One Ride Fits All

Can one size and I really mean one size fits for all, for everyone? Responding to one of the Ketua Pemuda aspirants’ (read: Mukhriz Mahathir) proposal to having just one type of school for the students in Malaysia, as a future teacher (who is still waiting for ‘the posting letter’) I personally feel that I have a right to say something.

I studied in an SRK school, mingled with almost 100% Malays up until I was in Form 3. Meanwhile, from the age of 10 until 17, I attended extra English classes every weekend and Alhamdulillah I could say that my English was quite good, thanks to my family’s policy about mastering the English language. In form 4, I shifted to Convent Bukit Nanas, and that was when I actually saw the true colours of Malaysia. The school, is an SMK filled with girls from various sorts; three main races, Malay, Chinese and Indian and some other races, girls with mixed parentage…oh we were all sorts, I could say.

I personally think that, during my school years, I had the best of both worlds, first in a school that I saw no other different colours and there were no issues, then in a school where I saw a lot of differences but none of the differences actually mattered. My circle of friends widened; maintained friendships from my previous school as well as blossoming friendships in CBN. It was in CBN that I knew that we were different but we felt indifferent.

In was in that school too that my perception towards ‘unity’ changed. I remembered that we conversed in both English and Bahasa, and, there were no indications that my identity or Kim Ann’s identity as a Malay and a Chinese respectively were about to change. Talking about our Bahasa competency, I am proud to announce that there was one Indian girl (its Shuba) who always managed to score the highest. It was almost, always her each time. And not once, that I saw Shuba claiming that she was converting to the ‘other’ culture. Thus, it has been my policy that the competency in (different) languages will not take away the ‘culture’ out of the person. Do you see where am I going?

Should we mix the students? As a teacher, I shall say yes. It is, in the classroom that, almost every lesson about almost everything will be taught. You might disagree with me, but I have my every reason to believe in such. When I did my teaching practice, I had a problem of mixing a few Malay and Indian girls for group activities. Lucky me, there were other girls who didn’t mind with whom they will be working with and their products were just brilliant. For the girls that I mentioned earlier, they couldn’t even move to any agreed decision for the task! That is just an example of how a little unity can go for a long way and how a dis-unity couldn’t move a muscle.

It is in schools that we are allowed and given the opportunity to learn about other people’s cultures. I feel awkward writing the word ‘other people’ because, really, I feel that no matter what colour you present but when you carry the word Warganegara, you are ‘us’ people or ‘our’ people and we just have our own unique ways of leading our lives and sometimes different sets of menus for lunch! Putting different menus in a school canteen would welcome a lot more options for the students, as well as for the teachers. And, yes, there should be guidelines or batas agama dan kesusilaan which will help and guide ‘us’ in the school. I hope you can see where my analogy is going.

Unity, for me, is about giving chances. When you give a chance, you will be rewarded with a chance too. Imagine if you give a lot of chances…what will you be getting in return?

As a beginning teacher, I see schools as the microcosm of the society. There is always the saying that if we want to change the society or the fate of the country, we need to change the education system. And, we keep changing the policies. And, we do not want to wait for the policies to unleash its effect in the long run. The different talks about Teaching Maths and Science in English, and now about mixing the students in one type of school are the type of talks that could bring to, again, the change of the policies. Allow yourself to take a minute and think, where would these two policies take us? Forward or backward?

If you asked me, I would answer, it depends on the policy of your heart. If you allow change to happen, you open door or probably doors to a lot of things. It might not promise you a bed of roses or a broken bed, but it could lead you to a lot of dreams and possibly, nightmares. Again, it depends on the policy of your heart.

Who says Malaysians can’t have the change of heart?