Talk about hope, Allah is there, hope is there. Your hope is not wasted.
Khamis, 5 September 2013
Sabtu, 24 Ogos 2013
NEUTRALITI DAN 'PARTIAL' ITU WAJIB.
Mesir kembali berdarah dengan lebih ramai terbunuh dek tangan-tangan tentera Mesir sendiri atas arahan Al-Sisi. Ironik sekali melihat keadaan Mesir melihatkan pertembungan dua suara dalam kelompok muslim sendiri. Suara yang menyokong rampasan kuasa dengan jaminan bantuan kewangan kepada tentera dan suara yang menentang Morsi digulingkan atas banyak sebab. Sebahagian mereka penyokong tegar Ikhwan, sebahagian Islamis, sebahagian yang lain melihat ketidak adilan berlaku disebabkan kudeta ini menyalahi proses demokrasi bahkan memusnahkannya.
Apa yang kita dapat perhatikan Saudi dan beberapa negara Arab lain menyokong kudeta (coup d'etat), sehingga sanggup untuk memberi bantuan kewangan kepada kerajaan tentera Mesir. Tidak dapat difahami oleh akal yang waras kenapa Saudi dan negara-negara Arab ini sanggup menyokong tentera Mesir yang akhirnya membawa kemusnahan beribu nyawa dan material, dan sehingga hari ini masih belum kedengaran suara lantang mereka memarahi tentera kerana memusnahkan nyawa tidak bersalah apatah lagi memusnahkan demokrasi itu sendiri (mana mungkin nk sokong demokrasi kerana mereka semua monarkis totalitaris). Terlalu jelas sokongan mereka itu disebabkan kebencian kepada Ikhwan atau juga mungkin sebab 2 lain yang bersifat kepentingan peribadi pemimpin2 ini. Menambah parahkan keadaan bila ulama yang menggelar diri mereka dan digelar 'salafi' (menjadi salafi tidak bererti mesti buta mata hati pada kezaliman) dan ulama2 pemerintah menyokong, mengiyakan, ataupun diam kepada kudeta dan kezaliman ini. (alasan utama kerana haram melawan pemerintah - yeah *#$%^!!)
Dalam masa yang sama kita melihat ramai yang Islamis yang menyokong Morsi mengatakan demokrasi tidak Islamik dan kerana demokrasi lah Morsi dan Islam tumbang. Ramai yang mendakwa ini tidak lain tidak bukan untuk menghancurkan Islam. Momokan sistem khilafah lah yang terbaik, demokrasi dan Islam mana mungkin dapat berjalan sekali dan seumpamanya begitu banyak dapat kita lihat dalam kenyataan rakan - rakan muslim kita. Seruan kemenangan untuk Islam berlegar dalam banyak kenyataan - kenyataan rakan-rakan seIslam yang lain. Ini mengaburkan mata ramai dari kalangan mereka untuk bersifat kritikal terhadap tindakan Ikhwan dan juga Morsi. Dikatakan Morsi itu lambang kemenangan Islam, (mungkin ya) tapi itu tidak memaksumkan dia daripada tindakan yang salah dan sebarang kritikan. Neutraliti itu perlu dalam memandang kepada sesiapa sahaja yang berada di tampuk kepimpinan. Sikap sebahagian orang Islam yang sebiginilah yang merosakkan kebaikan dan memandulkan usaha untuk mencapai matlamat yang lebih besar, matlamat untuk mencapai (Baldatun tayyibatun wa Rabbun Ghafur) iaitu negeri yang sejahtera dan baik dan mendapat keampunan Tuhan.
Kita melihat sesiapa sahaja yang memegang tampuk pemerintahan wajar menerima kritikan keras sekiranya dasar dan tindakannya mengabaikan kepentingan, kebajikan serta kesejahteraan rakyat apatah lagi menggadaikannya. Soal integriti, isu kronisme, nepotisme dan idealisme serta hala tuju negara juga patut menjadi persoalan yang sentiasa ada dalam benak rakyat dan pemimpin untuk menjamin bersihnya sesuatu pemerintahan daripada anasir merosakkan. Sedar atau tidak isu - isu yang saya bangkitkan di atas ini lah yang sepatutnya menjadi keutamaan sekiranya kita benar-benar menghayati Islam itu sendiri. Islam itu sejahtera, Islam itu keadilan, Islam itu rahmat sekalian alam. Justeru di mana tempat Islam kalau keadilan, kebajikan dan kesejahteraan sejagat tidak diutamakan? Ia tidak ada.
Apa yang cuba dikatakan oleh Tariq Ramadhan membawa satu persoalan yang lebih besar daripada isu Ikhwan dan Morsi serta rakyat Mesir:
- Bersikap NEUTRAL dan tidak berpihak itu menyelamatkan kita daripada kebutaan melihat kebenaran dan mengkritik kesalahan pemimpin, organisasi dan individu yang berkepentingan (agama, material, peribadi, atau kepentingan lain). Berlogokan Islam tidak menjadikan mereka maksum daripada kesalahan, dan bila berlaku kesalahan mereka wajar dikritik, ini disiplin yang wajib dipegang untuk menyelamatkan kita daripada kerosakan.
- kita mengkritik bukan bermakna kita menghalang Islam daripada berjalan sebab ramai yang beriman dengan 'equation' begini : muslim + pemerintahan = Islam dimartabatkan, sebab itu mengkritik mereka adalah halangan kepada Islam sendiri - mudahnya iman sebegini -. Kalau iman ini yang dipegang dan ditanam dalam minda dan hati maka sampai bilalah kita menghalalkan segala tindakan mereka baik atau buruk sehingga merosakkan Islam sendiri. Jangan kerana atas alasan sesama Islam kita membatukan diri daripada mengkritik perbuatan buruk mereka yang melibatkan kepentingan ramai. Kita bersatu atas prinsip - prinsip yang Islam bawa, (boleh saya katakan Islam itu sendiri - keadilan, kemanusiaan, integriti, hikmah, kasih sayang, kepentingan bersama dan menolak sama sekali perkara yang bercanggah dengan perkara di atas) tanpa mengira bulu apatah lagi seIslam.
- prinsip mudah ini Nabi sudah ajarkan dalam satu potongan hadith yang ringkas - 'andai Fatimah mencuri, aku akan potong tangannya' . Ia petunjuk jelas menjadi muslim tidak menghalang kita daripada bersikap kritikal terhadap saudara seIslam yang lain apabila melibatkan kepentingan awam. Jangan katakan ia satu keaiban. Jika tidak dicegah ia membawa kerosakan lebih besar. Sekiranya ia bersifat individu maka hikmah dan berahsia lebih wajar dan utama.
Masih banyak yang saya mahu katakan, tetapi 'dots' ini banyak yang tidak bersambung dalam fikiran saya and I hardly connect the dots in my head right now. Saya tidak banyak maklumat tetapi ini yang saya nampak dan setakat ini dahulu yang saya mampu konklusikan daripada pemerhatian saya.
Selasa, 9 April 2013
Terlalu Muda Untuk Menjadi Cikgu
Yup I am teacher now, although not a teacher in school (I am so grateful that I am not, well I don't like to deal with kids and young teenagers, tabik saya pada yang boleh mengajar mereka, sbb klu semua macam saya alamatlah dunia ni caca merba, hehe..) ok2 back to my point, teachers? what does that word mean? errr... of course they teach! urrrmmmm itu je ke?
I read this post just now, it reflects a lot of things, me, us, our society, our education system, malaysia and them, their education system and US.
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It is with the deepest regret that I must retire at the close of this school year, ending my more than twenty-seven years of service at Westhill on June 30, under the provisions of the 2012-15 contract. I assume that I will be eligible for any local or state incentives that may be offered prior to my date of actual retirement and I trust that I may return to the high school at some point as a substitute teacher.
As with Lincoln and Springfield, I have grown from a young to an old man here; my brother died while we were both employed here; my daughter was educated here, and I have been touched by and hope that I have touched hundreds of lives in my time here. I know that I have been fortunate to work with a small core of some of the finest students and educators on the planet.
I came to teaching forty years ago this month and have been lucky enough to work at a small liberal arts college, a major university and this superior secondary school. To me, history has been so very much more than a mere job, it has truly been my life, always driving my travel, guiding all of my reading and even dictating my television and movie viewing. Rarely have I engaged in any of these activities without an eye to my classroom and what I might employ in a lesson, a lecture or a presentation. With regard to my profession, I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me, I’ve used it so very often) that “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.” This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching “heavy,” working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised. STEM rules the day and “data driven” education seeks only conformity, standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education and particularly not at Westhill.
A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?
My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic “assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to “prove up” our worth to the tyranny of APPR (through the submission of plans, materials and “artifacts” from our teaching) that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study. We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product, to twist a phrase from corporate America, which seems doubly appropriate to this case.
After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.
For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, “Words Matter” and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean.
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compared to this, I am nowhere and nobody... sigh! too far from these, perhaps years of light
I read this post just now, it reflects a lot of things, me, us, our society, our education system, malaysia and them, their education system and US.
-----------------------------------------
Increasingly teachers are speaking out against school reforms that they believe are demeaning their profession, and some are simply quitting because they have had enough.
Here is one resignation letter from a veteran teacher, Gerald J. Conti, a social studies teacher at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y.:
Dear Mr. Barduhn and Board of Education Members:Mr. Casey Barduhn, Superintendent
Westhill Central School District
400 Walberta Park Road
Syracuse, New York 13219
It is with the deepest regret that I must retire at the close of this school year, ending my more than twenty-seven years of service at Westhill on June 30, under the provisions of the 2012-15 contract. I assume that I will be eligible for any local or state incentives that may be offered prior to my date of actual retirement and I trust that I may return to the high school at some point as a substitute teacher.
As with Lincoln and Springfield, I have grown from a young to an old man here; my brother died while we were both employed here; my daughter was educated here, and I have been touched by and hope that I have touched hundreds of lives in my time here. I know that I have been fortunate to work with a small core of some of the finest students and educators on the planet.
I came to teaching forty years ago this month and have been lucky enough to work at a small liberal arts college, a major university and this superior secondary school. To me, history has been so very much more than a mere job, it has truly been my life, always driving my travel, guiding all of my reading and even dictating my television and movie viewing. Rarely have I engaged in any of these activities without an eye to my classroom and what I might employ in a lesson, a lecture or a presentation. With regard to my profession, I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me, I’ve used it so very often) that “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.” This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching “heavy,” working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised. STEM rules the day and “data driven” education seeks only conformity, standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education and particularly not at Westhill.
A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?
My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic “assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to “prove up” our worth to the tyranny of APPR (through the submission of plans, materials and “artifacts” from our teaching) that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study. We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product, to twist a phrase from corporate America, which seems doubly appropriate to this case.
After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.
For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, “Words Matter” and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/06/teachers-resignation-letter-my-profession-no-longer-exists/?tid=pm_popSincerely and with regret,Gerald J. Conti
Social Studies Department Leader
Cc: Doreen Bronchetti, Lee Roscoe
My little Zu.
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compared to this, I am nowhere and nobody... sigh! too far from these, perhaps years of light
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