The Learning Process

We educationists believe that learning is a life long process and when you reflect on it you will realize that there are indeed lots of opportunities to learn.I never stop learning as I always tell myself " If others can do it why cant you ?". Age should never be given as an excuse.There is nothing which says that you cant do something because of age.I am now trying to master the i phone with all its intricacies and it has opened up a whole new horizon for me.The learning goes on and I am basically self taught as many people are I presume The process makes you think and the harder you think the more your mind works. I learned from my niece's narrative of her working incident that management must always focus not only on the big guns in an organisation but also to open their eyes and take a look at what the other staff are doing.It takes a whole team of players to make an organisation tick from the tea lady to the president and in between. If we are in the top management it must never be below us to be courteous to the people whom we work with no matter what is their status in the organisation.Unfortunately there are many in the top positions who fail to acknowledge the people below them .If you look at the behavior of some of the so called VIPs you will see how artificial they are.Looking at some of the Ministers and the way they greet the people is an eye opener.They shake hands with you without even looking at you as though they are doing you a big favor by shaking your hand.people still line up to shake their hands as though they are idols to be worshiped.This is human shallowness at its worst , yet strange to say there are so many people who take joy in this and go back telling " I shook hand with so and so " not realizing that its no big deal. We learn from everyone and from everywhere if only we care to bother.Even my little grand children have things to teach me .You have to be observant and watch them in order to see the learning opportunities which they present now and then. I have learned to be independent and to fend for myself since young and that is perhaps one value which I will take with me.I have learned that if I need to drive long distances that I should tell myself it can be done and it is done albeit with a bit of ache here and there at the end of the journey.Its better to depend on yourself for then you can travel at your own time and convenience.I have learned to ignore the protests from your body when you do things you should not be doing.I have learned to control the body with your mind rather than the other way round. Learning comes from the willingness of the mind and its ever challenging but never let yourself be daunted by something before you even start.Some times you need to look up something in the net and you start to think as to how to go about it and suddenly the task becomes daunting and you rationalize and give yourself the reason that you will do it later and at the end of the day its never done. We receive feedback about ourselves everyday. Things like " why are you so slow? why are you always late ?" has to do with our time management and self management.Can we not learn to be faster ? Can we not learn to be more time conscious ? If we are people who are bent on self improvement these are simple things to work on.Its only when we the " mind blockage, ear blocked , mind closed " type that we cannot improve. Self improvement is learning process and unless we are open to learning we will never improve.

Thinking out of the box

All too often our thinking is stereotyped partly because we are so used to set ways of doing things or thinking.Great innovations leading to man's progress has come about because there are people who dare to think outside the box, dare to take risks and dare to be bold.Too often we have our comfort zone and too often we have the same rationale for doing things. The " I will do it later " syndrome plagues many a person and it leads to procrastination and and the giving excuses syndrome. Doing something which needs to be done immediately and not waiting is a sure way of getting things done.Sometimes we have so many things to do that it becomes daunting.The way to do it is to think how to break all the tasks into manageable one and tackle them .The " box " thinking would be " How to handle all these ?".This leads to inaction and at the end of the day nothing gets done because we have lost the battle before we even start. Men are creatures of habits but in order to make life interesting we should have some variety.Eating the same food , doing the same thing day after day certainly would be boring.Yet there are many people who follow this life style.I know of people who would eat the same food for years for breakfast , lunch and dinner.Sadly they never realize there can be so much adventure in food.We all love surprises and it will be fun if once in a way we do something unexpected of us thereby making ourselves interesting.being stereo typed and predictable certainly makes you a dull person. We should realize that in life there are always alternatives and we should spare a thought or some time looking at the alternatives as there will certainly be better ways of doing something.

When the going gets tough....

We all go through certain phases in life which can be described as " tough " and it is a measure of the caliber of the person as to how he handles the tough times.If I can recall I went through many tough times in my life span and somehow I managed to cope with them and came out , I would think, a better and stronger person. Staring life with no resources or financial backing was not easy .I remember when I first started work my financial obligations were heavy as I not only had to support myself , but also my mum and dad.So every month what I earned was just enough to last till the next salary day which was always eagerly awaited.There was nothing for the proverbial " rainy day " and it was like living for the next month.Tough times indeed but I survived. Came the time for family building and I found I had nothing to offer to the lady of my choice .Fortunately she was not the mercenary type and saw me for what I was and not the money which I did not have in my pockets. With nothing more than the feeling which we had for each other we took the bold step to embark on life's difficult journey together.Not an easy decision to make .Throughout the journey it was our respect and love for each other which made the journey less difficult. The wife played the role of the homemaker to perfection.She believed that a man should come home to a home and not just the empty shell of a house.There was always warmth , love and understanding in our home.Even when we faced tough times , like bringing up the kids , making ends meet , she never showed temper or grumpiness. That is the hallmark of a special person.I cant stand those people who take it out on others whenever confronted with a problem.Therein lies the difference between quality and the mediocre . A man works hard the whole day to make a living so that he can provide for the family, whilst the woman plays the role of the home maker.No man would want to come home to a house filled with complains, grumpiness and long faces.Albeit the woman has it tough but is there a need to permeate the whole house with her moodiness and grumpiness and tantrums.? The tough will be able to cope with all this without losing her sense of direction and priority in the process. Times are never easy and coping with work and home is never easy and it take s really tough people to be able to handle this.My wife is such a person !

How you see things

I have a friend whom I recently met .He is 68 years old and is a p/a to a well known figure around town.We shared a lot of things via e mail and though we have not actually met we have become good friends.Recently we talked about children and grandchildren and he told me he regretted not spending enough time with his children and he feels that his grandchildren are not his responsibility. I told him I can understand the thing with the children as we were young and trying to make a life for them so much so that we did not really have the time to spend with them.Mum agreed with this and she told me that we had to struggle to ensure that there was adequate food for the kids on the dining table every day.Yes, in our younger days life was a struggle.We did not earn much as teachers and whatever we had went to providing the family with the necessities of life.We did not want our children to be deprived and whatever was necessary was provided for them .We made sure they had clothes, food, books and holidays when they were on holiday.Albeit we could not afford to go overseas but they had holidays in almost all the holiday spots in the country which was all we could afford. We had no spare for savings and the monthly salary just lasted till the end of the month.Life was tough but we were happy spending all our time and resources trying to build a happy family.Therefore its not surprising that we could not spend as much time as we would have liked with the children. I disagree that the grandchildren are the responsibility of the children.As grand parents we now have the time and hopefully the energy to spend time with the grandchildren as otherwise we would be denied the joy of watching them grow up.Their first steps, their first words are a real joy to experience over again.As parents we would always want our children to have things as easy as possible.No doubt they have to go through what we went through when we were young but by being with them and helping them with their children certainly makes life much easier .Besides this grand parents feel good to know that they are still useful and wanted.What they need in return is some words and gestures of appreciation every now and then. Grand parents are able to enjoy the grandchildren as we now no longer need to worry about our children as they are now grown up and able to fend for themselves and as parents we will always look at our children as children and whilst we are able to , we will certainly do all we can to make life easier for them.

Fate

As I reach this age its often that I look back on what was and what could be.Suddenly it struck me that my ending up as a teacher was perhaps destined.I was born on May 15 which happened to be Founder's Day for the Christian Missionary Schools in honor of St. John Baptist De Lasalle . He was the son of a rich man with fame and fortune at his disposal .Yet he gave all this away and chose a life of frugality with focus on educating the homeless young people. I have always admired him since in school as the Brothers who taught us told us his story over and over again.In school I was inspired by what St. John did especially how he founded the Lasalle Brothers who became teachers all over the world. They worked for nothing more than the education of the young and their sphere of influence spread all over the world. As fate would have it . after I finished my Higher School exam In December I had nothing to do and of course mum said I should not waste time and should find a job so I could give her some pocket money.As fate would have it Khoo Kay Kim whose brother was my classmate and who was teaching History in St. Anthony's Teluk Intan left his post to move on. He felt bad having to leave the school and asked me if I was interested and since I had no means of going to the University at that time . I thought " why not " as I could earn some money and save for my university education which I wanted badly as I believed only through it could I break away from the socio- economic cycle which the toh family was caught in. Come January , at the tender age of 19 off I went to Teluk Intan and thus began my career as a teacher.It was fated that I taught in a Mission School and it was also fated that I ended up as the first non mission headmaster of a Mission School. I have never regretted being a teacher as it gave me the opportunity to be in touch with thousands of students who some of them to this day still remember me and always tell me " Sir, I would not be what I am today if not for you ".These words are the best testimonials any teacher can ask for and somehow makes everything worthwhile.Teachers are not rich. We were not paid huge salaries but yet I would consider myself very rich as I had the opportunity to reach out and touch the lives of so many young people.This is wealth which is so much more valuable than money.There is no point in having so much money when you do not know what to do with it.I have come across filthy rich people who are so stingy that they deprive themselves of the good things in life.To them I always say " Money is just paper and you cant take it with you when you go ". Today after more than 50 years in education I still feel there is no regret having chosen teaching as a profession >Not rich in money , but rich in the many students whom we have sent out into the world as fine upright people.All the money in the world can buy this and not many people in the world can have this privilege !