:MY DaY MY WaY:

Friday, January 19, 2007 Today, I went with mum to get some new year goods and groceries at IMM, in Jurong. Along the way, we were just looking around at the student crowds heading in the same direction, towards NUS. Most of them, if they were students, dressed pretty casually; some were wearing bermudas and slippers. So I just told mum that my dressing during varsity days was the norm, and I did respect the institution, just taking a much more liberal stance. She gave me a pained look, and said people nowadays show much disdain for educational institutions, and in the process, the people running the programmes. ~ ~ It was not unexpected that students do show less fervor towards education nowadays. I think that students are learning too much for their own good, contrary to the notion that education was primarily supposed to make one more knowledgeable. We must remember the internet has descended upon us, and with it, multitudes of information at the press of some buttons. So whatever can be taught, is easily more accessible, bridging the digital divide, rather than listening to some man rattle off. It helps if the instructor/teacher looks someone like felicia or shirley, or for generation 90s, kenix (she still looks good though in my opinion) are doing the talking instead. I cannot judge for the ladies, since I am not privy to, individualistic qualities of masculine attractiveness. Maybe someone will have the hots for bobby, I cannot tell. ~ ~ Since the teacher is not a repositery of information, as he used to monopolize during my days, it can be said that the teacher has evolved into a bureaucratic engine, merely serving his presupposed functions, and hiding his lack of current knowledge behind a facade of superiority. Not a wonder the students tend to rebel against a teacher, who reads as he talks, walks as he talks, and the students walk too, physically, mentally and spiritually. Now teachers are entertainers, and to a certain extent, clowns who play to the crowd (and their paymasters) doing up activities, initiatives and ad hoc work, that would look better in resumes (the better looking the higher up in the bureaucratic hierarchy) than a student's development. ~ ~ What is it, that students really want? I would like to think that students can read up for themselves, and they do not need a voice recording machine to tell them again. Either way, if you have read the work, you will yawn, and if you have not, you will yawn too. So teachers are not really educators, in that the syllabus is already nicely mapped out, and the idea is to bulldoze through these materials, with ample time to prepare for examinations. Do we need students to understand 70 percent of work, and leave 30 percent out totally, or go through 90 percent, when what the students understand may be half of that? Now teachers are automatons, and automatons are good things, since they are more precise than the public bus service. ~ ~ Do we need more self righteous moralizing? Is it useful for education to rationalize the pains of the past, or to wax lyrical about the future? Is deviance necessarily wrong? Why should certain objects/events be demonized, and for the fact certain groups of people, or individuals? Is it good to be pragmatic or idealistic? I believe it is hard to instruct and to direct, is merely to mislead, as in the case of the blinded leading themselves. What we should do, is to present a case, and not prescribe a route. In taking a supposedly moral path, we tend to foremost, address ourselves as the righteous entity, and it is so much easier for teachers to adopt the moral high ground, of disciplines and punishments, so that he fits perfectly in the system. Apathy is common, as is antipathy. Both are extremes, and a serious product brought about education. We like to ignore, and hate, so we become less burdened by the challenges life brings about. Becoming the moral authority will not help, since it subjugates someone else at the expense of some perceived superiority. Students do not like authority, and necessarily detest people who are symbols of the order. So teachers find it harder to be moral animals. ~ ~ What can I do about it, given that I am soon to enrol? I have no answers, except to allow myself to embrace reality a little more succinctly and to live life as well as I can, to make others around me that little happier. Being irreverant does help, although I am always mocked for being too happy-go-lucky. What is a teacher for me? I am an emotionless man, and a pretty heartless one at that. I have never remembered a teacher well, or revisited anyone after my educational career was through. A teacher is many things he does not want to be, and the last thing on his mind, is that he becomes an engineer of zombies, creating hordes of walking dead. Alive in being, dead in vitality. I would be a leader of none. weijie froze in time on 19.1.07

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