Dance and teaching enthusiast Marion D’Cruz partly blames the crazy waltz of politics for the lack of thinking skills among Malaysian students.
FEATURE
If we could live on the things Marion D’Cruz says, we would all be slim and trim because nothing is sugar-coated and artificial sweeteners are banned altogether.One of the many things she has always been upfront about is the Malaysian education system.
“I love teaching,” she once wrote. “I aim, more than anything else, to make young people think.”
She complained, in that 2007 newspaper article, about the damage done on young minds by the education system – “or rather the lack of an education system”– and by the “systems of injustice, aggression and racial polarisation and the politics of religion and economics”.
FMT caught up with her recently and found that the last four years had done nothing to dim that passion or make her any less frank.
Marion is currently with the National Arts Academy (Aswara), where she lectures on dance history, dance criticism, improvisation, dance choreography, dance aesthetics and appreciation, but teaches her students a lot more than what those course titles might indicate.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I feel sorry for the students. Our school system is just not giving them anything. They don’t have a sense of the world, no criticality and no thinking skills at all.
“It’s really horrific. When I ask them a question like, ‘Are we still good people or citizens if we don’t believe in God?’ most of them look at me very strangely and give me this answer, ‘maybe’.
“It’s always maybe with them because they are scared to commit to an opinion.”
She blamed the system. “It makes them say ‘yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir.’
“I ask them these questions to challenge them. Whatever answer they give, I will keep prodding them, just to make them think.
“If they answer ‘yes’, I will ask them, ‘Are you saying you are rebelling against the Rukunegara when the first line itself states ‘Kepercayaan Kepada Tuhan’ (Belief in God)?”
World-class dancers
Nevertheless, she is evidently proud of her students.
“I can safely tell you that at least 10 per cent of them are world-class dancers,” she said.
“But they need to be thinkers, so they can create bodies of work that move other people to think. If a dancer thinks, then he or she is on the way to becoming a great artist.“I just want them to speak and share their opinions. Our schools have shut them up for too long.”
To the question of what could be done to set things right, Marion deadpanned, “Honestly, I don’t know where to begin.”
But she did speak of policy flip-flops and questioned the sincerity of some ministerial decisions.
“Whenever a new minister comes along, he or she will add or change a policy and say, ‘This is what it should be.” Then he leaves. Someone new comes along and does something different. The science and maths debacle is a prime example of this fickle-mindedness.
“Some of these ministers are all about making their mark. If it’s a good mark, great. But if you keep changing something, it’s going to get confusing and very messy. Consistency is a good thing sometimes.
“The last I heard, the students are being given a chance to choose what language they want to have the Maths and Science classes in.
“Imagine this: you have 100 students, 20 of them say Bahasa Malaysia and 80 pick English. How on earth are the schools going to manage it?”
Graduate teachers
She picked up a copy of the 10th Malaysia Plan and knocked down its proposal to improve the quality of education by increasing the number of graduate teachers in primary schools.
“How is this going to help the students? To be very frank, the quality of teachers here as a whole is a disaster. And it’s not necessarily a university degree that makes a fine teacher.
“If a school is fortunate, it will have a progressive principal who will make positive changes.
“The teachers are also fed up because they are bogged down. I hear from government-school teachers how bad the situation is. Many of them can’t manage a class of 50 students.”
Marion picks on another point in the Malaysia Plan – that the performance of students in critical subjects, particularly the National Language, English, Science and Mathematics, will be improved by – again – increasing the number of graduate teachers.
“The thinking here is so bizarre that it’s all about graduate teachers.
“Before anything can be improved, many problems have to be acknowledged.
“For example, the divide between Arts and Science is a problem. The balance between the two, which is so essential, just isn’t there. I’m not suggesting that a dancer needs to learn quantum physics, but there should be a fair amount of crossover.
“Everything right now revolves around technology. I have been told that the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry has the most money for grants. It seems that if you want to apply, your research must be about technology.
“What about the arts? All great civilisations of the world are recognised as such because of the artists along with the inventors and scientists.”
Marion stressed the need to change teaching strategies and create a two-way learning environment in which teachers and students learn together.
She advised: “It really cannot just be about the gathering of facts to pass an exam. It cannot be just about right and wrong. ‘Wrong’ can be good. That’s where learning happens.
“In my improvisation classes, the students learn how to use their bodies in creative ways. I have a lot of movement games aimed at getting the students to be creative. I’m not interested if you can put your toe in your ear. It’s just about enjoying the creative process and learning something useful from it.”
When it comes to making things better, according to Marion, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. There are plenty of models to choose from in the teaching pedagogies already available.
“But,” she added, “it will take a hell of a lot of political shift and will.”
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