If I were to put the value of a good teacher into substantial terms, I'd compare it to five years of schooling delivered in one short sitting. A good teacher is the burn on your fingers from the first time your flesh swept fire. They are the lighthouses that guide you to shore, not the sea or the vessel that you maneuver. They are not mere critics, personifications of an academic system that polices youth towards a stellar record. A good teacher cares that you succeed and fail, but not in how you do it. They enrich the learning experience, not the lessons themselves.
Perhaps it is the cultivation of my own personal experiences, but having taken primary, secondary and tertiary education in two separate countries, it is difficult to not compare the diverse approaches towards learning. The matter of scholarly pursuit and methods have been discussed and commented upon at length, but having seen it personally I've come to understand, first hand, the impact of good guidance.
When I was eight years old, enrolled in a primary school in Malaysia, I despised, with every fiber of being, the Bahasa Inggeris subject. It nettled down to the point where I would cautiously slip away to the toilet whenever the session came, and hide til it was over. I never understood the language beyond good morning', 'good evening' and 'goodnight'. I lost both exercise and text books. On the day I finally mustered my little courage to tell the teacher that I suck, I was responded with a long, disapproving lecture and two stinging, caning bouts on my palm (this was a time where society accepted corporal punishment). Suffice to say, I never got any better at the class, and then we had to move to England, as my mother conducted her PhD.
I spoke very little during my first few terms of school in Manchester. I could converse adequately, but to write, read, and speak out loud in front of the class in English was a living nightmare. My homeroom teacher finally noticed that this shy Malaysian girl was not stupid, just lacking in proper teaching. So she placed me, along with some other foreign students, to an extra class to learn proper use of conjunctions and tenses. I am the girl who used to grandly spell O'rite! in the short stories for my creative writing class. The euphoria I felt when I finally grasped correct spelling and usage of past present tense was intense (ha). I hadn't stop reading and writing since. I promptly became class secretary and outright theater geek.
Perhaps it is the cultivation of my own personal experiences, but having taken primary, secondary and tertiary education in two separate countries, it is difficult to not compare the diverse approaches towards learning. The matter of scholarly pursuit and methods have been discussed and commented upon at length, but having seen it personally I've come to understand, first hand, the impact of good guidance.
When I was eight years old, enrolled in a primary school in Malaysia, I despised, with every fiber of being, the Bahasa Inggeris subject. It nettled down to the point where I would cautiously slip away to the toilet whenever the session came, and hide til it was over. I never understood the language beyond good morning', 'good evening' and 'goodnight'. I lost both exercise and text books. On the day I finally mustered my little courage to tell the teacher that I suck, I was responded with a long, disapproving lecture and two stinging, caning bouts on my palm (this was a time where society accepted corporal punishment). Suffice to say, I never got any better at the class, and then we had to move to England, as my mother conducted her PhD.
I spoke very little during my first few terms of school in Manchester. I could converse adequately, but to write, read, and speak out loud in front of the class in English was a living nightmare. My homeroom teacher finally noticed that this shy Malaysian girl was not stupid, just lacking in proper teaching. So she placed me, along with some other foreign students, to an extra class to learn proper use of conjunctions and tenses. I am the girl who used to grandly spell O'rite! in the short stories for my creative writing class. The euphoria I felt when I finally grasped correct spelling and usage of past present tense was intense (ha). I hadn't stop reading and writing since. I promptly became class secretary and outright theater geek.
This isn't the basis for my argument of comparison - there has been plenty of other situations that has called for my stance in this matter. It could be argued that I could've just enrolled in tuition like so many others while in Malaysia, but this was a time before sending 8 year old children to after school classes became a norm. The fact that tuition classes is considered an imperative component in the Malaysian education system itself is a cause for discussion - is the singularity of a regular school education so inadequate? If so, how and why, and what exactly can be incorporated to pave way for a more 'nurturing' education?
Additional input: my critique sessions with architecture in Shah Alam often concluded with feelings of defeat and frustration. The 'debriefs' given by lecturers would be laced with undertones (or outright proclamations) of disappointment and unmet expectations. There are horror stories of lecturers exhibiting their egos with scribbles on the student's work, often with snippets of words like ugly, defect, and useless. Thankfully, I have only been subjected to milder forms of rejection.
Today, in Greenwich, on the eve of the week before our final project submissions, after a weeklong absence, I came to my tutor with only programmatic diagrams on paper, without a single proper drawing of my project. SH actually sat down with me for a good half hour, discussed with me at great length the direction of my project, gave me ideas, and at one point, drew up a to do list of the sketches I should produce by next Monday. I left the session feeling immensely clear headed and inspired, even with the intense amount of work due. I can't begin to describe the relief that is flowing through my brain.
Thus, are educational models that are being practiced in first world countries applicable in Malaysia - and if not, why? Is it due to the external culture of our respective elders and their conventional outlook towards concepts of success? Which brings us to ourselves, since we are perfectly aware and experienced, to contribute towards improving the learning landscape. Et fin.
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