Steve and Pam Wise

Computers have been around since the early 80s, and we have had at least one in the house since ’88. So what is that, coming on 25 years? And in all that time I have never had a computer that I was operating get eaten by a virus. But I did yesterday and I tell you that was a humbling experience.

For all that I use computers almost every waking moment to do my job, I cheerfully admit that I do not know much about the inner workings of them. Perhaps that – and my own innate careful nature – is why I have never been much on taking risks in downloading material or even going to questionable sites. My eldest son, who lives on the edge of technology staring into its vast unfathomable depths for a living, has burned at least a half dozen computer guts that I know about. He wisely doesn’t tell me everything, so the body count is probably a lot higher. But I just had my technological cherry popped, and I am feeling a little chastened.

In my own defence I would mention that is was for the greater good of education. Of course anyone in my position would say that, but I would say that in my case, my argument is justified. My argument runs like this:

I am really, really tired of my students doing their year-end novel study by reading the literature of Dead White (Western) Males, so tired that three years ago I completely revamped the required reading list to include Asian, Latin American and African writers. Despite my efforts, and some increase in the study of world literature, students were still stuck on European writers. I wasn’t getting the results I was looking for. Two years ago I took an IB (International Baccalaureate) course in English and came across their English materials. When a colleague left our program to go to the IB program a year ago I got her to forward me the IB writer’s list, which is truly international in scope.

This semester I implemented the IB list of authors. No one could read outside the list, and they had to show a connectedness between their two novels. As a result I got some truly awesome choices, representing the best of modern international writers. However, this presented the problem of obtaining these books in a culture that practices print censorship and where there are NO public libraries.

This drove me online to find suitable eBook sites. Gutenberg was obviously the first stop. Unfortunately Gutenberg specializes in Dead White Guys. Jsoft eBooks was a good and safe find, offering a limited choice of writers in text files. Other sites were not so promising. Investigating some of these sites is how I probably picked up a virus. However, on my Kindle I can get practically anything almost instantly and at a relatively low cost. But Amazon uses a DRM (digital rights management) format called .azw which can’t be converted using the regular tools. This drove me to Calibre (Thanks Dave!), a free software download (make a donation, it is an awesome product) developed by Kovid Goyal of Mombai. Calibre will convert any ebook format to any other, a very useful tool. But it can’t unlock DRMs, so I needed another program.

A colleague (Thanks Aaron!) suggested I try eBook Converter, a relatively (at $34 US) expensive product that simply unlocks the DRMs by finding the file in your Kindle. Between these two products I have managed to assist my students to get practically every book their newly released imagination has come up with. My own industry and drive has motivated most of them to derive their own eBook solutions. This is an exciting step forward for me and this program. However, there have been costs.

There is always a learning curve with new knowledge, and the cost of my learning how to do all this yesterday was a virus that I had picked up during all this searching that ate my computer, all of its files and all of its programs. Well, so what! No advance comes without setbacks, and I am determined to get my students out of the cultural imperialism that says that the only literature worth studying comes from Western Europe. That is limiting and insulting to the vast panoply of cultures and writers in the world. As for my computer, I had it backed up on a hard drive and the reboot at the shop cost only 50 ringgit ($15) in this tech-savvy country.

I always encourage my students to go to the edge of what they don’t know and jump in. I have always tried to model that myself. I stripped a 550 BSA motorbike to its roots one long winter just to prove to myself that I could. I wooed my wife by restoring an MGB in her parent’s driveway. I have renovated three houses from the studs on out. In none of these things did I have the slightest notion of what I was doing when I started. But in every case I succeeded in doing what I set out to do, and in every case I made a good return on my investment. My return on this investment will be some essays worth writing on some books well worth reading; that, and perhaps some students with a new sense of the value of their own initiative.

Teaching requires a fine balance between emotionality and practicality. Teachers that are too emotional don’t last long. They take personal offense at all the jibes and insults; those “slings and arrows” that get hurled our way from disgruntled students. It undermines and undoes them; they end up discouraged, disillusioned and ultimately defeated. Teachers that are too practical die a different death. They become cold automatons, selfish and self-centered, serving no one joyously, and few effectively. In my time I have seen both come and go, and neither are a pretty sight.

For those of us that remain on that middle path – seeking to meet the practical requirements of the curriculum and staying sensitive to student needs - the road is long and filled with both burden and heartache. But the rewards, when they come, can be awfully sweet. At the end of a tough day at work, I received the following letter from a former student:

Dear Mr.Wise,

You haven’t heard from me in a few years, and I am not even sure if you remember me, with the amount of students you teach each year, but I was in your English4U class in 2008 with Ozzy, not sure if you remember him as well.

Anyway, moving along, maybe it is because of graduation goggles (from: How I Met Your Mother), that has left me pondering more so about the future and reflecting on the past, which has lead me to this, writing you an email to once again let you know what a pleasure and an honour it was to have you as a teacher.  

Though I am certain many of the older adults will not consider 3 years a very long time, the past 3 years has taught me plenty. Considering you are still a teacher, with grades and all, I am happy to report I graduated recently on schedule with a GPA of 3.0 and offers of masters and honours. I do feel that that is an accomplishment to be proud of because from being slightly cocky into thinking I can pass everything, to failing and working my ass off after, I am still learning. (My strengths, my capabilities, and my weaknesses included).

In the past 3 years of studies, I have come into contact with many lecturers. Some, as dedicated to teaching as any teacher could be, some indifferent, and some even cruel enough to tell me that I will fail (not to worry, I proved her wrong with my 5 Distinctions), but never one as kind and as caring you are to your students, and so willing to share your culture and life back from your home in Canada, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I still catch up with you and your wife through your blog occasionally, please send her my best and if you would please, that I think the work she does is very admirable. I suppose after all the rambling, I should get to the point and say that, ICPU was a great experience for me, I worked hard, played hard, so hard I did not even realize I was a merit scholar until graduation day, that was a nice surprise. Never having really excelled in high school, it thought me that I am capable as long as I am willing.

After studying Public Relations for 3 years, life again has taken a funny turn that I myself did not expect. I have turned down the offers to pursue masters and honours, to my father’s dismay, to pursue early childhood teaching. My only hope is that I can one day be an educator as caring and as kind as you once were to me.

Regards,

Pui May

For this I labour; not for financial gain or recognition, but only that I might have the privilege of inspiring some young person to be the man or woman that a loving God intended them to be. If I was that to you, then I have been well repaid. If I was not, please forgive my failings. I promise you that I will not quit striving to be all that God intends me to be as well.

In this part of the world education is a business. In fact after offshore oil and gas, and palm oil, education is the third largest industry in Malaysia. The competition for students is fierce, and all the programs here at Taylor’s College have to compete, not only with other colleges, but also with each other. For the most part this competition is civil and respectful, but with enrolment and even jobs on the line – for all of us are on yearly contract – our program has to fight for every student we get.

Much of that recruitment is conducted on what is called College Days. The College packs about 60 of us into a large hall and thorough the media direct the parents to come and get us. They do. By the hundreds. It is an exhausting three days during which I seldom get time to take a breath, let alone get lunch. This is followed by three weeks of Open Days; a similar marketing free for all, but in a smaller venue with fewer parents.

Many of my colleagues struggle with the promotion of our program as if it were the burger-of-the-month at McDonald’s. This is not the way that education is “sold” in Canada! But this is not Canada, and when in Rome, one must learn Latin. Although I find this recruitment both demanding and exhausting, I enjoy meeting prospective students and their parents and explaining to them the options available to them. I find it instructive to get back in touch with student and parental expectations. Apparently I am quite good at it, signing up (they call it ‘converting’ here!) 11 new students in the past two days alone. I would sign more if the program were more widely known, but I end up spending a lot of my time just overcoming the reluctance to consider a program that the parents have never heard of. It can be a tough sell.

Taylor’s College originally started in Australia, which also ranks education as its third largest industry. The Australian Program is still top dog at the College, followed closely by the Cambridge A-Level Program which draws upon its British heritage in this former British colony to sells its product. Canadian education is largely misunderstood and underappreciated, so it is an uphill battle just to get an opportunity to speak to parents. I figure if I can get a word in, I can sell them on the program, and my 80% conversion rate – yes, Taylor’s tracks that kind of thing – speaks to my effectiveness in doing so. But having put in six days out of the last seven on this service to my employer, all of it on a ‘voluntary’ basis, it is now time for a few days of R&R, and a chance to celebrate the birth of my Saviour. We are on our way to Singapore in the morning so Pam can touch base with her colleagues at TWR’s head office for a couple of days. I have promised not to talk about my work until after our holidays.

As a footnote to what has been a largely successful period of recruiting, in my enthusiasm to sign a new student, I called our rental agent, Rosy, to see if I could find the young lad some accommodation. Instead, I called Rosey, my sister in England and ended up talking to Claire, her daughter, who was visiting from up north. Imagine our collective surprise, and my delight to be able to get in some Christmas greetings with my family. I believe that is called serendipity. And yes, the student ended up enrolled in our program and I upped my conversion rate. Now if only I could convince Taylor’s to pay me a bonus!

The end of a semester is always an event to celebrate but when it ties in with Christmas, it is a great opportunity to get together and enjoy the company of friends and co-workers. We did just that last evening. The party room at our condo complex was the venue for forty seven of us to socialize with even a little bit of a “winter wonderland” created by Shelley.

We opted for a catered turkey dinner with all the trimmings and although the food was plentiful and very good, we did get trapped in one of the cultural gaps we often face, inspite of almost five years of experience. We forgot that a Malaysian caterer has no concept of “a turkey dinner with all the trimmings” even though they understand the components of such a dinner.

They did explain that the turkey would need to be precarved as the waiter would not know how to do this and that was fine. When they began to set up we realized that the turkey was cold, the mashed potatoes served as a small side dish, there was about one cup of gravy (or sauce as they call it here) to serve 47 people and even less cranberries. I had made one of my favourite dishes, a sweet potato casserole which kept getting moved to the dessert area since here sweet potatos are considered a dessert.

However they did serve the remainder of the dishes Asian style so there were ample servings of fish, chicken croquettes, curried chicken, fried rice, spagetti and coleslaw so no one went hungry. It was a lovely evening and we are very grateful for the group of Canadians we have the privilege of knowing here and for the home the we have that enables us to have a part in organizing and hosting these types of events.

I love drama. I think with a little effort and encouragement I could have been an actor. Of course every teacher has to be a little bit of a ham to stand up in front of a class of strangers and seek to teach them things they don’t really want to know. But in English I get to do that as part of the curriculum. In ENG3U we have just finished a study of Macbeth, so we got to act out a scene. Well, at least the kids did. I get my fix by helping with the blocking. I divide the class into groups of four or five at the beginning of the unit so that everyone will have a speaking part when we get to the end.

It has been my experience that Asians love their drama. From Chinese opera to the melodramas on the telly, Asia is awash in a sea of colourful costumes and public performances. My English class is no exception. Students that struggle to write essays or keep up with their journals come alive when they have the opportunity to memorize some lines and act out a little sword play. Macbeth is famously cinematic with its wicked witches, severed heads, malevolent queen and bloodless ghost, and the students have a lot of fun choreographing the violence.

This year I particularly liked Fuad as the Porter, a bright young man who has almost certainly never seen the bottom of a bottle of scotch, yet did an incredible job playing the drunken wit as if to the bottle born. Another excellent performance was enacted by Zaity who was the gracious hostess one moment, and the demanding and demeaning queen the next. I could go on, but you get the picture. Nearly everybody had their lines, and some of them were word perfect.

That was yesterday. Today we got back down to business reviewing the entire semester in preparation for Friday’s exam, although we did manage to have a few laughs along the way. For some reason this has been a difficult term for me. I think the joy of my daughter’s wedding was a tough thing to come down from, and I have struggled to find my regular sure footing and balance. But despite my deficiencies as a teacher, my students seemed to have learned and grown right in front of my eyes, and I am very proud of all they have accomplished this term.

Pam and I are privileged to work and live among some really exceptional people. The staff at Taylor’s that I teach with have to be some of the most educated and talented people I have ever worked with. Most of them have Master’s degrees in education, or are working on getting one, have loads of teachable subjects like drama and music, political science and law, and personal interests that include kayaking, photography, diving and wilderness trekking. Most of them have taught internationally as well, in Dubai and England, China, Korea and Thailand. They are young, personable, friendly and adventurous and have talent up the wazoo. The kids I teach are a pretty talented lot as well!

Some of that talent was on display last night at the Canadian Program’s Talent Show. There were singers and dancers, comedians and magicians, bands and solo acts. The energy level in the lecture theatre was through the roof, and near impossible to contain; every act was greeted with wild cheers of appreciation. The organizers, Randy and Eileen, had wisely allowed the kids to largely run the show themselves, and it was a low budget, no frills affair with the minimum of sound equipment, lighting and stage props; probably the least amount of preparation in that area of anything we have done since I’ve been here. But rather that diminish the effectiveness, it really let the talent of the kids shine thorough in all its raw enthusiasm and ability. The singers were sweet; the band was amazingly talented; the MCs were funny; and the stand-up comedian, Ern, got in some good licks about the teachers, myself included.

But the highlight of the show had to be the faux ‘rap battle.’ Three of the young English teachers put this together. There was a DJ/moderator, Dan Layng who introduced the ‘battle’ and laid down the beat with an awesome self-voiced rhythm/sound track into the microphone. Then he introduced the ‘east coast’ sound of another colleague, Colin Boucher who did a very clever interpretation of an Eminem rap with local references and colour. The kids just went wild! He was then ‘confronted’ by another English teacher, ‘Drey,’ who did a gangsta-style rap also filled with local references and personal ‘attacks’ on his rival. With his raucous style and aggressive attitude the kids were just squealing with delight. This went on for several bouts with very inventive lyrics and complicated rhythms, before they ‘reconciled’ their differences. It was seriously impressive stuff and established these guys reputation around this place for years to come!

Following the show the kids hung around for hours, just chatting happily to themselves and hugging the performers and the stage crew and everyone else involved. Events such as this are what binds a school cohort together and gives the students happy memories of their education that empower their studies. Everyone’s morale gets boosted and students learn to see their teachers in a whole new light; as fellow travellers on the road to betterment, rather than the antagonistic master/slave relationship they have endured for so many years in the Asian school system. It is a revelation to them, and a turning point in their understanding of what education can do for them. We are so happy to be a part of that.

I suppose it must be the nature of this profession to feel that the graduating class that just left was the best you have ever taught. I suppose if you didn’t think that then you wouldn’t have much impact on the group you were teaching. But there are many reasons to think that this might be more than experiential this time.

It the first place it was the largest group we have ever graduated: over 300 students, enough that we needed to have two graduation ceremonies, separated by a very nice buffet lunch. In the second place we had some of the highest marks we have ever awarded. My top student, Yeo Yih Tang, secured a 96% average in English, and fully earned every point of that with essays that easily could have served to secure him entrance to a master’s program. And that was his lowest mark! His science and computer science marks were 100%!

Thirdly we had some of the most engaging and entertaining personalities we have ever had. Our school president, Nizhan, was a constant source of good natured fun in class, and his questions and contributions to class were as pertinent and insightful as they were enjoyable. We had talented musicians and amazing dance troupes, dedicated social workers who tirelessly assisted in the refugee schools that we help sponsor, and supportive and hardworking academics who constantly challenged us to do our very best as teachers.

They might also be the end of a very good run as a school. The government is making noises about cutting back on the scholarship program next year. If they follow through on that proposal our school body will be drastically different in the years to come. It is the scholars who make this program distinctive. Their drive for excellence has given this program an enviable reputation as one of the best in the country. Their numbers ensure a good supply of Canadian teaching talent that although it is constantly changing, seems to constantly improve. This is without question the best staff I have worked with in nearly forty years of teaching.

But then, as I say, it is the nature of my profession to think that whatever just finished can’t be surpassed. After a short – two week! – break I will be back in Malaysia looking to do even better next term. But before I go, a sincere thanks to all my students who have challenged and confronted, encouraged and supported me in my efforts to draw out of them their very best. May your university experience, wherever you end up, be all the more rewarding for the efforts you have made to improve your capacity this year.

These last two days – the weekend – have been recruitment days at our college. Parents come in to inquire about schooling for what is still called A-levels in Malaysia. We are an A-level school, although we do not use that term; we call it pre-university, which is more generic.

Generally I enjoy the conversations I get with parents and students. Having been here for four years I know pretty much everything you can ask me about the various programs here, and I like promoting our particular Canadian brand of education, which according to the PISA test carried out by UN’s OECD is among the best in the world. (http://www.cmec.ca/Press/2010/Pages/2010-12-07.aspx)

I do pretty good at it too, judging by the numbers I recruit and the positive feedback I get from my peers and superiors. In fact I’ve garnered a bit of a reputation for my effective presentations. But this blog is actually more about my weaknesses than my strengths. What do you notice about the picture above? Well there are two things I could point out. One is that there is nobody here: not parents, not counselors, not even cleaning staff. This is because it was 8 o’clock in the morning when I took this picture, and the session doesn’t start until 9.

That’s my weakness. You see after all these years I have come to understand that I am a little bit OCD (my family and colleagues could have told you that years ago). This is why I wake up at 4 am so I can leave the house by 7, and why I am at work at 7.30 when my first class is at 10:30. I have tried staying home, but I just can’t: it eats at me. When the kids were little and we had to drive somewhere I would load them into the car in their jammies at 5 am so I could get going. My poor family!

You think this is normal? Have another look at the picture. Do you see that all the chairs around each table are one colour? If you looked closely you would see the chair legs each straddle the table legs. I did that. Took about twenty minutes (yes, I was here at 7:30) to sort out the colours, which as any sane person would have left the way they were, with the colours all mixed up. Do you see what I mean now? I have a problem.

When I worked at Locke’s I would start coming in about mid-August. I would turn every table upside down, clean out all the gum and stuffed paper notes, right the tables and clean them, and then put them all in order. Next was the drawers and cupboards. Every door got realigned, every door handle tightened. Then I would sort out the bookshelves and finally the science equipment. By the time classes started I could tell you where every book and test tube was in the entire facility.

Some of this is useful. Knowing where all the equipment was would save me hours of looking for whatever another staff member wanted. It also saved the school considerable expense. Nothing was ever stolen, either in science or shop equipment for all the years I worked in the Board. That is because I would do a tool or equipment check at the end of every period. If anything was missing, I could see the space.

How bad is my OCD? Not bad. All the chairs are mixed up again, and I have no inclination to straighten them out. Pam is constantly messing up the cupboards, and I don’t ever say anything to her (although I do straighten them up when she goes away). I don’t think it is getting any worse, as I age, in other words. But I will probably be a weird old man. Someday. (Oh yeah, the title of the post? What do the initials say? LOL! I’m sick!)

Another year, another term over. It went so fast I hardly had time to take it all in. I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it, I generally do. This term had some really nice kids. It also had its share of trouble. For some reason you get to like the ones that cause you the most grief the most. I was also very happy to get some students from the previous term back for a second round. Some of them even asked to be transfered into my class, if you can believe it! Gluttons for punishment, I suppose. Some on leaving did me the great honour of thanking me for affecting their lives for the better. For this I labour.

Yesterday was the final exam. Three hours of sheer terror for the kids, writing until their wrists were sore. I don’t know why we feel we have to subject our kids to this torture in order to assess them. I already have a pretty good idea of where they all stand. But rules are rules, and even after all these years, education hasn’t changed much in this one fundamental area. At least in our program the exam is only worth 30%. In the Cambridge A-Level program it is worth 100%. Now that is REAL terror!

Yesterday I got five hours of marking in before my brain started to wander. This morning I intend to start as soon as I have this post up and try to get in ten hours. That will not finish the stack, but it will be a good way through it, I hope. I wish all my students well on the coming week’s worth of exams. Study hard, write loads, and stay off that silly Facebook!

Former student Edmund Mok is back in Malaysia after his first year in Engineering at the University of Toronto. He and I went for lunch today so I could pick his brain about what the year was like for him. Here are his insights into that year, which I post here for my students who will shortly be headed to Canada for their first year.

Canada is a great country (I could have told him that!) and Toronto is a great city for university. There is a lot of variety in a very short distance. Spadina Road is fantastic; you can get almost any kind of food in the world there. The libraries are amazing; they are everywhere and there is a huge number of books available. Even the architecture is worth looking at. He loved the parks and intends to get a bicycle on his return for second year so he can see more of the city.

The climate is really not a problem. You quickly get used to it. The first snowfall was an incredible experience. The whole landscape is transformed.

Residence is definitely the way to go. There are a lot of problems with setting up on your own: phone, internet, TV, electricity bills, cooking and transportation. All of that is taken care of in residence. He was at New College and had twenty Malaysian friends, mostly from CPU on his floor and the adjacent floor. They would travel together and just hang out.

Having study buddies in your course of study is really important to success at university. The work load is huge and it is almost all assignment based, like it was at CPU. He felt that the Canadian program really helped him to prepare for what he has done this year.

The allowance that his sponsor provided was enough for him to set aside money for his return fare to Malaysia this summer. A lot of students spent it all on things, and couldn’t get home for the summer. It is really worth it to save up for the airfare.

Living in a foreign country has taught him a lot about himself; his strengths and weakness. He has matured a lot over the year and is looking forward to the second year now that he has a better handle of what is takes to live in Canada. It has been a great experience.

The highlight of the year was renting a bus so he and twenty friends could travel to Niagara in the spring and see the Falls. The only regret was that the Maid of the Mist, a boat that goes right up under the Falls, wasn’t running that day. He intends to go back next year.

It was great seeing Edmund again. I enjoyed his company and am encouraged to think that our program has helped students like him to seize the future and make their way in the world. Yes, I do need a salary to pay the rent and support my wife’s ministry, but my student’s success means so much more to me than the money I receive for doing this job. It is one of my great joys in life.