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.