When will we ever learn?

Culture Cul De Sac
By Jacqueline Pereira

They say a teacher’s job is never done, but our columnist tells why she is done with teaching.

I NEVER wanted to be a teacher. Looking back now, it was a short, five-year career stint that began with a deliberately badly done entrance exam and a sulky monosyllabic interview.

I categorically stated that I did not want to teach. Yet I was accepted.

In the beginning, it all went well. The teacher training process was unexpectedly engaging. From tennis to trekking, English Literature and lesson planning, every day was an absorbing learning experience.

The assignments, though many, were creative and thought-provoking. Even better, we were located in the middle of Kuala Lumpur. With the thriving distractions the city offered in the late 1980s, college life was a party that did not end for two-and-a-half years.

Nevertheless, that first semester, my mates and I worked really hard at our coursework. All outings were put on hold while, in our cramped hostel rooms, we concentrated on passing our exams.

That was until we sat for the first paper. We simply couldn’t believe our luck. It was easy, and in the following semesters we wised up.We would sneak back into our hostels at 7am after another disco-crawl, then shower, change and dash into the halls to sit for our exams. And we graduated at the top of our class.

Thus, with armfuls of ideas, renewed enthusiasm and misguided (as I would find out later) idealism, the first few terms in a real school were very satisfying.

The makeshift library at the back of the classroom actually attracted students to read. The speak-English-only day saw students hesitantly trying out new words with their limited vocabulary. And I had a growing collection of gifts – stickers and used erasers.

So, despite not wanting to be a teacher, I greatly enjoyed the process of imparting knowledge to receptive young minds, testing their capabilities and truly appreciating the progress these students made by the end of each school year.

The teaching stint also presented me with opportunities to be creative and to experiment with teaching methods and tools to enhance the students’ learning experience.

Yet, eventually, all good intentions faded.

For a start, 80% of my coursemates could hardly speak English, let alone complete their assignments without help. We were supposedly destined to teach English as a Second Language in primary schools, yet more than half of the trainee teachers could barely string a sentence together correctly.

Then the exams for the trainee teachers became simpler. I now assume this was to keep pass rates high and meet the annual demand for new schoolteachers. Polarisation was rife, with most extra-curricular activities divided by race and religion.

The seeds of the dumbing down of education – learning just enough to pass exams and doing no more than required – were first sown in these batches of teachers before they even stepped into a classroom.

In the early months of the first year, beneath the watchful, though sometimes cynical eyes of the more experienced and jaded senior teachers, a fresh college graduate is safe. I, too, took my job quite seriously, and tried to, as the cliché now has it, “make a difference’’ in my students’ lives.

Until the length of my skirt was questioned (not a mini, mind you – the hem was on the knee instead of below). Then there were complaints that my tests were too difficult, my classes too noisy. Clearly, I did not fit the required mould.

As in any system, corrupt ways are hard to break, especially when they become routine: Purchasing workbooks from a certain vendor only; students receiving their questions before an exam; plum school positions and promotions given only to favourites.

That was almost two decades ago. But reading about the debates regarding our current education system and listening to the woes of parents, I can’t help but feel that perhaps not much has changed.

I’m not an educationist. Neither do I have authority. So I can only comment from experience. The culprits of a poor education system are many, but they do not include young students whose open and willing minds are closed to suit adult recalcitrance and incompetence.

The current debate and decision on teaching Maths and Science in Bahasa Malaysia is a prime example. I may be vilified for saying this, but in my opinion, the rot lies in the establishment that creates and perpetuates the education system and its teachers. Not in the students who are deemed unable to cope.

I could have been a good teacher, but I’m glad I got out when I did. The question is: why did the system accept me? And, more pertinently in the broader scheme of things: when are we going to start learning?

Extracted from The Start 19th July 2009