Delaqroux Inc Updates!
It's safe to say now that i have been on my first course-that-new-teacher-are-forced-to-go-despite-still-being-financially-unstable-for-3-days. It's this thing on PBS, which stands for Program Berasaskan Sekolah (which in English, translates as School Based Assessment...nothing new) and yeah, i had to go to SMK Sri Kota Puteri 2 in Pasir Gudang.
Despite PMS.. i mean, PBS sounding like really serious business, why do i put aforementioned blog post as such? Well, coz that's really what happened; English t33chr make mediocre meetings da shizz (read as "English teachers make mediocre meeting the shits). I mean "shizz" here in a very awesome way.
See, normal government servant meetings would open up with MCs, MCs doing all that "diumumkan ketibaan blah blah", bacaan doa that nobody are really doa-ing coz i'm pretty sure all they are praying for is "please let this meeting end early", and the speaker/VIP trying to make himself sound hip by making pervy jokes towards the single ladies and/or being overhyped with the topic his/her bringing coz it's something totally 'rad' when all he/she is stating are the obvious 101. So yeah, that's how it works.
But this course i'm attending was different. The speaker was my senior from IPBA who just came in to the room, says good morning and get on with things - no MCs, no bacaan doa, no VIP, no special seat for VIPs, no kata alu-aluan (or kata-kata aluan depending on which is more; the kata or the alu). her language was pretty informal, jokes were subtle and the pacing was pretty fast. Is this professionalism? some would say "no". But to me, this is professionalism. Professionalism is getting things done. Ass-kissing is for foreplay (if you're into that kind of foreplays). and making pervy jokes should get you whacked in the streets. We are government servants after all. We are supposed to be government professionals.
I'm not saying that it's unimportant to be praying before the start of a meeting or acknowledging the speaker/VIP of course. But i do not find things meaningful if we're doing it only bcoz "that's how things has always been". It dumbs down professionalism to formalities and forced formalities are meaningless. Seriously, you hardly pay attention to the prayers recital, you stood up when an unknown 'very important' person walks into the room and you have MCs saying all the formalities when the MCs dont really like or know what they're saying. Is this professionalism?
Anyways, my course starts at, what i regard as a professional pace and ends earlier than scheduled. I'm not being in favour of this course because it ended early. It's because of the rate we can get things done and be done with it. I didnt feel bored at any part of the course and we were engaged, we asked questions, and most importantly, i felt like i was at a meeting. Sure, we cracked jokes, we argued about stuffs, and we sometimes talked when the speaker is talking. But it's all part of a meeting. This is a meeting after all.
So what does English teachers have to do with this kind of meeting atmosphere really? Well, i guess we do things our way. We teach a language that most would regard us as being foreign. But being regarded as a foreigner because we teach a 'foreign' language is part of our occupational hazard. So, sorry if we're not following a preset rules of things. We are ourselves most of the time coz that's how we're trained to be. That's how you teach a language. So when you get a bunch of English teachers to run a show, we run it our way. And that way, it's not pretentious, it's professional.
Anyways, i might not be able to have this same good feeling after i attended another meeting anytime soon. Coz that's how things work in Malaysia. We love them formalities coz it's part of our 'culture'. But if i ever become a VIP or a speaker one day, i'll walk into the room, tell the audience to stay in their seat and start my speech with "good morning, my name is John and let's get this shit done".
Delaqroux Out.
