The yearning to shower myself with ‘Cemerlang’ accolade is finally paid-off. Alhamdulillah, I manage to battle against my own daemon- CGPA of 3.52 to make myself eligible as one of the ‘Cemerlang’ listers. Although the pointer ain’t that much; as long as I able to dominate my own aspiration, yearning(my daemons), I am all contented and at peace.

The picture emblazoned in all my professional plates throughout this whole year!

Anyway, I have a little bit of thoughts I wanna siphon-out. Throughout these whole 11 months of training as teacher-to-be, so many routine shenanigans I have to bear with. These are not to condemn anyone nor to disgrace any parties; it is simply an honest siphoning-out from someone who had been through all these. First, ever since the  first day in the IPGM, we had been ridiculed and tormented with cynical remarks on how ‘unworthy’ we were to be a teacher. The facilitators and lecturers LOVE to questioning the motive of KPLI students to joint-venture into the world of education. The cynical remarks are :

1. “Kenapa ada yang jadi engineer, pegawai bank, pengurus yang gaji 4-5 ribu nak masuk mengajar? Sebab kilang-kilang swasta yang kerja tu tendang ke?”
2. “Yang masuk ni bukannya pelajar cemerlang. Kalau cemerlang tak jadi cikgu ni! Ni semua sebab tak dak kerja.”
3. “Kalau betul-betul nak jadi cikgu, kenapa dari dulu tak apply jadi cikgu?”
4. “Pelajar KPI mesti tau SEMUA  sebab lulusan universiti.”

I really loath those who keep questioning that. They are not keen to helping to mould us these new greenhorn teachers but simply using us as the cushion to release their emotional beligerence. Honestly, these people keep comparing KPLI with the ‘authentic teachers’ ; that are teachers who began their first job as teacher, of course! They make it sound as if like even with their meagre income last time, they dare to take posts as teachers; thus reflect their authenticity whereas the KPLIs are driven by the four motives as abovementioned.

Teacher in Jewish community.

I am so pissed off by that lame attitude of comparison! I don’t think those lecturers/ facilitators were REALLY genuine to be teachers as they claimed! Either they didn’t have the opportunity to further their study, lack of financial supports or maybe because THEIR parents urged them to become teachers (although maybe there are few teachers who were really into that passion)!!! And now, here we are these new meats, being taunted by these education world veterans on how GENUINE they were. That’s certainly not fair, I say!

American teacher.

Secondly, any ‘reflection session’ or a supposed heart-to-heart gathering between KPLI students and the administrators were not sincerely organized. Any arising matters or questions by KPLI students were treated in cynical manners and mostly, no definite answers were given to the questions, instead the replies were TWISTED in such a way to make them sound so intelligent with bombastic wordings and linguistic enunciation (in Bahasa Malaysia of course!) which on contrary, DID NOT EVEN ANSWER THE QUESTION POSED!

Thirdly, assessment on KPLI students are conducted in accordance to the WAY OF RESPECTIVE lecturers; meaning, one lousy person who was so damn lazy in his practical can score an ‘A’ in comparison to this hardworking-nerdy guy who merely get a ‘B’. Why? Because the lazy guy’s lecturer was a go-with-the-flow-as-long-as-no-trouble person. As long as the guy did his daily lesson plans, he would be rewarded with excellence in his assessment.

Whereas for the poor nerdy guy, it was unfortunate that he got a strict lecturer! No matter how fancy his teaching aids were but he failed to deliver his classes in English (let say his major was in English), he would be assessed as ‘not-so-good.’ In the end, the lazy guy would boast that although he DIDN’T DO any teaching aids, he still manage to outclass the nerdy guy who had been investing money to do fancy teaching aids! Isn’t that unfair and tragic? Well, of course if one would pose this question, the cynical cliche reply will be – ‘Life ain’t fair, honey.’ That is why, I suggest that the Ministry should come with the idea on how assessment is to be done by one singular assesment tool without any external parameters to influence the judgment!

Me & Sathiya after exam in Exam Hall.

Last but not least, is the achievement. Doesn’t mean if a KPLI student get a ‘Cemerlang’ accolade (3.5 and above), he is BETTER than the one who scored ‘Kepujian’ accolade (3.5 and below). NO! It all again depends on the subjective assessments conducted before. This is because the KPLI students are assessed by different lecturers/ facilitators with different moods and personalities and different teaching-learning aspects which are being emphasized! And one also would have to scrutinize the degree of the difficulties in the major subjects. For example, we the Science teachers-to-be were made compulsory to answer our test paper in English whereas other subjects like Pemulihan, Pendidikan Khas, Pendidikan Seni and many more are in Bahasa Malaysia! This is not fair because there are some of science-teachers-to-be who are brilliant in their scientific knowledge but couldn’t express their opinions in written form due to inefficiency in English! Supposedly, the marking scheme for Science and Mathematics students should be more lenient considering the language barrier.

Teacher in African community.

But whatever it is, it all just siphoning out. I pick the situations here based upon my observation towards my friends and the surroundings. As for me, I can consider myself quite lucky because everything went alright although there were minor glitches over here and there and my good proficiency in English; if not perfect; does help me a lot in answering questions without much problems (in constructing answers and recalling facts). I had great lecturers who were very enthusiastic in their careers and there are so much things I’ve learnt. My most sincere thanks to all lecturers who had the opportunity to teach me. Insya Allah, I will try to use all the knowledge taught and flourish to become excellent teacher!

What can I say; Alhamdulillah- Praises to Almighty SWT for the miraculous experience! Thanks to Acyclovir and Calamine lotion, my chicken pox boils recede within merely a week. According to Mak, this is actually quite fast in comparison to the olden days where usually chicken pox could be vicious. The infected person would have to let all the boils popped out and then bear the itchiness and lied down upon a special leaf to ease the itchiness. Usually, the face would be full of the boils and could be quite grotesque! Even Tok, my grandmother was quite shocked to see my face back to normal facade merely within a week. Alhamdulillah!

It was an experience for me. It tested my emotional, mental and physical strengths- if not to the fullest; to a certain degrees. Imagine that you have to be out in the opening with your body containing contagious virus and your skin seemed dirty and grotesque?! Skeptical eyes were curious and sneered upon you- you can’t blame them to be that because by right you are supposed to be in isolated place; but because the attendace in KISSM course -Kursus Induksi Sistem Saraan Malaysia is such an imprtant course that I had to put everything aside and focus to simply make my attendance possible. But of course, I had the greatest classmates KPLI Science 1- they tried to act as if it was nothing and accompanied me to take meal during the gap of the sessions although it was actually quite contagious. To avoid public mingling, we always go to a secluded kafe; thanks Raymond, Nurul, Kak Yus, Sarah and Sue for being great companies; and also to my monitor Aidi who are very caring; also to respective lecturers like Miss Tina and my mentor, Puan Amani. It may seem cliche but when you were in that kind of position where your morale is plunged down into the abyss, helping hands and presence of friends around literally will lift you up.

Anyway, yesterday was my first outing get-together with everyone since I contracted the chicken pox; we went to Alor Star to commemorate the farewell of our one year tenure as teacher-trainee in IPGM Kampus Darulaman. It was a close-knitted and nostalgic event, I would say. Sincerely and honestly, I am glad I left my banking career and made a bold decision to choose teacher as my career and been blessed with opportunity to meet these wonderful people; my coursemates are the best. They tolerate my tantrums and trivial shenannigans and we are so like brothers and sisters. Throughout the span of 11 months here (commencing on 12th January 2009- refer to my old ENTRY), we had experienced all the ups and downs together as one unit.

It does seem like a blink of an eye. I’ve learned so many things during this course – First impression ISN’T always correct; being a teacher is not a bed of roses or simple like I used to think; I have to be strong mentally, physically and emotional to battle against public’s cynical and typical stigma.

KISSM will be over on this Wednesday (the exam!) and after that I will know the posting where I am about to teach. Mentally, I have already prepare myself for the worst- rural remote Borneo although rumors has it that this year, we may not being deport to the rural areas; still, I take this as challenge and adventure in life. Not everyone has the opportunity to mingle with ordinary people and do a bit of humanitarian deeds along the way. I guess maybe because I’ve always known that I destined to make a change in some poeple’s lives. I guess that is why I am drawn to Angie’s humanitarian side (apart of her weird fetish; like me). She’s like a role model and it is exciting to be able to inspire other people and contribute to a betterment of a person.

It’s like a saying in “Mulan” that I always remember – “One grain can tip the scale and is a difference between victory and defeat.”