After weeks of endless attempts to cram useless information into our heads, memorising numerous arbitrary moral values and their arbitrary definitions and finally, coming face to face with those horrendous, blasphemous results, it's once again back to the time of the year to start guessing the smart weirdos in our class of 3 Batai 2009.
Ahem.
Correction: Start guessing the REST of the smart weirdos in class. The number one post is indisputably Melissa's territory.
Oh great. Look at me now. I'm starting to get really exam oriented. And it's because of this I'm starting to grumble.
Look at what the education system is doing to us! Doesn't anyone notice our freaky mental dysfunction? We rarely touch our books the whole year and only start hitting the books a few weeks before the exam. The smart people might start a few months early for all we know. For what? To get good grades? To get that 'A' on our report cards and to rid the minor blemishes of 'B's?
What's the point?
Let's look at it from another perspective.
Decades ago, during our parents' childhood years, have you any idea what exams were for? They were mainly to see if the students understood what they learnt. Those who really do remember what they've learnt are the true genii.
Fastforward to today and ask yourself this question. What are exams for? If you answered ".......to show how much the students know/ have learnt/ understood", think again. Exams now are mainly to boast your intelligence, to show people how good you are at memorising useless facts you don't even need to know to continue surviving. And, not to forget, to secure scholarships.
Even the top students. Don't believe?
If you talked to any of them before(or, you are one of them), notice that if something or some random fact isn't going to come out in the next exam, the smart kid won't even bother remembering it. Or, if the teacher tells the students which chapters to study for the next term, nobody bothers reading the other "irrelevant" chapters which are not coming out.
So, are they really that smart? (I'm not bursting your bubble, okay? Don't throw eggs at me!)
I'm just hoping for that one day when the principal would turn up on the first day of school and say that all the exams throughout the year are cancelled. There would be no more streaming anymore, no more positions, no more handing in our workbooks. Just observe everyone. No one would touch their books ever again.
And boom!
One day, your biology teacher walks in, noticeably happier than usual, and announces triumphantly that today would be your end-year assessment. Observe how everyone's expressions melt to a glassy stare into space, their jaws opening unconsciously, becoming a playground for flies. It wouldn't make much of a difference even if your mouth was closed anyway, you're going to die soon.
Trust me, more than half of the school would fail.
Although it sounds sadistic, I'm waiting for that to happen. Then, we all know who the true nerds are [and copying homework can be made easier].
I mean, exams have even leaked into the teachers heads and started polluting their thoughts with "must-fail-students" thoughts. What is wrong with everyone?
An archetype for this is Pn Nomi, 3 Batai's happy form teacher. Why happy? Is it because she jokes a lot or has that rare sense of humour? Or maybe she loves to talk to our class to make us feel better? Or is she some revolutionary teacher who challenges the forces that be?
Nah. What nonsense. She's the teacher who successfully "failed" all the 3 Batai students. Which teacher has ever accomplished such a feat? In the first class?? Well, that's our perception of it. "Fail" means not getting an 'A'. The highest mark was TWO marks from an 'A'. Not much difference now, is it? Only two humans got that honour [Melissa and *ahem* I]. Why am I complaining then? See, it shows I'm infected too. The 'A'-grade disease. The percentage comparison. Everyone was so disappointed as "the BM essay marks pulled down everyone's percentage by 3% and above".
But anyway, that's not my point. My point is..........back to exam-oriented thinking. As the above shows, even teachers are infected. And once the students get the results back, what else can you, as a student, do? One girl who suffered from a chronic exam-oriented infection said she was going to tell her tuition teacher about this outrage. She said this was ridiculous and she needed to complain to her tuition teacher.
Honestly, what does she expect her tuition teacher to do? Is he supposed to storm after Pn Nomi, demanding an explanation and sueing her for giving everyone in the first class inexplicably undesirable marks only the last class kids deserve? Pht*. Now that's what I call ridiculous.
*Pht is pronouced as "PFFT" and is a legal word, used to express annoyance. Found in scrabble =D
If you inspect the Malaysian policy closer, you would realise our "kiasu-ness" might even be comparable to Singapore's, only difference being we practice a more corrupted version of it. Seriously.
Public exams questions "leak" out weeks or even days before the actual exam. Excuse me! Aren't we all supposed to be prepared for this ourselves? It's basically such an insult to know that you've worked so hard all by yourself and the invisible "forces that be" are now leaking out questions for the lower classes. Is this an exam or what? People are announcing the questions that might come out just so that we can score higher marks for the exam????
For heaven's sake, stop it!!!! The standard for grade 'A' is already so low and you're still doing all these??? Hey, Americans!! *Waves frantically* How would you feel if I told you grade 'A' is from 70-100 marks in the public exam????? It's dumb, isn't it?! While some others might argue that Eastern countries have a tendency to be exam-oriented, I find this ridiculous. Might as well scrape off all the exams.
Think about it, my fellow compatriots. What's the whole point of memorising so many facts only to throw them away later? So what if you know that Francis Light found Penang? So what if you know how the Japanese conquered us? Who the heck cares if your brain can digest all the moral values and their arbitrary definitions when you can't even apply them? For heavens sake, some people don't even know who the first man on the moon was. Or Genghis Khan. Or Napoleon Bonaparte (some people thought he invented Neapolitan-flavoured ice-cream). Let's learn all these other useful things, rather than study things we'd forget after the exam. It's time we make our syllabus global.
Wow. Enough exam rantings. I bet I'm boring you to death.
**********************************************
Some other weird happenings this week includes:
Power transition from Abdullah Badawi to Najib. Sigh, I do not wish to say anything else. When you've got nothing nice to say, just shut up. (Even the French know it).
Najib got his "dream team", which the rakyat (citizens) portray as "nightmare team".
Mr K (extra-curricular teacher) was joking throughout his entire speech during assembly. Some parts include ".....so much disciplinary problem when you're back in school.......you get apprehended.......the good news is, Liverpool won.....". And when he was praising the sportsmen in school, he asked each one of them to stand up for their respective sport when mentioned. Very few dared to stand up for some unknown fear. "Those who stood up are brave. Very good. Those who dared not stand up.......are also very good! Modesty, a moral value, has been applied.......". It soon became "misplaced modesty" and teachers have been criticising our class for that the whole week.
I don't know why I bothered to offer myself to perform for the school's MAC. Now, I have to arrange a song in 2 days.
No more complaints. Enjoy your weekend.
Cheers,
Ryx.
Look at what the education system is doing to us! Doesn't anyone notice our freaky mental dysfunction? We rarely touch our books the whole year and only start hitting the books a few weeks before the exam. The smart people might start a few months early for all we know. For what? To get good grades? To get that 'A' on our report cards and to rid the minor blemishes of 'B's?
Let's look at it from another perspective.
Decades ago, during our parents' childhood years, have you any idea what exams were for? They were mainly to see if the students understood what they learnt. Those who really do remember what they've learnt are the true genii.
Fastforward to today and ask yourself this question. What are exams for? If you answered ".......to show how much the students know/ have learnt/ understood", think again. Exams now are mainly to boast your intelligence, to show people how good you are at memorising useless facts you don't even need to know to continue surviving. And, not to forget, to secure scholarships.
Even the top students. Don't believe?
If you talked to any of them before(or, you are one of them), notice that if something or some random fact isn't going to come out in the next exam, the smart kid won't even bother remembering it. Or, if the teacher tells the students which chapters to study for the next term, nobody bothers reading the other "irrelevant" chapters which are not coming out.
So, are they really that smart? (I'm not bursting your bubble, okay? Don't throw eggs at me!)
I'm just hoping for that one day when the principal would turn up on the first day of school and say that all the exams throughout the year are cancelled. There would be no more streaming anymore, no more positions, no more handing in our workbooks. Just observe everyone. No one would touch their books ever again.
And boom!
One day, your biology teacher walks in, noticeably happier than usual, and announces triumphantly that today would be your end-year assessment. Observe how everyone's expressions melt to a glassy stare into space, their jaws opening unconsciously, becoming a playground for flies. It wouldn't make much of a difference even if your mouth was closed anyway, you're going to die soon.
Trust me, more than half of the school would fail.
Although it sounds sadistic, I'm waiting for that to happen. Then, we all know who the true nerds are [and copying homework can be made easier].
I mean, exams have even leaked into the teachers heads and started polluting their thoughts with "must-fail-students" thoughts. What is wrong with everyone?
An archetype for this is Pn Nomi, 3 Batai's happy form teacher. Why happy? Is it because she jokes a lot or has that rare sense of humour? Or maybe she loves to talk to our class to make us feel better? Or is she some revolutionary teacher who challenges the forces that be?
Nah. What nonsense. She's the teacher who successfully "failed" all the 3 Batai students. Which teacher has ever accomplished such a feat? In the first class?? Well, that's our perception of it. "Fail" means not getting an 'A'. The highest mark was TWO marks from an 'A'. Not much difference now, is it? Only two humans got that honour [Melissa and *ahem* I]. Why am I complaining then? See, it shows I'm infected too. The 'A'-grade disease. The percentage comparison. Everyone was so disappointed as "the BM essay marks pulled down everyone's percentage by 3% and above".
But anyway, that's not my point. My point is..........back to exam-oriented thinking. As the above shows, even teachers are infected. And once the students get the results back, what else can you, as a student, do? One girl who suffered from a chronic exam-oriented infection said she was going to tell her tuition teacher about this outrage. She said this was ridiculous and she needed to complain to her tuition teacher.
Honestly, what does she expect her tuition teacher to do? Is he supposed to storm after Pn Nomi, demanding an explanation and sueing her for giving everyone in the first class inexplicably undesirable marks only the last class kids deserve? Pht*. Now that's what I call ridiculous.
*Pht is pronouced as "PFFT" and is a legal word, used to express annoyance. Found in scrabble =D
If you inspect the Malaysian policy closer, you would realise our "kiasu-ness" might even be comparable to Singapore's, only difference being we practice a more corrupted version of it. Seriously.
Public exams questions "leak" out weeks or even days before the actual exam. Excuse me! Aren't we all supposed to be prepared for this ourselves? It's basically such an insult to know that you've worked so hard all by yourself and the invisible "forces that be" are now leaking out questions for the lower classes. Is this an exam or what? People are announcing the questions that might come out just so that we can score higher marks for the exam????
For heaven's sake, stop it!!!! The standard for grade 'A' is already so low and you're still doing all these??? Hey, Americans!! *Waves frantically* How would you feel if I told you grade 'A' is from 70-100 marks in the public exam????? It's dumb, isn't it?! While some others might argue that Eastern countries have a tendency to be exam-oriented, I find this ridiculous. Might as well scrape off all the exams.
Think about it, my fellow compatriots. What's the whole point of memorising so many facts only to throw them away later? So what if you know that Francis Light found Penang? So what if you know how the Japanese conquered us? Who the heck cares if your brain can digest all the moral values and their arbitrary definitions when you can't even apply them? For heavens sake, some people don't even know who the first man on the moon was. Or Genghis Khan. Or Napoleon Bonaparte (some people thought he invented Neapolitan-flavoured ice-cream). Let's learn all these other useful things, rather than study things we'd forget after the exam. It's time we make our syllabus global.
Wow. Enough exam rantings. I bet I'm boring you to death.
**********************************************
Some other weird happenings this week includes:
Power transition from Abdullah Badawi to Najib. Sigh, I do not wish to say anything else. When you've got nothing nice to say, just shut up. (Even the French know it).
Najib got his "dream team", which the rakyat (citizens) portray as "nightmare team".
Mr K (extra-curricular teacher) was joking throughout his entire speech during assembly. Some parts include ".....so much disciplinary problem when you're back in school.......you get apprehended.......the good news is, Liverpool won.....". And when he was praising the sportsmen in school, he asked each one of them to stand up for their respective sport when mentioned. Very few dared to stand up for some unknown fear. "Those who stood up are brave. Very good. Those who dared not stand up.......are also very good! Modesty, a moral value, has been applied.......". It soon became "misplaced modesty" and teachers have been criticising our class for that the whole week.
I don't know why I bothered to offer myself to perform for the school's MAC. Now, I have to arrange a song in 2 days.
No more complaints. Enjoy your weekend.
Cheers,
Ryx.
