Along came October, where schools are once again being reopened and kids can now start attending their classes physically in stages on a rotation basis. Much has changed since the aftermath of Covid in 2019, everything has to resort to the new norms and there are rules and regulations that have to be complied in the running of things.
However, in embracing the changes in making our schools safe, we should also embrace certain things that have been plaguing the education system for a while now. I am talking about certain conducts which are inappropriate but have found a way in hindering the kids' learning experiences in school.
Malaysia's education system has been known to produce top students who are cream of the crop in terms of their academic qualifications in which they have been recognised on numerous occasions locally and abroad. This is achievable through the guidance given by our fellow teachers who are giving their level best in delivering the knowledge towards our future generations.
However, aside from all the wonders that we have achieved inadvertently we have also created an unhealthy culture that is favouritism. Through this we have created a systematic caste especially amongst the students, where the teachers are fond of students that have been blessed academically from their other peers.
Teachers may be more focused on the students who can produce excellent results and in turn uplift the ranking of the school as a whole and this is eventually where we are heading in the wrong direction. There is no problem in separating the children according to their understanding on a particular subject matter, in this instance is their intelligence by the separation of classes.
This is because intelligent kids are able to grasp things better and putting them with the other kids may eventually cause them to lose interest in studying as they are able to understand and grasp things in a shorter span of time. Therefore, teaching a class based on their comprehension level is indeed the right teaching method that we are adopting.
However, the problem lies with the attention that we are giving the students according to their comprehension level. Like in the words of the famous Albert Einstein ‘Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’
We seem to believe that students who did not show a certain level of academic prowess as a lost cause. That along the way, we stopped trying to nurture and culture their true potential. School should be a place where it is only limited to learning knowledge on a certain subject, what it should be is a place where students are able to learn and develop themselves.
By focusing solely on the academic growth of our students, we may neglect what our students are actually capable of. There also seems to be a favouritism problem amongst different stream students, where the Science Stream is being made more favourable than other streams such as arts.
Students are being forced to take Science Stream even when they are not interested just because they are able to score in their exams and due to peer pressure they usually comply out of respect for the adult’s point of view on how the world works. This is because we have created a culture where we only emphasise and recognise a certain kind of brilliance and discard everything else.
It is important here to recognise that each student is brilliant in their own way, they may not be gifted academically because they may still be developing and still trying to learn about the world and how it works. Sometimes, they are not able to perform because they possess some other types of brilliance that are not covered within our current education system.
This is because we have adopted the Science Stream as a way we measure our student’s success during their schooling life and should they are unable to produce the results that we prefer, we seem to respond by saying that they do not have a bright future and in turn leads us to selectively discriminating them by preferring their academically gifted peers.
Schools should be more inclusive in accepting all its students, regardless of their academic status. By showing this early on, we are discriminating against students at their earliest stage in life. The teacher’s enthusiasm in teaching should not decline in any way should their students not be on the dot, as they may possess other types of brilliance and it is up to the teachers to cultivate them to the fullest. Or they may just be a slow learner and take a certain amount of encouragement for them to succeed, but if we were to dismiss them on the fact that they are less compared to their academically gifted peers. Then, we are the ones who are actually failing them by denying them the chance to achieve greatness.
The teachers are the ones who are clipping their wings before their wings are strong enough to fly in the skies above. And every year, this systematic caste has failed numerous students in cultivating their true potential in life. The problem is that we think that there exists only one type of greatness and that is through academic prowess. Should the students not fall within the ambit of this category, we assume that they do not possess a bright future and what message are we sending towards our future generation should this remain as our stand towards education?
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