Innovative & Creative Malaysians - Day 2

I was late starting from home. I found the jam was just like day 1. I had to park further this time from the hall, all the other parking spaces closer to the hall were occupied by participants who had arrived earlier or by other visitors to the Intekma Resort and Convention Centre.
The session started later than scheduled. I listened with interest to a presentation by Haji Hasni from Adni School on the holistic and integrated system of education at his school. I actually had been to his school, in Taman Sri Ukay, Ampang before joining SSS (formerly known as APIIT Smart School). I applied for a teaching post at the Integrated Islamic School, Kota Damansara and got accepted. I attended an orientation programme held at Adni school. The system is new to me and I was eager to learn but I was not feeling any warmth from the teachers present least of all from the members of IIS Kota Damansara who travelled with me for the week long session. I decided not to join for that reason.The pay did not entice me to stay either.
After Haji Hasni's rushed presentation, we brokeout into 5 smaller discussion groups to brainstorm on the current status of teaching and learning of Mathematics and Science (M & S) and the issues and challenges. In group 2, we had to discuss on Infrastructure and Infostructure. Prof. Dr Ong Seng Huat from the Dept of Mathematical Sciences, UM acting as rapporteur. I was elected by Prog Ong as leader of the group for reasons he knew best. I felt the group members were rather passive,quiet, shy perhaps and slow in getting organised. I felt the need to prompt, and urge them to come closer together in a tighter circle so we can look at each other and start the discussion. They were sitting classroom style, in my opinion, was not condusive for any discussion to take place. I am guessing, these proactive moves, were what got me elected. I actually was not aware that I was amongst the best teachers in the country. Nor was I aware that some members in the group were lecturers with Phd's and proffessorships. One lady was the pricipal of Adni School. It was a blessing in disguise. Had I known, I wouldn't have agreed to accept the election. I felt so small, having so little to offer.
None the less, I took the challenge in my stride and between the Prof and I, we did manage in getting some sort of discussion going. Not everyone seemed interested to contribute. The few that did gave some views. We also used the pointers given by ASM in the programme book. Nothing exciting or completely new were brought up. We came up with 4 different issues and challenges to be discussed in further detail in another session after lunch. The first breakout session was followed by a forgettable panel discussion. I was given the floor to say my two cents worth. I spoke about school/staff room culture which often hindered new trained teachers from applying their innovativeness and creativity in the classrooms.
After lunch, it did not take the four groups long to concurr and come up with some views. Raja Rohaiza, from ASM helped in keying the data in a laptop after we had the leaders of the small groups to present their findings. I got the help of Zazolnizam, a group member savvy in IT to help improve the PowerPoint presentation. in his own time after the day ended. I gave him my email address with the request to email me the slides for me to read and possibly make ammendments before my presentation to the whole hall on day 3. That apparently is one of the duties of the group leader. I had decided to rope in the small group leaders to present with me instead. This idea was opposed by Prof Dr Ong, our rapporteur, but strongly supported by Prof Ho provided we kept to the 15 minutes allocated for the presentation.
After completing the assignment,we spent the rest of the breakout session sharing success stories and ideas on how to teach maths and science creatively in school. That, I felt, was more beneficial than the panelist discussion earlier where they spent half-an-hour talking about PPSMI - teaching of M & S in English, a policy already decided by the power that be. The topic of discussion - Creative teaching of M & S, was NEVER touched. It was a big disappointment. Blame it on the chairman.
That night, I felt the fatigue from the two day workshop setting in and it was only 9.30pm but I called it a day. I managed to make some rearrangements of the data keyed in by Raja before hitting the pillows. Zazol's email never came. I checked again in the morning. Just in case but it was in vain. Again another disappointment. I hope I could present my groups's findings reasonably well come day 3.

Innovative & Creative Malaysians - Day 1

Yes, that's what we want our students to become. They have to, inorder to compete in the global economy. Its a serious enough issue for the Academy of Science Malaysia (ASM) to collaborate with MOSTI and MOE and gather about 200 excellent teachers and teacher education lecturers from all over Malaysia for 3 days and pick their brains to come up with a position paper that will be presented to MOE.
I am not an excellent teacher. Excellent teachers are nominated by Principals of government schools and a panel will award this prestigious accolade after a comprehensive selection process. I was there representing SSS together with 3 other maths & science teachers. Mind you, I am no excellent teacher.
Early Tuesday morning, 2 Feb 2010, I drove to Shah Alam, so as not to be caught in the jam after the Subang toll. I was caught inevitably in a slight snarl but it was moving. By 7.45 I was already at the Bukit Kayangan roundabout. I was quite relieved. I had studied the map e-mailed by ASM few days before and was confident of finding the Intekma resort and Convention Centre with no problem. Boy, was I wrong. I made a wrong turning and ended up somewhere else. I traced my way back to as far as Section 6, Shah Alam and took another turn towards UiTM campus. I had been there 3 years ago, but I have forgotten how to get there. This time I was still not sure if I was on the right track. Then I saw the Intekma sign but missed the right turn into it. A short distance away, I made a U turn and found a nice parking space, a short walk from the Banquet Hall where the first session was to be held at 9am. It was still early.
Up to then,I still did not know where the workshop was going to be held, because it never said so in any of the documents that I had. So, I went to the reception area, and a concierge opened the door for me. After establishing that I was there for the workshop, he directed me to the door leading to the Banquet Hall. Another participant, who arrived shortly after me, benefitted from the concierge's direction and we walked together to the hall. I never got to know him. I forgot his face and he never came to say hello. Too bad.






I registered at the reception area in front of the hall and entered the hall bearing a door gift and a participant's tag. I was also placed in group 2, for the breakout session on day 2. I was hoping to be in group 5, attracted by the title of the group's discussion. The hall was still half full, but right smack in the middle front row, were my colleagues from primary school. There was still a space next to one of them, so I sat down at the table made for three. There was still no sign of our CEO, who is one of the panelists nor of Sugendren, the other secondary rep.




I did not look at the time, but the session started with the MC welcoming everyone and the formality began. Then it was the beginning of 10/11 presentations by a list of panelists from MOE, our CEO, En Azlan Shahrom, Petrosains Education Head, Principal of Australian International School Malaysia, ASM fellow, Prof Ho and Datin Frieda from Cempaka School. The titles of the presentations were interesting enough but the presentations were long especially the first two and draggy that it puts me to sleep soon enough, except for the first ( I was still fresh and was taking notes) and En Azlan's (he was engaging with good slides and I was capturing him on video). Because of lack of time, some panelist had to rush through their presentations and despite their best efforts, the organisers completed all but one presentation. We stayed well after 6pm, when the session should have ended at 5.15pm.
We all left the hall for home or for the rooms in Intekma for those from out-station. Day two will find, Haji Hasni from Adni school, presenting first before the breakout session. He couldn't present on day 1 because of technical problems and it was already too late, everyone was exhausted and saturated.