Whoever say being a teacher is easy can go fu- I mean- never mind.
But seriously, you don't know what you're saying.
Now that my beloved country is undergoing several horrible 'educational reform'- if that what you'll call it- being a teacher right now is highly undesirable. With the ever-changing educational policies for the sake of the government's good name and NOT for the good of the younger generations, teachers everywhere had been caught up in the chaos thanks especially to the PBS system.
We don't teach much anymore, instead we're expected by the big bosses sitting smugly on their government chair to do lots and lots of paperwork. We don't worry about syllabus more than we worry about how to finish all the paper assessment of our students. Our students had also became so passive about their education because we fail to give them proper learning activities, opting instead to give them paper assessment because if we fail to complete these many paper evidence of our students' "holistic improvement" we'll be criticized and blamed severely by our superiors. Not only that, I've encountered several problem where students deliberately fail on their first assessment because they know we're going to give them two more tries. This is such a tame system, I wonder if our kids are going to be prepared when they realized how you don't really get second chances that easy when they grow up.
After the disastrous PBS system- not only on classroom level but also on the state analysis level because you cannot log into their website to key in the assessment without having the website crash for every minute or two- our genius minister decided to give another form of assessment said to help our students to develop their critical thinking. I liked the critical thinking form of assessment, because I tried it and students participated more in the lesson than when I give them the PBS module papers. This is a better way of learning and teaching, although we'll have to take risk because our education system is still heavily exam-based. So doing more critical thinking activities would mean more time taken to finish a syllabus, and this could spell trouble for both students and teachers if we fail to finish the syllabus on time.
I would really like to see educational reforms, because exam-based education means more rote learning than critical based learning. Teachers could give ideas to help reform education in Malaysia, but until our higher ups learn to be humble and just do a little bit more research rather than condemn teachers as if everything is our faults, we'll have to make do with what we have. But it saddened me to see students turned up so passive and I hate to force them to do these PBS papers actually. Do you know you can have two PBS paper which have the same band level, but in actuality one is easier than the other? This is said to be helpful for the students who are weaker, but I think ignoring the students' different academic abilities will only worsen condition, especially against the weak students who might have the illusion they shouldn't try harder because PBS system allowed them to be on the same level as the better ones with just answering different questions on papers.
If I have the courage and energy to constantly be reproved for ignoring the PBS assessment, the students would still be the victims of the system. This is because for a student to excel in the lower secondary, they have to do these PBS bands. So like it or not, PBS is going to continue to ruin our education system and we cannot do anything about it until our education minister improve the system and adjust the entire syllabus, including our final assessment, to suit PBS. Yes, I do believe PBS can be beneficial if they improve the system, but I am more favorable towards the KBAT (higher order thinking learning). So adjust the entire educational system to suit KBAT please.
And with this, I just hoped our education system will improve this year...
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