Moral

Very accurate and eye opening opinion regarding moral education.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/9/27/focus/2131627&sec=focus

I am one of those students, not too long ago(2003), who was forced to memorise and regurgitate the nilai nilai moral to face the Pendidikan moral exam.
I can remember them till now. There are 16 main nilai and 82(or 86?) sub nilai then. The syllabus have change after my year, so i don't know how many nilai the badge after me have to memorise.
Here's some of them. To my friends reading this, surely you will remember how we used to memorise word for word the nilai, and also memorise the kata kunci for each nilai.

"Baik hati,berdikari,hemah tinggi, hormat menghormati,kasih sayang.... etc etc".

The marking system is ridiculous. For example, if the question ask you what is the moral value shown by a person who recycle items, you must answer "sayang kepada alam sekeliling!" If only you answer "cinta kepada alam sekeliling" or "sayang kepada alam sekitar" you will be marked wrong, not even 1/2 marks will be given. Most of us ask why? Teacher will say "because must be precise!"
Another ridiculous reason for deducting marks is if you say "patuh kepada ketepatan waktu" instead of "patuh kepada ketepatan masa" you will get 0 marks as well.
There are many other similar technical reasons to deduct marks.
(i still remember this because this is my "mistake" in the exam, although linguistically there is no difference in the meaning of the two phrases at all)

They will deduct marks for us using words of similar meaning but different from the marking scheme. But imagine, in the essay question, you can write all the nilai moral and they will turn a blind eye and only select the correct one! Me for instance, wrote all the 16 nilai murni, together with 8 other nilai murni which i think relevant, in my essay question. And guess what, i score A1 in the paper hahhahahaha...They must have admired my regurgitation skills: )

I am a product of our moral education system. I scored A1 in Moral paper. So can i go around and claim that i'm "holier than thou" to others who have scored a2,b3 and other grades? Of course not, because everyone who took the paper knew that it is a joke, a paper which test nothing more than student's memory. We only take it because we have to.

All the moral values that i have, i proclaim, does not come from any sort of exam oriented formal education. Moral and other values is learnt in the environment, informally. Our parents teach us to help those in need. Do we need to memorise we have to "baik hati" or "bersimpati" in order to understand? These words are meaningless without understanding and feeling the value themselves. We will never know what "sweet" taste is like if we merely memorise the word "sweet". We must eat some sweet things ourself and feel it, then we will remember for life!

In my opinion, there need not be one big moral paper. Moral can be incorporated, informally in school and asessed by teachers and peers. Every good things, such as leadership,empathy, willingness to help etc should be given merit and at the end of the year, rewarded. Those who have no or few merits should be monitored for improvement, and if not satisfactory, investigation carried out as to why the student act in that manner. Counselling given instead of scolding or punishment. in other words, theres no need for stupid regurgitation of so called "moral values" which is nothing more than meaningless words, at least to the students.

Frankly, i tell you, u remember most of the nilai moral i learnt in Pengetahuan moral, but what use does it do if i do not practice it?

Review the Moral education. Eliminate it if possible. Students nowadays have so many things to remember, especially in subjects like History and biology.

Talking about History , i have something to say about that to....later la...