Home Thoughts From Abroad

I cannot honestly remember a time when I didn’t want to be a teacher. I still do. And if you stick at anything long enough eventually you get some recognition for what you are doing. Today I and about two hundred of my teaching colleagues were honoured by Taylor’s College and University in an award ceremony for our service to the company. For me this was an almost insignificant five years, for others it was twenty-five or thirty.

Of course five years is just the time I’ve taught here. It total it is a lot more. I must say though that for all the award ceremonies I have attended over the years, this was the most respectful and appreciative of staff and their contribution to student lives. The gifts themselves were nice; but the recognition a lot nicer. The staff here are exceptional, both in their academic qualifications and in their cheerful and wholehearted acceptance of each other’s ethnic and religious differences. They celebrate those differences and treasure the joy and variety it brings to their lives. That was certainly on display in today’s award ceremony.

I appreciate the opportunity to finish out my career in such a positive and cheerful environment alongside such a talented staff. I feel like I am making a contribution to the development of this country and its intellectual capital. Malaysia has enormous potential to be a regional leader, but it will not assume that role without an educated population that continues to respect its rich ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity.

Jody Kline writes: It is refreshing to hear that teachers are being valued for their service to students somewhere. Unfortunately the atmosphere is not so great here right now. It is a difficult time to be a teacher in Ontario.

Steve writes: It was getting that way when you and I left, and the situation doesn’t seem to be improving. Here in Asia there is still a lot of respect for both authority and age and this translates into a much more respectful environment all around. The national education system is still quite patchy; there are excellent schools and very poor ones. So the students we get often have a tough uphill struggle to get ready for university. But they are most respectful and appreciative of our efforts to assist them and it is very rewarding to see them come to grips with their deficiencies and learn to overcome them. I’ve had a very enjoyable five years and it is nice to still be making a difference in young people’s lives.

I do not like to take what my profession calls ‘positions of added responsibility’ for reasons that I perhaps will explore in a later post. However, I am I great believer in professional development. I know that the vast majority of the public see this as another unnecessary “holiday” in an already vacation rich job. Let me assure that most of these days are no holiday; indeed this latest one was a great deal of work.

The facilitator for last week’s session was Lauren Wilson, a retired teacher/administrator who now works as an education consultant and who has extensive experience in effective assessment practices. This may bore the life out of most people, but for me it is the heart of the matter. Without honest assessment there is no student progress, a tenet of education that mountains of research has repeatedly proven. The heart of proper assessment is what is called assessment FOR learning; that is to say, assessment that teaches the student how they can improve what they are presently doing. This is known as formative assessment.

In my discipline we teach students how to conduct research and write structural essays that have a credible foundation. If you were to break this into component parts, as I do, there would be fifteen discrete steps. Fourteen of these would be assessment FOR learning; only the last would be assessment OF learning and be recorded. Last Friday I and several colleagues led the three hundred or so teachers of the four pre-University programs through a professional development day to provide greater understanding of this important instrument of student success.

We began with a three hour workshop ourselves for each of the three days prior to the PD day. I already teach a full load and then volunteer to cover the study hall for a period each day, so these three days really taxed me both mentally and physically. But Lauren was enthusiastic and knowledgeable and it was a worthwhile week of learning for me in which I acquired a number of new techniques, some of which I have already put into practice. On the PD day itself we got to teach our colleagues what we ourselves had learned and that too was worthwhile. Our team consisted of me and Shelley, a colleague from this program, and two other ladies from one of our sister pre-U programs. I have to say that we did a more than creditable job in the three workshops that we ran.

Far from being the slack day that the public views professional development as, it was a full and demanding week of learning and teaching in addition to my regular teaching load, and I am looking forward to a somewhat more reduced load for a while so I can get caught up on my regular teaching duties.

When I taught in Canada I would often have international students in my classes; mostly Asians. Over time I learned to tell the difference between North Vietnamese (Nguyen) and South Vietnamese (Nguwen) last names. I would always ask Muslims if they were honouring Ramadan and seek to sensitize my class to their situation. I enjoyed the cultural and social perspectives they brought to our discussions.

But teaching in Malaysia takes the concept of ‘international student’ to a whole new level. I had my first class today and as I always do took the time to have the students introduce themselves and say something about where they are from. The answers were revealing. I heard Malaysia many times, of course, but also Sabah, Indonesia, China, Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Yemen, Egypt, Zambia, and Kazakhstan; all within a class of twenty students! In the past I have also had students from Vietnam, Mongolia, Iraq, Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania. The only students I have taught that could even loosely be described as Caucasian have been from Kazakhstan.

The perspectives that such a multi-ethnic group bring to my classes are interesting and richly rewarding. In such a diverse group, students learn to listen and develop respect for how other people see the world. They learn to be less dogmatic about their own culture and religion and understand how their own views can be accommodated within a larger worldview. It is a win-win situation for everyone, and an exciting classroom environment to teach in.

Some Canadians worry that with such an open immigration policy (the official target of 1% per year has resulted in a population growth through immigration at just under 25% in the last 25 years, a rate that places Canada’s immigration rate among the highest in the world; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Canada ) our very way of life is threatened. I see the glass as half-full. I think our way of life will only be enriched and strengthened as immigrants bring their own vital perspectives to bear on the wonderful mosaic that is Canada. I know that the cultural mix in my classroom has only brought me joy and appreciation for all the flavor and colour that diversity brings. As the French in our nation would say, vive la difference!

Prom Night is always a bit of a nightmare for the organizing committee; which is probably why after all these years I still refuse to organize one. Kudos to those who did organize this year’s Prom at the Empire Hotel in Subang Jaya, because it was very nice one with a good DJ, good food and lots of very pretty ladies and handsome gentlemen who were not averse to having their picture taken with an old codger like me. You can tell from my silly grin that I was not averse to having my picture taken either; in fact I was having a good time.

The highlight for me this year was doing some music with some of the kids I had the pleasure of spending the year with. Tan Swee Chuan, the colleague pictured here on my left, had been part of the CPU Jazz Band for a number of years. I have been coming out somewhat infrequently, but two of my English students, Chris Tan and Khabibah Munir are very musical and along with Chris’ friend Ben we prepared a couple of songs that suited Bibah’s range and bluesy voice.

Bibah sang ‘Cry Me a River’ to the great delight of the crowd as Justin Timberlake had done a recent cover and a number of kids knew it. No one had even heard of The Girl From Ipanema, and I guess that bossa nova flavor is pretty much a novelty here. Nonetheless Bibah did a great job and both Chris and Ben got in some solo licks while Swee Chuan kept up a solid beat. I contented myself with rhythm and stayed pretty much in the background as I like to feature kids rather than teachers at events like this.

I will miss this group of kids. They have been fun and most kind towards me and they have worked hard to ensure their own success. Grad is coming up in just one week and then they will all be going their separate ways. I wish them all the best!

I am thoroughly engaged in marking for the end of term at the moment, but I thought I would take a little time out to post a blog about my students. These examples come from the exams I am marking. One of the questions on the exam asks students to select a character from the novels, dramas and media works we have studied that they can best relate to. Four of my students write:

 “I can relate the most to Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth because I think I have the same personality disorder as her. I had a harsh childhood during which my parents divorced. I was lonely because nobody wanted to be my friend when I was small. Like Ofelia I ran away from reality by creating a fantasy world as a game. I considered the game to be my real life and I would seldom to go out to play. This turned me into a person that found it hard to believe others. However, I am also like Ofelia in her morals and ethics; I will not sacrifice another for my happiness, just as Ofelia chooses not to sacrifice her brother for her happiness.”

“I can relate to the main character in Life of Pi. I am not from a poor family, but like Pi I had to leave my country for another because of economic and political problems. Although I should have had the right to live with my family in my own country, I had to leave because of the problems that the people had and they could not come with me. In this country I stayed alone in my room for two months; I didn’t speak to anyone. Like Pi I had to face the fear of being alone and face all the religious and cultural differences.”

“I can personally relate to the situation of Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot. I lost my entire family in a car accident; only my brother and I survived. We were in a foreign country and could do nothing without our relatives. Our friends tried to help, but we felt lonely and lost with no answers, as nothing could replace the love of our family. In Vladimir and Estragon’s situation they tried to take their own lives, but my brother and I stayed strong until family members came to help us.”

“Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth is the character that I related to the most. In this story Ofelia is a small girl who has lost her father due to the war. I am a daughter who lost my dear father during my childhood. He met a horrible accident and passed away. As we know Ofelia creates an elaborate fantasy world to cope with her loss in the hope of reuniting with her father in the Underworld. I used to have the same condition as Ofelia. In the days after my father passed away I always dreamt about him and wished to live together with him in the other world. I even tried suicide but fortunately I failed to do so. My mother was heartbroken when she realized I wanted to give up on myself. Her tears woke me up and taught me a lesson. From that day I began to let go of my father’s death and started a new life in high school.”

There are other stories, as you can well imagine, but these serve to make to my point. And my point is simply this: it is a hurting world out there. Students aren’t immune from tragedy, and when it happens they are often ill-equipped to deal with it. It grieves my heart to see the way that some adults, including teachers at times, treat the young people in their care. And they are young people: they aren’t children or students, and they certainly aren’t ‘clients’ or ‘customers,’ which is sometimes how the impersonal ‘business’ of education treats them these days. They are people, and often they are carrying huge burdens of pain and loss and personal difficulty.

The very least that we as teachers can do is to treat these young people with dignity and respect. The ultimate goal is to treat them with the same love and concern with which you would treat your own children; to care for them, to love them. This is what I try to do:  I seek to pray for my students every day, and to pray for myself that I would be the kind of loving and supportive adult that these young people need to guide them on their journey through their formative years.  To fail at this most important task is to fail as a teacher, no matter what else you manage to teach them, and perhaps even to fail at the most fundamental level: to fail to be a caring human being.

My worst mark in university was Art. I don’t even know why I took it, except for the fact that it was my third semester in a row and I had to cover six subjects in order to make up for one I’d had to drop in second semester as it was destroying my average. Ironically my Art mark did even worse damage, so it was a bad decision all around.

My dear departed father-in-law, aside from being the closest thing to a Christian saint that I have ever known, was also a pretty competent artist. His last few still-lifes were testimony to the growing development of an idiosyncratic style. His teapots had a Van Gogh-like sinuousness to them that I found very appealing. I will never approach his talent, and indeed have trouble with anything beyond a tedious replication of detail.

So I understand that when I announced to my classes that we would celebrate the conclusion of our study of Life of Pi by spending the day drawing illustrations for the book, some cheered, while others let out audible groans of dismay. However, Asian students are generally game for anything, and most tackled the assignment with enthusiasm. Some brought in snacks, I put on a little Norah Jones, and we eased into the March Break in a cheerful mood.

Life of Pi is a wonderful little book, full of wise insights into the human condition. We are not finished with it yet, as my students have to whip their three arguments into a second draft over the holiday. But we are done with the study, and I’d have to say that we are all a little wiser for the experience. If you haven’t yet read Yann Martell’s intriguing and many-layered story of survival, you are in for a rare reading treat.

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.