The Thinking Student

Natalie Shobana Ambrose – (25th March, 2010 – theSun)

It was my first day at university where I heard the words "In my class you’ve got to be critical thinkers." Critical what? I thought.

Don’t we just listen intently, take some notes, plagiarise other people’s work in our assignments, memorise the text book and regurgitate it out in the exams. Isn’t that critical thinking enough?

What a slap in the face that was.

If I went through the list, did I think clearly and rationally? Questionable.

Could I engage in reflective and independent thinking? Most definitely not.

I couldn’t evaluate ideas and arguments, or detect inconsistencies.

When I read something I believed it to be true without question.

Could I reflect it back to what I knew and believed? No.

Did I know how relevant something was in the bigger scheme of what was happening in the world? Again no.

The reality was there was no such thing as critical thinking in my vocabulary up to my first class at university oceans away from home. I never asked questions in school, I was too scared.

In fact, I had a math teacher in school that didn’t give our class homework because the understanding was that we students were not bright enough and would get it all wrong anyway. So my parents had to send me to extra tuition classes – mind you, I would have still needed them had the teacher actually taught the class.

Case in point; I was no critical thinker. I did think a lot, though not critically, more philosophically, about how the periodic table was going to help me in life if I weren’t going to be a scientist.

But the fact remains, that I didn’t learn to be a critical thinker for most of my student life. No, I’m not a snob, just a product of the Malaysian education system which formed the foundation of my academic life. Critical thinking entered my vocabulary first at university outside Malaysia.

As an international student I realised a few things. The first was that I was not as exposed to opportunities and I wasn’t as aware.

Sure, I spoke two languages, which was great but most people collect languages. My version of English is different and I was translating from Bahasa Malaysia to English most of the time.

Speaking up in class was out of my culture and years later still feels like something foreign. But perhaps I also felt confined by the many rules of my education history in Malaysia.

I came back and went to university in Malaysia and it was hard, because once again I felt confined.

University students are to be challenged to think, question, reason. After all, university is the fertile soil where students should be allowed to raise their voice, make known their doubts, express themselves while lecturers and professors research topics which interest them, not having to steer away from topics deemed sensitive like politics.

In many parts of the world, that is what a university is in the business of doing. But in Malaysia we have the Universities and University Colleges Act that dictates the thinking of academia and students right down to banning students from attending a national student congress because it’s deemed political.

If universities are not to allow students to be politically aware, does that mean no politician should be giving out scrolls at graduation ceremonies?

The world of academia needs to be free from the puppet strings of politics.

It also needs to encourage critical thinking.

We learn from mistakes, from asking questions, from doing and if all our education system is creating are robots who just believe without questioning, we’re not developing.

Our bid for developed status should include having thinking Malaysians heading corporations, businesses and think tanks, not losing them to brain drain.

Intelligence is not the number of A’s on the result slip, it’s the ability to think critically and applying oneself.

But instead, we’re so scared of people who think, question and have opinions and instead of building up we’re tearing down the intelligentsia of Malaysia and self-sabotaging our country in the process.

What has struck me most about education overseas is that I learnt so much more about other countries as case studies while there is little material from Malaysia.

Is that perhaps because we’re not willing or not allowed to carry out unbiased research of the country?

I am sure that there are pockets of critical thinkers in Malaysia nurtured by a group of dedicated educators but we cannot just tell anecdotal stories of this. We need to nurture thinkers of all sorts if we want to create a Malaysia with a number if front of it.

H.L. Mencken once said "Men become civilised, not in proposition to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt."

It’s time we started thinking more critically.

Natalie isn’t always critically thinking but wonders aloud about the fate of the thinking Malaysian student.

Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

The Bar Never Moves

Natalie Shobana Ambrose – (11th March, 2010 – theSun)

If you’ve ever limbo rocked, you’d know that it’s fun. Though a group activity, the game is quite individual – each to his own level of flexibility as the bar drops. It’s all good fun. Looking at our political scene the last few weeks reminds me a little of limbo rock, only not so fun.

We’ve had quite a few elected representatives, limbo their way out of their duties, jump ship or jump over to another ship. Three years ago, no one would have known their names, but today we do thanks to the many press conferences, statements and loud mouthing that’s going on.

I find it sad for the people who elected them because these representatives didn’t do what they sold. I’m sure a lot of them promised to serve the people, after all that’s what sells.

So from being nobodies to having their 5 minutes of fame at the expense of the people they made a promise to and leaving the very people that believed and hoped that they would be able to make a difference.

I guess the only difference they made was proving how much Malaysia is in need of people who keep their word, who are willing to put their ego aside for the good of the people, especially during tough times.

I remember some years ago while at university, I had to stand up in front of those voting and tell “the people” what I was going to do for them if I was elected. Of course it’s nothing compared to political campaigning. Either way, it all felt very foreign to me, I’d never “campaigned” before – even if it was just for 10 minutes.

Nervous, I babbled on.

Then came the question, what would I do if I didn’t win. The question of character did pierce hard.

I thought about my options.

Would, I sulk and never return to the group, would I start a new parallel group, would I “diss” the group I was campaigning for or would I stay and support, assist and learn humility. It was definitely an interesting hour.

I learnt a lot about myself and what serving truly meant.

When I think about the bar in the limbo rock, I relate it to standards and principles. We’re all made knowing what is good and bad, what the right thing is and whether something is not fair. That’s just how we’re made and that’s the bar.

The bar, doesn’t move, and doesn’t change unlike the limbo bar.

What changes is us.

Our actions change, our thoughts and our behaviour don’t necessarily measure up to what we know and believe is right.

So we try and move the bar, try and change it to what we think it should be to save our pride.

But the reality is the bar doesn’t move.

We can whine and squirm our way out of duties, responsibilities and roles that we take up, but we all know that the bar never moves. And no matter how much we think we’ve convinced everyone and limbo-ed our way under and around it – deep down, all of us know that the bar never ever moves.

It’s not just in politics, it’s the ethics of our work, our lives, our responsibilities and how we measure up to the bar when we are quiet in the wake of injustices happening around us.

I wonder what the motives really are for the limbo representative and the parties they now represent.

After all, the quality of a party is measured by the quality of its representatives.

What stops anyone from hopping from one party to another and what is the quality of the people eager to lead?

Are we that resource deficient that we do not have people of substance that will walk their talk and stick and work things out?

Everyone’s out to erode each other’s integrity, which is sad. I was given a book of wisdom when I was little which I still have to this day. In it there is an anonymous quote “You don’t have to blow out another’s candle for yours to shine brighter.”

I guess it’s easy to sell promises; it’s not easy to keep them. So my policy, is that if you can’t do it, don’t say you can, just be honest and real instead of repeatedly killing hope, snuffing out another’s flame and limbo dancing out of responsibilities.

Natalie continually preaches to herself and hasn’t limbo rocked for a very long time.
Comment: letters@thesundaily.com