As always, we headed for Super Tanker hawker centre to gorge ourselves silly on AKI's famous pancakes. Xinch had her usual Ham & Cheese Pancake (Bun Chang Kuih) while I had my tuna pancake. I am not sure what Lyn had as I was far too busy enjoying mine and over lor-bak, po-piah and other delicious hawker fare, we reminisced, joked and discussed serious issues after which we all proceeded to my place for more tete-a-tete.
Anyway, Lyn shared with us some of her hilarious moments doing her ward rounds. She encountered a few tricky situations as she is not that fluent in Hokkien. Here are two gems she shared with us last night...She has given me her permission to post these...
For all you Penangites or Hokkien speakers out there!
Scenario 1
Wei-Lyn wanted to ask if her patient, an old Chinese uncle, had bloody faeces. So, she said:
Uncle, lu eh ka chui kang ho bo? :-)
Literal translation: Uncle, how is your ***hole?
His reply : Hoe (Yes)
Scenario 2
She asked yet another uncle what medicine he had taken in the morning and the gentleman replied that he had consumed what the hospital had given him and also tang ku choon medicine.
*tang ku choon means cholesterol in Hokkien
So she asked him where he bought the medicine and he said,"Traditional chinese medicinal hall."
Subsequently, she wrote in the medical record - "Consumed tang ku choon medicine" thinking that it was the brand name of some traditional herb and only found out when we told her last night what the term meant!! :-)
Having said that, I wish to put on record that Lyn, Xinch, together with Nisha (4th year medical student at University of Queensland), Nicholas Au (4th year medical student in PMU), Vanmala (Masters student in journalism, Concordia University in Montreal, Selene (4th year medical student in PMU, Malacca), Chris Chua (University of Sydney, software engineering major and interned with Microsoft, Seattle in January 2009) and a few more whom I taught in the 2002 cohort are the last of the bright students that I taught.
Lyn and Xinch are very intelligent(both in IQ and EQ), mature and resourceful young ladies - each a force to be reckoned with in her own way. Of course they did get into trouble with me :-) for some pieces of work (by the way Lyn and Xinch, I believe you still owe me some pieces of work!! Tsk tsk..I should have brought this up last night. Dang!) Yet, they pressed on and performed remarkably both academically and in their personal lives and their blogs are fantastic! I am indeed proud of them and love them very much, including many others who keep in touch with me.
After they left last night,...I started thinking about the deteriorating standards in education. I know I blogged about it in THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY but you know what, there are still other aspects which I did not mention...
Once again, I lament the death of critical thinking skills in many students today. I can see how quite a number of those whom I taught in the late 1980's are now famous entrepreneurs with multi-million dollar businesses overseas while most of whomI taught in the early 1990's have either a Masters and/or Ph.D. degree from ivy league universities but the deterioration in standards began from the mid 1990's.
From 2005 onwards till the present, I have only encountered ONE bright student - Hobart Lim and even then, he knows as I tell him very often, that despite being the creme de la creme he is a long way from those students I had in the past.
I can see how some:
*only want to be spoonfedBelieve me - many primary school students DO NOT even know what is the meaning of part of speech...have no idea of what is an adjective, adverb, let alone the difference between a preposition and a conjunction or the fact that there are many different types of nouns. Oh - it is a horrible nightmare in the education system. OK. Enough ranting.
*refuse to think for themselves and ask questions immediately after I finish a lecture
*only want to express what they know instead of answering the question and distort the question to their own advantage
*only want to memorize phrases from goodness knows where only to regurgitate them in an out-of-context situation thereby committing malapropism
*only want to work hard just to get straight As in a public exam and memorized their way through each public exam and deprived themselves of developing their thinking skills by NOT evaluating what they are learning and synthesizing these with their own knowledge
*only want to have fun and pleasure where the discussion is centred on branded goods, overseas holidays, partners, fashion, which hand phone they have, the usual airhead bimbo talk and gossip
*only want to get into a good university based on their academic achievements but are unable to cope because they are simply not world class standard due to the appalling education standards locally
* are unable to see their own errors in their written work and/or unwilling to review their assignments to check for typographical/spelling errors or even problems in syntax or rationale in their arguments
*only want to do work for the sake of handing up the work and NOT for learning and with this attitude cannot improve in their grammar and perpetuate their errors in subject-verb agreement, sentence structure, tenses, etc etc.
For me, I left the education industry because in 2005, I threw in the towel when I saw the declining standards. Four years down the road, I am glad I made that decision because had I stayed on, I would have pulled out all my hair in frustration. Teaching at A level or at diploma level is frustrating if I have to teach students simple tasks such as planning an essay or simple skills such as sentence structure. At that level, they should already know what is a thesis statement, how to construct a coordinate statement to support the thesis statement and how to design subordinate sentences with evidence to support the coordinate sentences. But truth be told, many have no idea about all that and cannot be bothered to know even if they were taught because far too many bad habits have been allowed to thrive and to become part and parcel of their abilities.
Some don't even see the need to work hard because they were born with silver spoons in their mouths. Once, I had a student who told me that he did not need to work hard as he would take over the dad's business and that it would be a piece of cake as all his dad does is play golf and talk on the handphone!!! Many do not see the wood for the trees!!! What will happen in the future???? That is the tragic state of affairs.
All I can say is that I am happy where I am now - with the memories of yester-years and the knowledge that the investment I made in my former students have paid dividends because a significant number of them are my good friends. Although I have no status, prestige or professional position as a full-time housewife cum blogger, and live a simple, reclusive life, I am very satisfied knowing that when I had the opportunity to teach - I gave my best and many of those kids realize it and still come back to spend time with me and that is the greatest reward of my teaching career.
So if you are a parent, please ensure your child has sufficient intellectual stimulation. Help your children to exert themselves intellectually and to take responsibility for their learning WITHOUT an overload of tuition classes or an imbalance between time spent on extra-curricular activities and their studies. Guide them and be their moral compass to ensure that they grow up with values and morals that will equip them to face the challenges in society and to make the right choices, especially as a citizen!!! Surround them with love and give them a sense of pride in their work and do not overemphasize academic achievement at the expense of character development. It is not easy to live in modern society but with the right approach and perspective be it as a student, parent, child or whatever role/status or position you have in society, you can excel and leave a mark that will endear you to others.
The choice is ours.
Tiger Hi MWS,
Didn't realise you were a teacher too!
Both my parents were teachers. My dad taught History and English, and my mom taught Geography and English.
It's sad that our education system has evolved into a pure memorisation-regurgitation exercise.
I was lucky to have 2 parents who valued the skill of being able to form an opinion based on facts.