since our communist threat is no more. Our current CPOs are only of one race and religion.

Today, police officers appear to pursue their partisan agenda against both citizens and foreigners alike. People are losing faith in the so-called ‘not-so-royal police force’, but which however does not act against Umno extremists. Selective persecution and prosecution seems the order of the day today. Continue reading “Lies, lies, and more lies”