Home Thoughts From Abroad

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.

At the end of the term our students have to demonstrate what they have learned in a final project that is worth about a third of their overall mark. Understandably there is some anxiety about this project. In English they have to read two novels and three supplementary texts, cite nine secondary sources and use proper MLA format in writing a two thousand word essay. Then they have to present the result of all this work to their class, and defend it from questions from their peers and teacher. None of them have had to do any of this before they got to our program, and it is a huge mountain of new material to climb in just one year.

It is a credit to how effective this program is, and the drive of our students to master the curriculum that they do as well as I have seen over the last two weeks. The novels have ranged from Chinua Achebe to V.S. Naipaul, from Dickens to Dostoevsky and have a wide range of topics from archetypical heroes to the problems of racism in modern societies. Presentations must be accompanied by slide shows illustrating the topic and then the student must demonstrate competence by answering questions from the class, some of which can get quite pointed.

For two weeks I get to sit back and listen to my students teach, and assess their work. For the most part I have been very impressed. I don’t have a single student who was unable to present, and given the weight of this project, that means that I will probably see every student pass my course; a great relief to me as I hate to see students fail. Given that English is the second and in some cases the third language these kids have had to learn, that in itself is a huge accomplishment. I am extraordinarily proud of their efforts, and trust that the whole experience, from essay outline to presentation, will prove to have been useful in their future academic careers.

That means Happy Teacher’s Day in Bahasa. I heard a lot of it in the hallways in our school yesterday. So did other staff; in fact the lunch room tables were loaded with goodies of all kinds. Students that I taught last semester gave me flowers and cards, and one of my classes, the one pictured here, brought me an enormous cake and insisted on taking a class picture. We were all delighted to take a moment to celebrate our progress as a class together.

I really do enjoy teaching in Asia. I like the curriculum; the opportunity to finally give expression to my life-long love of literature and subtleties of the English language. I like the climate and the opportunities to see a part of the world I had previously only read about. I like being able to support my wife’s important ministry in Cambodia and South-East Asia. But mostly I like the kids.

Asians have not forgotten the importance of family and respect for their elders, including their teachers. Over time this translates into self-respect, for as these kids work hard to please their families and teachers, they grow in competence and ability and see themselves becoming the people they themselves want to be. That joy of accomplishment can be seen on these young faces in the picture.

I have just finished marking their final essay for the term on a thesis they will have to present to their peers and then defend for thirty minutes. They are understandably nervous about the challenge. But I have read their essays, and they have nothing to worry about. This is excellent work, by any standard. Instead of satisfying the requirement that they provide support from nine secondary sources in addition to the two novels they have been asked to compare, many of them have far exceeded that requirement. I have one student who has over twenty citational references from an astonishingly wide range of disciplines.

Marking seventy of these essays is tedious and time-consuming and has occupied every waking minute outside of the classroom for the last week. But it has also been very encouraging to see the growth in research and writing ability that these students display in their work. We only get them for a year in our program, and that year is crucial in their success in university in Canada. It is hard work for all of us. But the students’ genuine respect and appreciation for all that we do for them as teachers is a great encouragement to us to keeping on doing our best for them. It was for me a very Happy Teacher’s Day! Thanks to all my students for making it so.

March Break, or Reading Week, has been a staple of the teaching calender for as long as I can remember. It was originally planned, as far as I can tell, as an opportunity for teachers to do some marking of student work and some reflection on the direction their courses were taking while giving students an opportunity to do the reading that is fundamental to intellectual success.

Of course, people being who they are, much of this week – including my own plans, I might add – has been focussed on getting away for a week’s holiday. Teachers in Canada are fond of heading somewhere south, the Caribbean or Florida, to get a break from the long Canadian winters. Considering that teachers already get some of the longest holidays in the professional world, this has been a matter of some resentment among the non-teaching population.

This past week instead of going away I spent the week executing the original intention of this break: I marked student work and did some planning. I have to say that I found the whole exercise refreshing and rewarding. I got to sleep at a reasonable hour each night in my own comfortable bed and got up to work early as I normally do. I did a reasonable amount of marking each day, 10 eassys (five hours) and 10 journals (two hours), and have just finshed early this morning. I am not tired and I am not frustrated. I had plenty of time to read and watch the news, and time to visit and chat with my wife and plan our little holiday to England this summer.

Normally I try to do this while I am teaching, marking until late in the evening or spending every waking moment in a marking marathon on weekends. By taking advantage of this week to mark I have greatly increased my enjoyment of this necessary task, and greatly reduced my stress. I have almost certainly done a better and fairer job of marking, as I have had the time to reflect and recheck my comments and my marks.

I have also had the leisure to truly appreciate the fine work that some of my students are doing. I spend a lot of time preparing my classes for writing. This essay has probably taken close to an hour in counselling for each student, prior to their submission, going over each detail of their outlines and drafts and providing individual as well as class instruction on MLA format, thesis selection and argument structure.

The results of this effort have been extremely rewarding. I have students with a two page bibliography for a 2000 word essay, all fully in-text cited and fully relevant to their arguments. I have marked essays that could be submitted for proof of competence in an application for a Master’s program in English. I have read some junk too, it is to be said, but the majority of these students have written essays that have been a joy and delight to read; it certainly was not a wasted week!

I have also had the time to share some laughter and some fun with Pam with whom I have just celebrated thirty three years of marriage. I find her company to be all the rest I need these days, and rejoice that a loving God has brought us together to be partners and encouragers on this voyage of discovery called life. God has richly blessed us this week with so many answers to prayer. I trust that your March Break has been as rewarding and as fruitful.

One of my students caught me strumming before class began. I don’t do as much of this as I would like. We do have a lot of material to cover in this course and I do not wish to waste my students’ precious time. But perhaps before the term is over I might do a couple of songs.