Perhaps one word best describes how I feel throughout
my journey home and upon reaching KLIA from Heathrow airport-Ambivalence. I didn’t
cry, that’s for sure, since Heathrow-KLIA seems almost like KL-JB due to the
frequency of me and my course mates coming back home during each summer break
or the Raya celebration. The only difference now is that our RM16,000 (believe
it or not, that’s what our flight itinerary says) flight ticket is not a return
ticket anymore, and there will be no more transits in Dubai International
airport or Cairo before reaching our final destination, Malaysia.
I picked
up a newspaper in the plane and started to get myself preoccupied with the
story of a British journalist who was caught and violently molested in Tahrir
Square, Egypt. Thoughts of how safe I felt wandering along the streets of
Canterbury on my own late at night suddenly hit me- never once did I feel
England unsafe and the English people nearly as barbaric as the Egyptians I was
reading about. Well, that certainly brought me to the thoughts of crime and safety
issues prevalent in Malaysia. A close relative of mine was recently harrassed during her journey from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh-by an immigrant who knew no
boundaries in proximity, succumbing himself to his lust and taking advantage of
a vulnerable prey- a woman travelling on her own by bus. It was due to this
incident that ever since I entered IPBA, my mother never wished to trust me, a
small, petite girl (and therefore seemingly weak person) travelling home to Pasir
Gudang on my own. Perhaps what my mother has overlooked (or has never been told
of) is the fact that my three years of studying overseas did include many
nights of watching a variety of violent French and British thrillers and horror
movies which gave me many ideas of self-defense-all of which are just waiting
to be unleashed and be put into practice!
They say
that ‘The grass is always greener on the other side’. I discovered the truth in
such a statement most after relocating back to IPBA after 3 years of studying
abroad in Canterbury. One perfect example is the lack of resources that I find
here (Pardon me for being so blunt, but the truth often hurts). Back in
Christchurch, everything was virtually at the tip of our fingers. Online Oxford,
Cambridge and J-Stor journals, e-books, newspapers, videos and teaching resources,
scholarly articles on the internet, you name it; these sources of information were
so easy to get as the internet connection we had in the comfort of our own
homes made ‘globalisation’ a perfect reality. At Augustine House (which is what
we call our million dollar library), we could search for just about any book topic
we want before looking for them on the moving shelves. Mind you, the first time
my course mates and I used these shelves, we felt like we were in one of ‘Harry
Potter’s’ movie sequels. Here, however, it seems that the internet, (which is
no longer a want but a need for students these days) is not provided for us by
the institute. We were quite shocked at the fact that there wasn’t any WIFI we
could possibly connect to for a convenient access to the internet. It’s been
three weeks since I came back and most of us are still struggling to decide the
best internet plan for us to use, at our own initiative, that is. Given that a
human’s basic necessity happens to have food at the top of the pyramid, I guess
the internet may have to wait until we get our first taste of the Malaysian
government’s allowance here. That then brings me to a realisation that things
do happen for a reason, and that I should learn to be more grateful. Receiving
such challenges in the struggle of finding appropriate learning resources here
in IPBA as compared to in Canterbury does teach us, the ever-so-pampered UK students
to really be diligent students who strive in whatever situation we’re put in.
As they often say, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough gets
going’. I will therefore choose to stop whining and start striving. Perhaps
IPBA has a hidden curriculum-students are to constantly be taught the art of
being independent, pro-active and most importantly, ‘tough’.
Well,
I guess since this essay limits us from going beyond five hundred words (there’s
a solid reason for that, trust me or otherwise there would be an imbalance
between the act of whining and singing praises for beloved IPBA), I will thus
choose to bring one more matter I would consider greatly important amongst all
the other things which my fellow course mates may have already expressed in
their reflections. It all goes back to our philosophy of teaching as teacher
trainees (we just learnt about this in our Professional Development module this
morning by Dr. Lawrence, so I’m putting my freshly learnt knowledge into
practice-especially when I’m supposed to be handing this by tomorrow morning!).
I learnt today that each respective teacher is entitled to his or her own
perspectives about teaching, regardless if others perceive them as irrelevant
or simply ‘lame’. Apart from that, as long as what teachers do is for the good
of their students, they can never really go wrong. However, I somehow feel that
the local teaching team are very passionate about their teaching career-
perhaps to the extent of expecting a little bit more from us as overseas
students than what three years of ‘immersion’ could possibly provide us with. A
quick example would be in how we have constantly been receiving comments about
our language; that we are not speaking as good English as what we are expected to
produce, perhaps our ‘Manglish’ is ever so dominant compared to our British
English counterpart and that errors are still prevalent in our daily
conversations. Some even reach the extent of testing our knowledge of phonetics
and phonology for the sake of testing how much we know about English.
Seriously, how would knowing how to pronounce the word ‘bottle’ in a Cockney
accent ever determine our level of English?
Other
than that, being in Christchurch, I never used to think too much about titles.
I mean, John is John and Pam is Pam back there regardless if they’re a
Professor Emeritus or a Masters’ graduate. Now, being in an academic
institution in a whole new environment, things are quite different. Titles seem
to mean everything and some people get very offended if you do not address them
by their titles, perhaps because it actually determines a certain level of
intelligence. Maybe some are highly ambitious and aim to achieve Professorship
at the age of 35, who knows? Still, a name is just a name and a title is just a
title. What I would like to say is only this; “I believe that teaching is not
about imposing on others that you know so much about the world, that you are
the reservoir of knowledge others would die without. Rather, it is about
helping others discover the world for themselves; inspiring them, motivating
them, and allowing them to think big. After all, life isn’t so much about comparing
ourselves with others for the sake of competition as it is about constantly making
developments towards reaching our greatest potentials at our own pace”.
Oh, ya, one more thing I would like to
enclose- John, Pam, Sue and many others never fail to notice and praise how
good Malaysian students’ English actually is. Ironic, isn’t it?
