December 8th, 2010
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!
——–
To be honest, I’m probably one of the very few who enjoyed and appreciated my high school education. Despite the many many flaws in our education system, I hope we can all agree that it has its merits as well. I entered college extremely well-prepared in subjects like Math and Sciences (despite me not majoring in either), and I was actually thankful that I was made to memorize those damn formulas. True, we weren’t made to think enough but I also can’t deny that those rote memorizations have given me an edge compared to them Americans who surprised me with their inadequate mathematical and numerical knowledge.
I’ve had this conversation with many people, usually people deemed to be at the further end of the intellect spectrum. Each time, the conversations disappoint me again and again. Talks about frustrations with our education system, talks about how we’re headed towards doomsday if nothing is changed etc etc. I’m always left at the corner where I came from, battered with anger and injustice, drained with my own thoughts and conviction.
I hear them talk about our poor education standard, and I think about the increasingly wide education gap between the urban and rural in our country, the alarming illiteracy rate, the low preschool enrollment. We (the elitist, privileged urban folks) do not make the entire country, and just because we speak louder than the rest does not make everything we say right.
I think it’s time we take a step back and realize what can be done, instead of whinging about what should be done without lifting a finger. I’m a beneficiary of our “poor” education system, and I think I’ve gotten pretty far ahead despite its “flaws”. Education is how you make of it, and I think it’s time people take individual responsibility for their education.
p.s: don’t get me wrong, I’m all for thinking that we DO need to reform our education system but i’m just saying it’s not really all that rotten and bad. If you think something needs to be done, then let’s all do something about it. Not blindly criticizing it is one thing you can start with.
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i enjoyed and appreciated my high school education too!!!
I remember If! One of the poems that I was forced to learn back in lower secondary. Phantom of the Opera was the best thing they made me learn!!
Prior to going to Melbourne, I felt very angry about Malaysia’s education system. However, when I entered Melb. Uni, I realized that being bombarded with 10 subjects to study for SPM is a good form of training. It raises the bar of one’s stress threshold. I found that most Singaporean and Malaysian students are able to handle stress easily than the locals who do only 4 subjects for their final year ( yet they complain about being stressed!). Not only that, all that rote learning helps me to ace in my psych exams because my psych exams are literally memory tests that demands word for word answers!
I definitely agree with you. So some of my Malaysian friends here like to criticize how bad is our education system , worse still, they did that in front of people not from Malaysia. Everytime i heard that them saying those things, I get very disappointed. I mean, our high school education indeed prepare us for our tertiary education (regardless overseas or local). Well, it is true that our education system is not perfect, but is definitely not THAAAT bad to begin with.
Suet Li I don’t usually comment on blogs, but I felt compelled to say this – you are a very special girl. I don’t know you apart from your blog but you strike me as someone with a lot of heart. I gather that things are a bit tough for you right now, but I hope you will persevere and keep on doing the things you do. Don’t worry about what other people think and because in the end you’re the one that counts.
i’m not educated in msia (studied in spore) but one thing i envy about msia education is that i think kids in msia seem to develop stronger and very close friendships than kids in spore. i don’t know how to say it… is like, i see my msia friends and cousins around me and i wish i had that kind of very close friendships as well here, with my spore school friends but sadly all of us lost fucking contact already
sorry for being offtopic here!
hey i really liked that poem, i wanna be a MAN too wtf
doesn’t it kinda feellike modern education is a sort of brainwashing?
how much can a human brain take before it shuts down and goes into
automatic zombi e yes man mode
i am still taking exams,and many more exams to go.i feel like i have been studying the whole life.don’t really mind it though.i am never an intelligent person but somehow i manage to keep going on.i definitely agree with you that from malaysian education system,students will build the hardworking habit and able to learn a lot in an otherwise ‘normal’ period for other countries.even in my uni years i was spoonfed facts after facts.i suppose it is not easy then to think outside the box,but i am sure people who want to do more will eventually succeed in more.we have the opportunities in malaysia too to learn multiple language, which is very unique.i do think that we need to emphasize more on the use of english, rather than just learning the grammer of it and passing it.anyway,i hope my malaysian english will be sufficient to pass my exams,i still have my typical malaysian chinese english accent after so many years;and i hope that whatever habit i obtained from the education system, will lead me through the still long way.
“I think it’s time we take a step back and realize what can be done, instead of whinging about what should be done without lifting a finger.”
I’m completely with you on that, even though at times I am guilty of whinging, especially when I look at young children these days – all they ever do is go to school, tuition, piano class, ballet class…deprived of childhood, that’s what I call it.
Not only does our education system require some tweaking, I feel that the mindset of parents need to change as well.
I hated my high school education because I didn’t excel at Maths and Science but was forced into it. I was made to feel inadequate and stupid because I was interested in humanities and languages.
I don’t complain about my high school experience because everything I went through has played a part in making me who I am today. I have always been too stubborn to be oppressed out of my interests anyway, but most Malaysian youth aren’t capable of that.
But I do remember wishing that my A in Pendidikan Seni for SPM was earned for something other than sitting around tracing wau and drawing setem designs all day.
I do agree with you right now but seriously I did not enjoy my highschool years at all. I only appreciate one teacher from highschool who only taught me for a year and half but she changed my life forever. other than that, i can proudly say that i earn my very few As in spm by my own effort and way of studying. i slept through school and study at home.
but hey! maybe that is why i only manage to get 5As! hahahha but seriously, i never complain anything about school after i left coz i moved on. there is absolutely nothing to complain about when u can always improve yourself if you do not like how the school works!
whining are for losers who likes to put the blame on everything else. “cannot get straight A’s? blame the school for teaching us the wrong way!!” hahahahha. what a joke.
But the losers are not entirely wrong in my honest opinion.
D But after all, it depends on how much you really want those straight As. 
I’m currently taking form 6 in a school which isn’t one of the best schools around in PJ. Well, it used to be.. LOL.When I try other better schools’ trial papers, I feel intimidated and saw where my school was standing among the others. I thought that I could have done better in one of those top-notch schools. Those questions that they set are the mind-boggling ones and whereas, my school sets questions from the past year book which we have done a gazillion times -.-
Note: I’m not one of the losers because I have no reason to complain about my high school. I love my high school!
yeaa, i agree with you on that – “But after all, it depends on how much you really want those straight As.”
i did form6 too!!! you taking science or not?! one of my friend who got 7 As in SPM failed 3 out of 4 subjects in STPM. >___< and i hate my form6 school even more than my f1-f5 school hahhaaha. btw my highschool is one of the topnotch school in my hometown. but meh.. i dunch care abt it anymoar. haha
Yeaps.. doing science. HORRORRR!! Wow.. she/he probably didn’t take Form 6 seriously? HAHA I would consider my high school to be one of the best schools around too. I felt downgraded when I had to transfer over to my current school.
nyuu~ she’s super serious of her studies!! go for tuition everyday and nearing exam she will go to the town library to study!! oh gosh, rebecca!! i feel downgraded too when they put me into that stupid f6 sch!!! T__T
your blog haunt me in ways i cant explain. you’re deep, funny, witty, vain, beautiful, risk taker and everything else.:D i was listening to “worried shoes” by Karen O and thought of you.
“Education is how you make of it, and I think it’s time people take individual responsibility for their education.”
very well said! i love this post! =)
Sorry la, I’m Malaysian; criticizing without doing anything or even really giving a damn is what I do best. Kiasu ma. Complain, complain, complain; bla, bla, bla. I just want money, money and more money. The rest of the country can go to hell for all I care as long as I am ok. Kiasu ma.
wtf to post 15
i loved going to school. where else can we meet the friends we keep forever?
i came from a private school, so i cant comment too much on the education system of our country, but I did/do think the way Pendidikan Moral is tested is quite ridiculous.
and amen to post 16!
i remember that poem.
If one day, you have the power to control over the ministry of education, can you please make sure that libraries open until midnight like in Melbourne?
I suggested to rely the manpower on poor students..
Very true. I’m always especially sad whenever I hear people criticising Malaysia and then just leaving the country, as opposed to staying back and helping bring about change for the better. There are too many that are just too good at opening their mouths and complaining…all talk no action.
@ Sarah- I am all talk and no action when it comes to the benefit of everyone else but I am all action and no talk when it comes to my benefit. I am Malaysian.
i agree about the individual responsibility part. education is definitely what you make of it. probably the upside to our education system is for Malaysians to realize that earlier, and start managing everything on their own.
i am a product of the malaysian edu system, and once i logged onto omegle where people can either talk shit or have really good intelligent conversations with the opposite line, depending on luck really. and most of the people i talked to were from other countries, namely america. they were quite surprised of me being a Malaysian, and yet knowing all the stuff about roman culture and history.
i find sometimes flaws need to be retained, so students can be the one working instead of receiving.
when the giving is less the ability to strive increases, depending on the will of the student.
I don’t think our education system is any better or any worse than those in other countries, but we definitely need work on our curriculums and mentality. (if you want to get straight As you just need to do tones of past year papers, I did that and I scored straight As for STPM) Education is not about churning out the best memorized answer, but about building each unique individual and cultivating creativity. It’s creativity that gave birth to Google, Apple, and other brilliant companies that changed the world. We need a system that gives room for individual to grow and be who they wanna be.