I first read Tottochan when I was in primary school, the english trans. Been reading on and off the malay translation of Tottochan since last March, busy with my tkd class and lukluk's wedding preparation, belum habis lagi. Btw, the malay translation lack of emotions and use the same vocab over and over again and doesn't go into the details when describing the pictures, settings and so on.

As a kid, I thought all Japanese schools had gerabak keretapi for classrooms and you get to choose what subject you want to learn first thing in the morning. I dreamed of going to Japan, to own a dog which would walk along with me to school (it'd be cool to have one rite now hehe) and have lunch at the big hall with the headmaster.
As an adult, Tottochan made me think of our own education system. Oklah, my previous entry was a bit negative lah but I don't have regrets in taking up English as my bachelor degree. These are some of my experiences in formal education. I hate learning Seni so much because I never get better than B-, my heart ached every time the teacher put up the best artwork by other students, mine had always ended up in the dustbin because the big Cs and Ds would only remind me that I was a big failure when it comes to arts. Well, I wasn't that bad lah, every time oso I would try my best to complete the work given, but you knowlah they say people are born with talents...so my talents are definitely not in the cabang seni lukis or handycraft. When I did Error and Contrastive Analysis, I was asked to correct a student's essay, I had to explain why I choose such technique of correcting. Ok, I didn't mark the paper with red pen - I think the colour red is the biggest mistake by teachers, because it will only demotivate the students. Generally we know that red marks mean NO good lah (yeah, I know it's a very Ong colour for Chinese, but not on the report card hehe). I underlined the mistakes done for the first time and added a very short and vague explaination as to why it is wrong, the second time I spotted the same mistakes I would simply circle it. First mistake - explained vaguely, to encourage the student to enquire on that particular mistake, repeated mistake - circled it, it's a hint/clue to indicate that these are errors and should be given more attention to this kind of rules. (repeated mistakes are most probably errors, the diff b/ween mistake and error is, mistake you did it tak sengaja, or careless lah, error is when you have fossilized the incorrect pattern to your idiosyncratic language system). And lastly I didn't give any grades or marks (percentage) but I gave a short positive comment on the work to tell the student that s/he can actually do it but they need to put in a lil more effort - POSITIVE AFFECTIVE FEEDBACK. Some of my correcting techniques were a bit impractical if I had a huge class, and long essays to be corrected, it actually depends on the teacher and the needs of the students, so I have to learn more ^_^ . Ok, so back to the art class, first of all, it's an ART class, the basic fundamental theory in arts is 'There's no right or wrong answers' , so how could they mark my work with grades? I used to ponteng kelas Seni when I was in secondary school, it's an offense, but the teacher should also be blamed for that because he didn't even try to make the class interesting and participative, He'd come late (15-20 mins) to the class and give out instructions and expect us to hand over the work by the end of the class. Seni should be fun, but in my case, it was the worst subject ever taught to me hehehe.

In school, when you try to politely argue about certain things, you're considered as bodoh, tak cukup pandai and try to teach the "knowledgeable" teachers, if you raise your voice just a lil bit so that their ears would be wide opened, they'll accuse you of being rebellious lah, gangster in school lah etc.etc. Seriously some of MY teachers in school ah, (not accusing other teachers in msia lah kan) they didn't like new ideas, they didn't like the student to comment or criticize their way of teaching and they won't listen to your opinions. In Tottochan, the Headmaster puts his faith in the students and entrust them with reponsibilities, but in my school you have to work your s*** out to gain trust and respect from the teachers. And if you have "radical" ideas, you'd be blacklisted and nobody cares to listen to you. I remember my penolong kanan, she joined the school when I was in form 4, she's a very outspoken lady and a strict one too. She imposed a lot of new rules on teachers and students. At first I thought she's wicked and "evil" but then I realized that the school has changed a lot in a positive sense lah. The teachers actually hated her so much that they openly challenged the penolong kanan by not following the rules. Hahaha, they've turned into rebels too. It's funny, when you're up there in the "throne" and being the superiors you are not able to see the difficulties and problems faced by others and you refuse to accept their opinions just because they are the inferiors...but then when your position is threathened you tend to seek help from the inferiors. Weird world we're living in today!! University, it's a totally different world, you are forced to speak up but because of the past experience and the way you are being taught in school i.e. not to raise your voice, not to question the teacher's authority, you decided to remain silent in the class. There goes our future leaders...erm, some of our future leaders lah hehehe.

Conclusion to my very, very long blog. Everybody has artistic talents but not many people know their actual potentials and how to utilize these gifts. We're on the journey to discover our true self, a lot of obstacles waiting in front of us, we have to equip ourselves with knowledge and wisdom will come along later, stay on guard and observe the surroundings.

- a drama teacher on discovery channel reveals that we can actually learn to shut the negative voices in our heads...yes, we are able to do that but what about those audible negative voices, should we just ignore them or should we pray that they become mute? -