Spoonfeeding?

Other than culture, the major thing that I realized even before I got transferred here is the difference between the education system in Malaysia and that in the U.S.

In Malaysia, “spoonfeeding” is a common scenario, or at least this exists since my elementary schools. To some of you who might not know what exactly “spoonfeeding” education system in Malaysia is, let me define it with my own personal experience. In the context of education, “spoonfeeding” means that the students will be provided most, if not all, of the materials to study for the examinations. Sometimes, the teachers will spot on some of the potential exam questions so that the students could just focus on those questions. The students are even asked to memorize the materials and literally “vomit out” what they have memorized on the examinations.

I still remember since my 3^rd grade (it’s called Standard 3 in Malaysia), I started to learn composition writing, which was part of the syllabus. That time, all of the students are required to buy a composition book with sample essays in different genres: narrative, argumentative, letter, news report and etc, for every new school year. On the first day of class, I was asked to memorize the first essay in the book and rewrite it like exactly what it is on the book during a small quiz a few days later. This is terrible, I know. What made it worse is that this kind of scenario happened in all my three language classes: Malay, Chinese and English. Well, looking from the bright side, the students could learn the way of writing a good essay from other good authors. Nonetheless, they will be so lack of creativity by practicing this way of learning because the students seldom think of how to write in our own way and always stick to the way like the composition book. This might be one of the causes of writer’s block that happened on me.

education = future?

Moreover, in my opinion, it’s the education system that causes most of the students in my country to be kind of grade-minded. In other words, they care more about their grades than the process of learning. However, it’s always the case that the process of learning is what benefits the students the most. From the process, the students could learn the effective way of studying; from the process, the students could learn from the mistakes that they made; from the process, they could improve themselves by learning some more effective ways of studying. On the other hand, grades indicate only the level of their understanding on some concepts. It does not necessarily show how academically good or bad they are. I think this is what the education system in the U.S. always emphasizes on.

Revolution on the education system in Malaysia is what I’m hoping for now. As the saying by Will Durant goes, “Education is the transmission of civilization.”

p/s: The above statements are just my two cents with no intention to offend to anyone out there. =)