Educators are Humans!

As Malaysia enters its third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, my fellow educators continue to navigate and adapt to the rapidly changing education landscape which includes: conducting online classes from the ‘comfort’ of their homes, to hybrid (physical and online) teaching, to travelling to their institutions to conduct the online classes because management perceives that…

Redefining Education with Empathy

“Long after your students have forgotten the 14 causes of the War of 1812, the Pythagorean Theorem, and the sonnets of Shakespeare, they will remember a much more important lesson: how you made them feel about themselves and their possibilities in this life” – John Jay Bonstingl Can you name a teacher or lecturer who…

Redefining Education with Interdisciplinary Symposiums

Merriam-Webster defines ‘interdisciplinary’ as “involving two or more academic, scientific, or artistic disciplines.” My former colleagues cum friends and I, or as we call ourselves ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders +1’ (It is a My Little Pony reference, for those who don’t watch the cartoon) joke that had we four been schoolmates, let alone classmates, we would…

Power of Play: Redefining How We Teach History

As I wrote in my previous article, 2020 has shown us, thus far, the Arts, Humanities and Social Science (AHSS) is as important as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Medicine yet the importance of AHSS is lost to the generations of Malaysian secondary school graduates. Why?  Speaking from personal experience and to fellow…

2020 Teaches Us Why the Arts, Humanities, and Social Science Matter

The most frequently asked question I get when someone is getting to know me is “Why Egyptology/History?” I have been asked this question so often, I came up with a simple two-word response – occasionally delivered with a hint of sarcasm but always with the intention to create a conversation – “Why not?” The Malaysian…

To All the Teachers & Parents and Your Everyday Small Wins

As I am writing this article, Malaysia has moved from its Movement Control Order (MCO) phase to its Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) phase, but some businesses such as the education sector remain closed. Hence, parents continue to navigate through the maze of online learning and homeschooling.  I reached out to a few friends of…

The Sudden Shift to E-Learning Exposes Education’s Digital Gap in Malaysia

It’s the movement control order, not a learning control order” – Prof Dr. Pradeep Nair, Taylor University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer The global pandemic, COVID-19 has forced many countries, including Malaysia, to impose a form of ‘Movement Control Order’ (MCO) which has left 1.37 billion students out of school. On Day 2 of…

I teach to inspire

In a recently published article titled ‘Two wrong reasons to be a lecturer’, the writer (with 20 plus years of experience in education) argued that would-be and/or current educators motivated by their passion to make a change in the younger generation through education, will not prevail in the current Malaysian education climate. In their article,…

The Biggest Challenge Pt. 1 – Measuring Historical Thinking & Literacy

How do I justify ‘historical thinking and historical literacy’ as valid measurements for the alternate history role play assessment to an education system accustomed to rote learning?

The Brothel System Gameplay

How the introduction of a ‘brothel system’ gameplay opened the eyes of the students to the reality that History isn’t all about random dates, events and dead people’s names.