Saturday, April 30, 2011

Time Is Running Out...

THE recent announcement by the Prime Minister about the possibility of certain schools being allowed to continue with the use of English in the teaching of Mathematics and Science (PPSMI) was a pleasant relief to many.

It is a win-win solution for both the proponents of the PPSMI and those who are opposed to it.

Whilst opposition to PPSMI on grounds of logistics and resources is understandable, to say that it is “unpatriotic” to learn Science and Maths in English is an insult to many patriotic citizens.

No one should raise the issue of loyalty or the position of Bahasa Malaysia when debating the viability of PPSMI.

The position of Bahasa Malaysia is, and forever will be, protected under our Constitution.

Where logistics and resources are concerned, the Education Ministry is actually making strides in terms of courses, laptops and projectors, and thousands of teachers made available in the initial stages of its implementation.

Results in terms of teacher proficiency in English and student acceptance were noticeable as early as the sixth year of its implementation.

Let us move on. Let not the future of our country fall prey to indecision and petty squabbles.

Monday, April 25, 2011

A Story With 1001 Meaning....

I copy & paste this story which has 1001 kind of meanings... Let us think together and learn from it in our daily life...

Seorang janda miskin Siu Lan tinggal bersama dengan anaknya berumur 7 tahun bernama Lie Mei. Kemiskinan membuat Lie Mei harus membantu ibunya menjual kuih dipasar. Disebabkan miskin Lie Mei tidak pernah bermanja-manja dengan ibunya.


Pada suatu ketika musim sejuk, sesudah menyiapkan kuih yang hendak dijual , Siu Lan melihat bakul kuihnya sudah rosak dan Siu Lan berpesan pada Lie Mei untuk tunggu dirumah kerana mahu keluar membeli bakul baru.


Apabila pulang, Siu Lan mendapati Lie Mei tiada di rumah. Siu Lan sangat marah. Fikirnya, anaknya itu mementingkan diri, hidup susah tapi masih juga mahu keluar bermain, padahal tadi sudah disuruh untuk menunggu di rumah. Akhirnya Siu Lan pergi sendiri menjual kuih dan sebagai hukuman pintu rumahnya dikunci dari luar supaya Lie Mei tidak dapat masuk ke dalam rumah. Anaknya mesti diberi pelajaran, fikirnya geram.


Apabila Siu Lan balik dari menjual kuih, Siu Lan melihat Lie Mei, gadis kecil itu terbaring di depan pintu. Siu Lan berlari memeluk badan Lie Mei yang sejuk membeku dan sudah tidak bernyawa lagi. Jeritan Siu Lan memecah kebekuan salji ketika itu. Ia menangis meraung2, tetapi Lie Mei tetap tidak bergerak. Dengan segera Siu Lan mengangkat Lie Mei masuk ke rumah. Siu Lan mengoncang tubuh anaknya sambil berteriak menyebut nama Lie Mei.


Tiba-tiba sebuah hadiah kecil jatuh dari tangan Lie Mei. Siu Lan mengambil bungkusan kecil itu dan membuka isinya. Isinya sebuah biskut kecil yg dibungkus dengan kertas usang dan tulisan kecil yang ada di kertas itu adalah tulisan Lie Mei.


"Mama pasti lupa, hari ini adalah hari istimewa bagi mama, aku membelikan biskut kecil ini untuk hadiah, duit tidak cukup untuk membeli biskut yang besar ... Mama selamat ulang tahun".(Kisah benar diceritakan dalam Xia Wen Pao)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Listen & Action Are 2 Different Things...

While I'm too are happy to note the statement made by our controversial PM on KERAjaan's consideration in giving the parents the choice to have the teaching and learning of Science and Math in English (PPSMI) or in Bahasa Malaysia for our national schools, I have a doubt this will be implemented.

It is well noted that every time this so-called boya-friend of Altantuya gives a speech especially during buy-election, for sure he would say million of dollars have been approved for projects here and there. At the end of the days, nothing are materialized. For those who cannot think wisely, it mean that he is lying and you are being lied.

Just imagine when he said that "KERAjaan will CONSIDER....... ". Do you understand the meaning of "consider" when even the words used "has/have been approved" simply gone with the wind.

Let's continue our battle towards better future of our children via fluency in English. My brotherly advise to them here, here and here "don't be like a python eating its meal."


The Meaning Of Family...

I am so touched upon reading an e-mail received which I want to share with all readers.

Kenapa kita perlu balik kerja awal
Baca pelan- pelan dan penuh penghayatan.

Aku terlanggar seorang asing semasa berjalan,
"Oh maafkan saya, saya tak perasan"

Katanya "Maafkan saya juga,
Saya tak nampak saudara"

Kami amat bersopan dan saling menghormati,
Kami saling melambai sambil berlalu pergi,

Tetapi di rumah lain pula ceritanya,
Bagaimana kita melayan orang tersayang, tua dan muda,

Lewat petang, tika memasak makan malam,
Anak lelaki kecilku berdiri di dapur secara diam-diam,


Bila berpaling aku hampir melanggarnya jatuh,
Jerkahku, "Jangan buat kacau di sini, pergi main jauh-jauh"

Dia berlalu pergi, hatinya hancur luluh dan beku,
Aku tak sedar, bertapa kasarnya kata-kataku,

Sedangku berbaring di katil mendengar musik,
Terdengar suara halus datang membisik,

"Bila bersama orang tak dikenali,
Begitu bersopan dan merendah diri,
Tetapi ahli keluarga tersayang, sering dimarah dan dicaci",

"Cubalah kau pergi lihat di lantai dapur,
Kan kau temui bunga-bungaan berterabur",

"Itu adalah bunga-bunga dibawanya untuk kamu,
Dia memetiknya sendiri, kuning, biru dan unggu",

"Dia berdiri senyap agar jadi kejutan buat kamu,
Kamu tak pernah sedar airmatanya yang datang bertamu",

Pada tika ini, aku merasa amat kecil sekali,
Airmataku mencurah ibarat air di kali,


Senyap-senyap ku kebiliknya, dan melutut di katil,
"Bangunlah, anakku, bangunlah si kecil"

"Apakah bunga-bunga ini dipetik untuk mak?
Dia tersenyum, "Adik terjumpanya belakang rumah di semak"

"Adik memetiknya kerana ia cantik seperti ibu,
ibu tentu suka terutama yang unggu,

"Maafkan ibu, atas sikap ibu hari ini,
Ibu tak harus menjerkah kamu, sebegini,

Katanya,"Oh, ibu, itu tak mengapa,
Saya tetap sayang ibu melebihi segala,

Bisikku, "Anakku, ibu pun sayang kamu,
dan ibu suka bunga itu, terutama yang unggu,



FAMILY


Adakah kamu sedar, sekiranya kita mati hari ini,
syarikat tempat kita berkerja akan senang-senang mendapat pengganti,
dalam hanya beberapa hari?

Tetapi keluarga yang kita tinggalkan,
akan merasa kehilangan kita sepanjang hayat.

Dan sedarlah, sekiranya kita menghabiskan masa kita kepada kerja,
Melebihi keluarga kita, adalah merupakan suatu pelaburan yang tidak bijak.
Bukankah begitu?

Jadi apakah maksud yang tersirat?


Tahukah anda makna "FAMILY"?
FAMILY = (F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU



" HARGAILAH KELUARGA ANDA "

Monday, April 11, 2011

Fluency In English Defines Us In Many Ways...

IT is heartwarming to hear that the Education Ministry is going to study having two languages for the teaching of Science and Maths.

This is a win-win move to champion both English and Bahasa Malaysia among Malay-sians.

Language defines a person in many ways. Hence being fluent in the world’s language, English, can define one in academic, science development, job market, international relations, science and travel.

In an academic setting, especially in universities, English is extremely important.

References are always in English, be it books or online sources. Activities in innovating, patenting, and publishing in international journals, the toasts of academic toil, are always conducted in English.

So do presenting at international conferences, applying for research grants, reporting research, and writing academically on the Internet. Writing assignments and publications in universities have to be in English for international recognition.

Science is flourishing and its language is English.

A report by the Royal Society says that the world’s number one scientific paper publisher is the United States, of which all papers are in English.

China, who was at number six a decade ago ,is now catching up to be the world’s number two as a scientific superpower.

Chinese scientists are trying hard to publish papers in English.

If Malaysians are to flourish, and to be on a level playing field in science, it is important we are fluent in English.

In the job market, if a person speaks good English he is likely to be employed.

If we were to scrutinise job advertisements, most of them require candidates to speak English. Certain careers require the absolute use of English.

One such example is the aviation industry. A pilot trainee said that nothing in his training is conducted in Bahasa Malaysia and friends who are not good in English faced lots of difficulties. The same is with medicine and law.

In international relations, almost everything is in English.

Employers, too ,want workers who can converse and write in English.

To apply for jobs, our children have to write letters and display their resume in English. When travelling, for example to Mecca to perform the Umrah or Haj, signs are not confined to Arabic; they are also in English, and French, but not Bahasa Malaysia.

Thus to be on an international level playing field, Malaysians should not be deprived of learning English from primary school.

English is complex since its sentences can be built in many ways, structures can be formal and less formal, parts of speech are interchangeable, and vocabulary is very large.

It is especially more complicated for second language speakers, and worse if the speaker begins learning it when he or she enters university at the age of 17.

Thus to be an English-fluent nation, our children need to be exposed to the language very early, as young as six years old.

Exposing children as they enter school to more than one language in classrooms is not burdening, in fact it is a gain.

There is a prevalent belief that a child is a clean slate, born with an innate disposition for language. Studies show that a child absorbs any language almost automatically.

We do not have to look further. It is so self-evident in our multi-ethnic society where most of us speak two languages out of early exposure to Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Indian dialects and English.

In sum, using two languages, native and English, in classrooms is a win-win situation for all.

Story Of Appreciation...

This is a powerful message in our modern society. We seemed to have lost our bearing & our sense of direction.

One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company.

He passed the first interview; the director did the last interview, made the last decision.

The director discovered from the CV that the youth's academic achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never had a year when he did not score.

The director asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" the youth answered "none".

The director asked, “Was it your father who paid for your school fees?" The youth answered, "My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.

The director asked, “Where did your mother work?" The youth answered, "My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

The director asked, “Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?" The youth answered, "Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, "I have a request. When you go back today, go and clean your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.*

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to the kid.

The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother shivered when they were cleaned with water.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his graduation, academic excellence and his future.

After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes, asked: “Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered, “I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes'

The Director asked, “please tell me your feelings."

The youth said,

Number 1, I know now what is appreciation. Without my mother, there would not the successful me today.

Number 2, by working together and helping my mother, only I now realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done.

Number 3, I have come to appreciate the importance and value of family relationship.

The director said, “This is what I am looking for in my managers.

I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life. You are hired.

Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop "entitlement mentality" and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent's efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel sense of achievement. He will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying the kid instead?*

You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your kid learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

Friday, April 08, 2011

The Different Between Watch & Timepiece...

A boy was showing his friend his expensive Omega watch and the friend asked him whom he stole it from.

“I did not steal it,” he replied. “My dad gave it to me.”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah. I walked into his bedroom last night while he was having sex and he gave me this watch as a bribe to get the hell out of there.”

The friend thought that this was a very neat scam so that night he waited outside his dad’s bedroom and just as his dad was about to reach orgasm he charged into the room.

“What do you want?” the exasperated dad asked.

“I wanna watch,” he replied.

“Okay, go sit in the corner and watch but don’t make any noise,” the dad replied.


Read the whole story here...

Let Parents Choose The Medium Of Instruction...

THE Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE) is encouraged by the Deputy Prime Minister’s reference to the Prime Minister’s statement “that the Government would study the possibility of using two mediums of instruction in the teaching of Science and Mathematics in schools” (The Star, April 5).

In our endeavor to assist in making this statement a reality, we wish to offer our humble proposal to the Government for consideration.

We propose that the two mediums, that is, Bahasa Melayu and English, be made an option for parents to choose from, in primary as well as secondary national schools.

We wish to suggest that the Education Ministry offer the options available to each and every parent as is provided for in the Malaysian Education Act 1996 and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “children are to be educated according to the wishes of their parents”.

Each parent is to indicate to their children’s school the medium of instruction preferred. The school will collate the preference which will determine the number of Science and Mathematics classes to be conducted in Bahasa Melayu and English.

Every national school, primary and secondary, will offer a minimum of one Bahasa Melayu and one English option class at every level. The rest of the classes, if any, will be taught in the language of choice (Bahasa Melayu or English) as chosen by the parents.

Examination questions and textbooks will continue to remain bilingual.

The propensity to learn is highest between pre-school and primary school, and allowing the English option to begin as soon as possible will ensure a smooth and seamless transition into STPM, diploma or pre-university levels.

There should be a concerted effort to gradually evolve into an English environment for both Science and Mathematics over a fixed period.

An appropriate strategy would be to help those teachers who still have problems implementing in English.

The sovereignty of Bahasa Melayu will continue to remain protected as the national language as is stated in the Federal Constitution.

The English policy had never advocated the learning of English via Mathematics and Science.

It had instead intended to acquire the knowledge that is found in mathematics and science through English, its lingua franca. There is a vast difference between the two.

To quote Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad: “Most other subjects taught in schools are relatively static, i.e. they don’t change much and little new knowledge is added with the passage of time.

“But Science in particular changes and advances rapidly, so that old knowledge can be actually displaced by new knowledge added almost every day as research is carried out.

“Almost all this new knowledge is produced in the English language. It is quite impossible to have all of this translated into Malay. We just don’t have people qualified in the different fields and fluent in both scientific English and Malay to do this.

“If there are, they would not want to spend a lifetime translating research papers and books.

“Failure to gain access to new scientific knowledge would mean we would be left behind.

“But if we study science in English, each scientist would be able to access the latest findings in his particular field by himself.”

The above write-up was submitted by Datin Noor Azimah Abd Rahim, PAGE Malaysia

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Let Us Reset Our Focus...


What ever it is we should leave the video alone and concentrate in dismantling BN and remove Umno for the good of our future children and grand children. Don't be distracted by the video as that its the intention.

Having said that Anwar is dispensable but the transformation is not. There are always a replacement when the time comes. If Malaysia were to be save from a foolish and evil government for the sake of all our children's future vote Pakatan or non BN.

A Drowned Man Will Grap A Straw...

That is an English words to describe how desperate a man can be.

I guess this is relevant to describe UMporNO nowadays whose lifeline is subjected to the success of drama by SaiFOOL and/or Dato' "T". So many blogs are commenting on these stories either pro or against this Malay political part
y who forget that their name is still using English but "kecoh" on bahasa kebangsaan.

I do not side Anwar nor I side the ruling party. I just did an analysis on the theme used to attack A
nwar which never change since SODO-mee part 1. Therefore, I would say Anwar is a talented man, clean and an "anugerah Allah S.W.T" Why?
  1. Those morons never attack him on abuse of power.
  2. Those morons never attack him on bribery.
  3. Those morons never attack him on any other case except sex.

In this relationship, I would say the UMporNO has nothing in their mind except sex. The strength o
f their party very much depend on asshole of SaiFOOL and Dato "T".

Believe me, if you scan their brain, the image will look like below:

Is it true Dato X that their brain image will look like above, just like your brain?

Note: This Dato' X always persuading married women friends to accompany him to Dannok while chatting in Facebook. I do not want to reveal his real identity but for sure, he is in Northern Malaysia


Friday, April 01, 2011

What Happen To Islam In Malaysia???...

Who am I to talk about Islam? I guess my level of knowledge about Islam is good enough to teach myself and my family. Teaching others? Far qualified. Therefore, I still need to learn more through those alim ulamak, tok-tok guru dan ustaz-ustaz. Learning is a continuous process till the day, the hour, the minute and the second you are called upon by Allah S.W.T.

However, in this very country, Malaysia Negara Islam as it is called, those alim ulamak, mufti, tok guru and ustaz are not sharing the same opinion/view on Islam itself which has resulted a confusion for layman on the street like me.

Citing example:
  1. Dato' Mashitah used to make a statement that it is okey for women to be a prostitute for the sake of "cari makan" for her family. Well, are you telling me that prostitute is legal in Islam. Then, why so many women being caught and charged in court.
  2. There was a fatwa that smoking is "haram" but only in certain states, meaning to say if you want to smoke, go to Perlis as it is not "haram" there.
  3. Now, Perak declared poco-poco is "haram" but other alim ulamak are saying "harus" and urge other states not to ban the dance. Later, Mufti of Perak was quoted saying poco-poco still can be held but with different song namely joget or zapin.

I do not want to question their qualification or the poco-poco itself. What make me confuse is that there are so many fatwas issued by those alim ular-mak but only restricted on certain areas, condition and stuff like that which seem like political motivated.

It is not a big surprise when many young muslim are now partly murtad when christian is quietly intoxicating their mindset using psychological warfare strategy in telling those youngsters to leave Islam which is "memeningkan kefala".

There is only one Al-Quran, I repeat only ONE!!!... Why can't all alim ulamak share a common opinion/view?

Oppsss, I forget. That is a sign of Kiamat when alim ulamak become ULAR-MAK. I hope not a PUKI-MAK....