Smart and Stupid Schools

"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original." -- Sir Ken Robinson

I always have a strong bond with Japan as she was the first country I visited in my life, and she was also an emblem of me showing to my previous middle-high school's teachers that they were wrong about my life decision at that moment. Education, in general, always makes my heart rage, and I'm highly sensitive to this topic of discussion. As time went by, I observed that the education system no longer serves its purpose – perhaps, there still exists a drop of hope – in educating the generations. Yet, it has become a tool for the indoctrination of the masses. It has become the "Weapons of Mass Instruction", as the late John Taylor Gatto described in his book with a similar title. In this blog post, I want to narrate a story of my decision to register into a "stupid" upper-high school and let go of the offers from the "smart" schools. That decision incurred anger and worries in most of my grade 7 - 9 teachers. They worried that I would flunk in life and turn out to be stupid or a delinquent because of mingling with "stupid" students – I was and still am a maverick, though.?? One of the respected educators, which I read most of his books when I was young, the late Sir Ken Robinson, said, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."

At the end of my grade 9, I scored 8A's and 1C in the Malaysia national examination for middle-high school. We would later use this result to choose whether to enter the science, engineering, accountancy, or literature stream of education. That 1C of mine was coming from the Arabic language subject. I don't know why but the question was to write an essay on soccer in Arabic. Well, I don't know much about soccer in Arabic and don't play soccer, so that's what I got. Anyway, I got too many A's already; one C won't hurt.?? At that time, I received two offers from top "smart" schools for the science stream and one offer from the technical and vocational school, which most Malaysians, even until today, consider this kind of school as the "stupid" school for the "stupid" people. What an irony. I used these quotation marks on the words smart and stupid because I don't even believe in their meanings, as life seems like a binary code. Nevertheless, in reality, these two words, where in Malay we called them "cerdik" and "bodoh", respectively, were exactly being used, literally, at least by my school teachers, at that time – no politically correct agenda whatsoever during that period in Malaysia, which I believe that's better.

My school's teachers were hoping that I accept the "smart" school offer, but fortunately, I turned them down by deciding to go to the "stupid" school. My reasoning during that time was simple, I have my own principles in life, and I'm good at whatever I'm doing (arrogance spotted), so it doesn't matter to me, and I like to break things. They were furious with me and tried to convince me that technical and vocational schools are for those who are stupid and lack intellectual prowess. Those who went there didn't do well in school and life according to those teachers' perceptions, and perhaps, they were deluded in their status of intellectuality. I'm not exaggerating here; this was the truth of what came out of my teachers' mouths. The one who was very upset with me was the school's counsellor. To me, he did not believe in the students whom he guided. I remember once I mentioned to him my interest in studying petroleum engineering later for my bachelor, where at that time, I was in grade 7. He discouraged me because his own brother, who studied petroleum engineering, failed and dropped out of university because petroleum engineering was hard for him. That's one of the reasons I am highly sensitive to those involved in the education system.

To make a long story short, I accepted the offer to enter that "stupid" technical and vocational school and specialized in electrical and electronic engineering. Over time, those teachers who were angry and discouraged me in the past started to admit that they were wrong, especially when I was selected as one of the Malaysian youth ambassadors to Japan under the JENESYS program in 2007. Since then, my "stupid" school flourished for a couple of years until about a few years ago, when the Malaysian government decided to remodel the technical and vocational school system in Malaysia, my "stupid" school got a hit. I feel sad about it.

After finishing upper-high school at that "stupid" school, I received many scholarships offers to continue my studies at the university. One of them was from PETRONAS. I accepted that offer from PETRONAS and graduated with a petroleum engineering degree from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), Malaysia. I have envisioned that petroleum engineering degree since I was in grade 7, and I made it through with the support and care from the teachers in that "stupid" school. They believe in me, and I am highly grateful to them. The most precious thing in life is to have people believe in us and support us in our endeavours.

Every person is unique and has unique abilities and capabilities to navigate life. Indeed, schools, teachers, and the education system as a whole play a major role in shaping the generations. Still, suppose everything starts with binary labellings (or binary classification as in machine learning), such as black and white, smart and stupid. In that case, we are actually knocking at the door of tribulations. Life is not binary, and we are not perfect. In my case, I risked my life by proving to my middle-high school teachers that I was right (I believe this is one of my weaknesses as I always wanted to prove something) and as the late Sir Ken Robinson said, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."??