Assalamualaikum w.b.t.
I am reading a book entitled Hillbilly
Elegy by J.D. Vance. There is a part in one of the chapters that he said when
he watched an episode of The West Wing about education in America, the
fictional president debates whether he should push school vouchers (giving
public money to schoolchildren so that they escape failing public schools) or
instead focus exclusive on fixing those same failing schools. In an entire
discussion about why poor kids struggled in school, the emphasis rested
entirely on public institutions. These words from the book reminds me of an
article from a public secondary teacher that published three years ago about
the ugly truth of Malaysian education.
Picture 1: Front Cover of Hillbilly Elegy
In
that article, he pointed a lot of hidden truth as a teacher but I just wanted to
emphasize only one point here that was the quality of Malaysian students is
compromised due to bad surroundings. He said this kind of bad surroundings can
be found in ‘kampung’ area where nobody practice English. I am not trying to
say that English is the measurement for intelligence, but it is obviously that
the students that come from bad surroundings can’t even pass the passing mark
for English exam. They are raised by bad parents with bad discipline, bad
cultural and community influence, poor financial background, divorced parents,
and the list goes on.
This kind of story is quite similar with
the author of the book, J.D. Vance as he was one of the survivor that managed
to escape from his alcoholic mother and poverty. So, when these young students
cannot handle all this kind of problems on their own, they turn to other things
to escape from reality such as skipping classes, smoking and some of them
dropping out of school. As their parents are no longer care about them, the
teachers struggle as hard as they can to educate these students. However, the
root of this problem still cannot be cured which is lack of education and love
from home. The teachers are only able to monitor, scold or punish the students
at school but things that happen outside of the school are out of their
controls.
The public tends to focus the
attribution only on teachers, improving the school environment and criticizing
education ministry. But they forgot to focus on the root of the problem. I was
a high school student in the northern part of Malaysia and I used to mingle
with these ‘kampung’ students. I have to admit what this teacher said is true.
I am a ‘kampung’ girl as well but alhamdulillah, Allah blessed me to live in a
good surrounding and got proper education. I still remember a conversation
between me and a new teacher that just coming into our school. She said she
felt so grateful to come here as her former school students were so lack of
respect toward their teachers.
She even said that it was normal to hear
news about pregnant students in that school. She tried so hard to discipline
them, advising them and complaining to their parents, but no actions were
taken. She felt disappointed and asked to move to another school. This makes me
wonder, what actually makes a school is a failing school? The students, the
teachers, or the administration? I really want to blame the parents actually
but I realized that blaming is not going to change anything without actions.
This teacher said the ones that need to blame are the students themselves. The
teachers cannot force the students to come to school when they choose to absent.
I believe that a failing school is the
product of failing students. And the failing students are the products of
failing parents. I can see how schools in Malaysia are so competitive to get in
higher rank until we, the public become so obsessed to label a good school and
a fail school. I am not yet a parent but I understand it is not an easy job to
raise a human being to become the next future leader. Instead of focusing which
schools are the best, which are not, I would like to call all parents out there
to teach your kids respect, punish them for their mistakes and discipline them
before the teachers do all that at school.
“They (parents) want
us (teachers) to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the
fact that many of them are raised by wolves”. –Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
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