Mushroom that grew in last night's rain

This is a continuation from my post on Face Book entitled ‘Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing?’ which you can see at the bottom of this post.  

I am currently busy with something elsewhere but I thought I would just copy what transpired in a face book discussion and we may continue this at a later date.

Unfortunately I was kicked out of the group for asking some questions which would have led others into the light as to why kids disengage from learning to read but I was banned from further comments.

I managed to copy only the following and unfortunately before I could complete copying I was kicked out. I have deleted the names of the people who made the comments as I have not had their permission.

I have not included comments not related to the question asked except for that of Jouyin Teoh

Malaysia Education Info (And Homeschooling too)

May 6 at 11:39am

This, unfortunately, is barking up the wrong tree and has been going on for far too long. The question to ask is: Why are middle class parents sending their children
to private schools. Why are International schools preferred?

Comments

Luqman Michel Why is it that 90% of school dropouts are students from the 40 % of the pyramid? I have taught kids who had gone to kindergarten and primary one and could not read a single sentence in English. All of my students were from rich families. Please ponder over what I have written. Ask me and you will get an acceptable response.

Jouyin Teoh: Is the main question here about how teachers teach? Personally I think education needs to be adjusted to the level of the learner and in Malaysia we have people of various needs. I have encountered middle class parents who tell me they think the curriculum is "not challenging enough for their kids" then we have those at the bottom 30% who struggle to keep up even with this "simple" curriculum. Educational research indicates that teaching presence is the most important factor, whether it is in terms of e-learning (betapa canggih platform pun, kalau xde guru yang baik facilitate the platform, the whole thing memang xjadi), or in offline learning (again, it matters less what is in the syllabus and more how the educators teach it. Canggih syllabus in the hands of a lazy/clueless educator and results will still look sad). I also think many families of students at the "bottom levels" of society do not have the capacity to support their kids - the ones whose kids do well despite the system are usually the ones with adequate family support at home. Family support doesn't have to be much, even just allowing students to carve the time out for studies is already a big deal, which a lot of the students in lower-income families don't necessarily have (they have other responsibilities as well, i.e. helping their parents etc). Hence the need for teaching support to be strong to compensate for this. I can't speak for what happens in teacher training for the primary and secondary levels, but as a tertiary educator I know those at my level are more often than not *not* trained to teach.

My comment now: This appears like a politician talking. Say a lot and yet say nothing. Except for the last sentence I honestly can’t figure out how this answers the question: Is the main question here about how teachers teach?

Luqman Michel "....then we have those at the bottom 30% who struggle to keep up even with this "simple" curriculum." (Jouyin Teoh) I thought we all know this for decades. Can you please tell us why 30% struggle to keep up?

Jouyin Teoh: Not "all". Middle class and above parents in their own little bubbles are not necessarily aware.

Luqman Michel The question is 'Can you please tell us why kids struggle to keep up?"

Luqman Michel Educators and scientists keep telling us all the time things that are obvious - that 30% of kids can't read but they don't know that it is the teachers who created such kids.

Jouyin Teoh: Copying this comment here on the main thread because I'm quite aware many people cannot see the link between education, policies and politics. It's not easy to make the connection and took myself ages to understand as well. I can only try to explain it the best as I can via a wall of text but I think Tony Pua would probably do a better job with his videos. :P

Policies dictate decisions in organisations, including how money is used, and policies are closely linked to priorities. If authorities do not see something as important, they won't invest money into it. If you look at Yeo Bee Yin's video, which sparked this discussion, the Malaysian education system has a 1:13 teacher-student ratio, which is excellent by international standards so obviously policies are in place to ensure money has been invested on hiring teachers. But how are these teachers trained? Why are they not effective? Policy-makers do need to look into these issues. As someone who is receiving medical education training in the UK right now, I can see how our tertiary education institutions are not focusing on the right priorities, and there is either a lack of policy in place or policies which do not focus on the right priorities. This will definitely affect how our students turn out. My fellow Malaysian medical educators tell me, "the good students will know how to sort themselves out", but I don't necessarily agree, as I also ask, what about those who are left out? An individual can make a change, but policies will make the difference in terms of how consistently changes are implemented across the board and this will also affect the left-out 30%

Class issues (along with others) definitely have to be taken into consideration when addressing educational equity, which is what we are talking about. We can depend on the goodwill of individuals (as we have seen by our rag-tag efforts this election), but with institutional backing, the effect will be even stronger. The people with the institutional backing have to take these issues into consideration when implementing their action plans, otherwise there will always be people who are left out.

                                                                        

At around this point I had a message in the messenger from our Mushroom asking me to delete my messages or she will delete them.

So, I decided to delete my messages and said the following in the messenger;

Luqman Michel: I believe I have deleted all. If you see any more you are free to delete, please.

Jouyin Teoh: OK thank you for abiding by our regulations.

Luqman Michel: Jouyin, This problem I have had with many PhD's in LinkedIn. Sorry, I get carried away because I am passionate about reducing illiteracy and I will get it done.

Jouyin Teoh: Maybe do it less aggressively.

Asking me continuous questions when they are already in what I have put in effort to write gives the impression that you couldn't be bothered to digest what has been written.

Luqman Michel: OK. You win. This will lead nowhere. Wish you well.

Jouyin: Why should I give mine to you?

You're not my student and it's not my job to teach you. I can also choose how much I choose to engage.

In the case of this post, it's obvious that it was created with the intention to promote a book

the discussion was good, but now I know what the intention is, I don't think it's something I plan to continue engaging in.

I respect that the discussion was good and I don't want to delete the post and erase everybody's labour. But at the same time I don't appreciate the probing (whatever intentions you have behind them) as opposed to acknowledging what I have said. I'm sure you understand what I have written, you just refuse to acknowledge them.

Luqman: Honestly, I don't understand. Believe me, I don't understand.

This is not going anywhere. I will refrain from commenting. Your mind has shut down.

Chat Conversation End

My comment now: She shut me off on messenger too.

The following is my post on Facebook yesterday:

Wolves in sheep’s clothing? 

Recently I joined a group called:

Malaysia Education Info (And Homeschooling too)

The home page says:

Malaysia Education Info (And Homeschooling too) We welcome everyone except trolls and we discuss everything and anything so long as everyone learns something. Vendors who wish to promote their products, please pm me. We have strict rules and regulation on how it should be done as we don’t allow spamming. We want to make sure our members benefit fully from the products and services given. Our fees are very reasonable btw.

Jasmin Choy and Jouyin Teoh are administrators of the group.

Jasmin lives in Sydney whilst Jouyin lives in England.

What do you think the page is about from reading the title? I obviously thought it was about Education and Homeschooling but boy was I wrong.

I see more posts on politics than on education.

This page should have been ‘Vote for opposition’.

This is a post today by our Jouyin Teoh.

Some people also asked whether this group is for political commentary or an educational group. 

Admin's stance on this position has always been that political discussions are educational. Considering that 2/3 of Malaysians aged 21-39 are not registered as voters, it is even more important for us to talk about this topic as much as we can. Sekian. :) [Best of luck for tomorrow!]

This page is political and at the same time a money making scheme where you have to pay to ‘Advertise’.