It's been a while...and i'm not a racist!

It has been a while since the last time i last blogged. Things are moving at a lighting pace now, what with the end of the year highlights and other 'highs' drawing nearer, or to a close. Seems like everybody is rushing things and trying to get everybody off their backs, metaphorically speaking, of course!

And what have we here. A somewhat confused individual who is still trying to grasp some sense in all these chaos. Chaotic...ahh how i love the word sometimes. Seems so oxymoronic that there is such a thing called chaos engineering.

What's with the racist slant in my title you might think? I am sure i am NOT a racist, and i don't think i condone such acts, but it is just that recent incidences do bring up some issues that, maybe, just maybe, will enable me to put these 'racist' thoughts, off my chest and brain.

One thing that happens recently was when my wifey got herself in some sort of a 'i-don't-think-a-lady-in-tudung-can-teach-my-kid-properly' sort of moment. She is currently doing her Dip. in Early Childhood, and as part of her coursework, she needs to go for an attachment once a week. Her place of 'work' is one of the premier (not main!) provider of childcare and early childhood services, and in one of those awkward moments early on during her attachment, when the parents came down to pick up their kids, one of them actually walk up to my wife's mentor and told her that she wants to take her kid out from this particular class, and into another class. No prizes for guessing which class my wife was attached to (the kid's original class)...and this is after she notices a certain look in the parent...you know the look that you get when someone sort of like questions your judgements and/or abilities (hmmm...i seem to be getting a lot of that at times, but errr, that is another topic altogether!). But I guess that is just an aspect that most of us will have to live by...something that i just consider a 'job hazard'. That's the attitude that I have been adopting so far, and look at where it has gotten me into.

Another incident that i experiencd personally was when i was just about to end my NS and was looking for some part time tuition assignments near my house. I got hold of this tuition agency's no. and went down to meet with the owner for an interview. I'm assuming he is the owner because he got this 'i-am-the-boss-of-this-place-and-i-will-decide-whether-i-will-hire-
you-or-not' kind of look. After passing my result slips and other details for the interview, amongst the first few words that came out from his mouth was, "I didn't know that Malays can be soooo good in mathematics"(emphasis is not mine, he actually say it in that way!). And this was after he noted that I scored distinctions in ALL my mathematics-based subjects at O and A-level exams!. I was like errrr, dumbfounded, confused...but i don't know why, i didn't feel angry at all! I think I should have, but something inside me just sort of like was telling me to switch off my anger mode and just try to craft out a little smile (i can't remember whether i smiled or not!). Maybe to save me from getting into prison for assault or worse, manslaughter, somehow or rather, my anger mode just did not work on that day. surprisingly i didn't pummel him to pieces there and then, but rather just walk away! And of course i didn't hear from him ever again. Thinking back, yeah i was desperate for some assignemnts, but NOT that desperate to work for him! Good riddance! And just to be a little mean, i do hope that his agency is still surviving! ;)

These two major incidences in my life...there is more, but perhaps i should save them for another day and entry, do affect the way i see things later in my life! Perhaps that is the reason why i wanted to get my post-degree by 30, and why i wanted to be in the education line, among others. Perhaps while reinforcing that academic abilities should not be the domain of any one race, neither should it be a birth right of any one race for it to be equated to, i will try as far as possible to give my perspectives and educate my students on the importance of being 'colour-blind'. My mind shudders that a person in the academia (i'm assuming that the owner of the agency is one!) can have such an assumption ingrained in his mind!

I hope my flight towards the above ideals will be fruitful, as pilots can't afford to be 'COLOUR BLIND' :)

A real looooooong hiatus

Ahhhh, finally I can settle down a little to squeeze in some time to pen down (or is it keyboard in) some of my thoughts on this page of mine.

It has been a long while and I guess work has really consume me and my time. My graduating D&T classes have just finished and submitted their folios and artefacts, and my Under 14 Ruggers are just done with their season! Phew, I can finally spare some time to catch up on my work, not that I am neglecting any. I do feel that this site of mine could do with a little minor upgrading and the addition of some more of my resources and materials! Hmm I do like to share my stuffs, probably need some time to organise all those that I've collected over the past few months. I see what I can do to put up the relevant stuffs here once I am more settled in.

Personal thoughts?

Ahhhh, my Under 14 ruggers did me proud on Wednesday when they put up their best match ever, to make ACS Barker sweat for every single point that they score. Kudos to the entire team. Frankly, to me, every single one of them are winners. I could see their the entire team bond and mature right there in front of my eyes. What kind of job will give you that kind of satisfaction! :)
I could see Aidil developing from a playful 'toddler' to a more responsible and focused individual, Sufyan and Hanafy taking greater responsibility and being more vocal in their dealings with the other team members and even the referee; Ismail, who according to his form teacher is dissappointed at not being part of the first 15, but he still stuck by with the team, going with the others for every single match, day in day out, and people like Hidayat who was a little problematic last time, but who grew to use his body (literally), and brains, to put the team ahead and push the forwards, when they so needed that push; Hazim and Haiman, who like the Wonder Twins, stand guard faithfully at either sides of the field as wingers or as part of the back line, running, kicking, tackling and being tackled; Homaidi, for his sure footedness, or is it 'fingeredness', catching every single ball that comes his way in the finals, when it matters most, and to think that he was sooo nervous in the earlier matches...and wow...the list of things that I see and feel are so many! I do hope, and am confident, that the team will grow with every single day. But alas, all these things might just come to an end since I have already put forth an official request to be taken out of rugby due to my other duties as a Subject Head and covering HOD! But I do hope the team will grow, and mature, and allow the person taking over me to experience all these, and maybe more.

A really long April...

It's been a long while since my last entry...it has been a busy April month for me. Doesn't help that it started with me getting promoted and celebrating my birthday. But hei, suddenly I realised that my zest is coming back up again, slowly and surely...in fact getting more momentum now.

Finished two books during the course of these month, both by John C. Maxwell...'The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership' and 'Developing the Leader Within You'...and now reading 'The 360 degrees Leader'. Wow I amaze myself on how I can find the time to read, when I have been trying to ask my staff to do likewise! I guess it is all a matter of wanting and being hungry for 'wanting to know'. I kind of like his books, his writings, the style and the way he presents his ideas on 'Leadership', totally no bull and right on the spot. Introduced his books to my wifey...hmm she seems to like it, but the same problem with her is 'time' too! But she's planning to quit her current job and a great hurrah to that...maybe she can dedicate a little time to reading too!

My students have been a godsend so far, almost, and I mean almost everyone of them knows what I want out of them, as in my targets for them, and hopefully they'll work hard towards it. It has been a real pleasure teaching and facilitating their design thinking and processes, and I amazed myself too at how much spare energy I can squeeze out of myself when I talk about their work and 'design' to them. Truly, I've been in this job, for what, almost 3 years now, and never have I lost the zest to carry on, unlike my previous jobs! Hmmm, I just hope that God will give me the strength to carry on further, especially in light of my promotion and my 'new' but official assignment in June/July later! ;)

Ideas have been flowing rather freely, just like the work has been coming in too. Went to Daiso @ IMM a couple of days back and guess what, I blew 36 bucks on buying items that I think has a 'designer-ly' feel to it, or have a certain teaching value in them. Wow I didn't realise that such things come cheaply too. Couldn't wait for the week to be over to show to all my staff these jewels that I just got. Hmmm...now I am planning to equip all of them with these 'jewels', hopefully it will make their teaching experiences more dynamic, creative and more 'TLLM-ly' :)

The Progress Package is already in as I am writing this, but guess what, I've already kinda spend half it in advance, but not shopping in the typical sense of the word, but more so to beef up my personal/professional collection of books on 'Design' and 'Leadership'. To me it is money well-spent, in fact I consider this as an investment. I don't think I am expecting any form of monetary rewards to come out of this 'investment', it is just so that I'll be able to enrich my teaching experiences and abilities, and eventually enhance my students learning experiences on what design and 'design & technology' is all about!

Is failure NEVER an option?

A tagline on a tee shirt shop that I went to in JB yesterday proclaimed the above caption. It just made my brain juices think, can't we just tolerate failure? Are we becoming a society of 'no-failure acceptors' to the point that failure is seen as an indication of one's inability to plan or pre-empt well. Once there is a failure, you'll be doomed!

I went for a brain-based workshop on how to teach very effectively in a classroom two days back. I must say, it must be one of the MOST, if not THE most fantastic training workshop that I've been to so far...really inspiring methods and ways to engage my young learners. Hope that I'm able to 'practicalise' them in my classes. Try I will, and failures I will make and hope to learn from. The question will be, will others be willing to accept my failures even though I've tried.

Which brings me back to the need on accepting failures in the classroom, specifically. The thing is, are we as educators, engaging ourselves in activities that does have a certain probability of failure? Or have we become a bunch of wussies (no disrespect intended here) to the point that we will only be involved in something that will be a definite 'non-failure'? On the other hand, do we need to have failures in our lives, or as part of our experieces, in order to 'qualify' ourselves as 'successful coaches' to our students and others? Hmmmmm.

During my recent volunteer training to my 3M parents, I did mention about the concept of a "successful failure". A term coined by NASA engineers after their infamous incident in the Apollo 13 programme, this term I believe, do aptly capture the kind of failure that all of us should be afraid to accept, i.e. making a real and honest failure, learning from them, and then not to repeat these same faiures, or prescibed to the conditions that will result in the same failures again. I quoted the story of Sir Thomas Edison, and his tedious, untiring efforts to pick the most suitable material for his filament. After about 3000++ materials and over several years, he finally found the one that he was looking for. Interviewed later on why doesn't he give up even after 2000 materials, his reply was that, "Now I know that these 2000 materials will not work." Can we as educators do that? I am aware on the little or almost no-margin of error that most of us will have to live with in our job capacity, but should the fear of failure always restrict us to the 'prescribed or time-and-tested' methods and archaic didactic approaches, that we have been so accustomed to. How can we ask our charges to think beyond or even outside the box, when our mental models are still within our own pathetic boxes?

My personal take on this is that the failure of failure is when we are NOT able to transform our failures into a successful failure, and thus eventually, into a successful success!

So what have you learnt today...?

Learning Applied : Applied Learning

My caption aptly captures the feeling that I have after being one of the facilitator for the Design & Technology Forum yesterday @ SAS. It somehow captures the essence of what I personally feel, that is, in our, or rather, my search to find the true essence of what d&t education is all about. I guess it is all about 'engaging', rather than 'educating' (borrowed terms from the guest speaker! ;)) the students, to open up their minds, to enable them to 'see' things, to be able to appreciate, and henceforth be able to apply their learning. So smitten am I on the caption that I think I would like to use it as my department's mantra, as part of my vision towards a 'department of excellence'.

But really, I did mention about the fact that though there was a resurgence of sorts towards a more design-biased approach in the subject matter, there are indeed some issues that we, d&t educators, do grapple with. I guess one point that still bugs me is the consistent and constant voices by others on the need to have some form of a 'structured' approach to design activities, and about some form of a 'regular, standardised guideline' on the subject area and its eventual evaluation and assessment criterion. But then again, isn't this whole episode of 'convergently divergent' wonderful? I don't really feel that there is this dire need to 'standardise', nor a need to have only one 'straight-jacketed' approach towards the teaching of d&t...in fact it is THIS whole multitude of approaches that I think will add to the richness of our teaching and engaging experiences, and it is THIS very 'flexibility' that will give our subject area its particular uniqueness! Hmmm.....