I suddenly came across this piece of childhood memory, and I think I want to share it with everyone.
One day in primary school, my Bahasa Melayu teacher asked her pupils to write a short essay (a very short essay; it's primary school, isn't it?).
That night I managed to write one page of the A5-sized exercise book, but one word was not right. There were smudges on the word "dan" which was at the edge of the paper so the word was not really legible. So I erased the word with the intention to write it again, but it seemed that there wasn't enough space and I had to write it in condensed typography. It made the word stand out in the essay, which was not beautiful to me because it wasn't uniformly written.
Then I had an idea. What if I substitute the word with a symbol? I had seen many of the symbol "&" in posters and television so I thought I would use it. The problem was I didn't know how to write the symbol. Luckily, we had a PC. So I searched the keyboard for the symbol and eventually found it.
At first, I looked and stared at the symbol to figure out what path my pencil would have to take to write it. It looked like number eight but it was not number eight. I tried rotating my book around and writing the number eight upside down, but it turned out to be a horizontally flipped version of the symbol "&". I erased and wrote the symbol again and again just to get right in that tiny space of the page. It felt like learning to draw.
When I finally got it right, I smiled. I smiled happily. I managed to solve the problem, and now it looked beautiful. I was so proud of myself, I felt like the day has finally ended and I needed to sleep. I kept thinking how my teacher would praise me, seeing how smart and creative I was to have used the symbol instead of the word because of the tight space. That night I slept soundly.
The next day at school, still imbued with pride, I turned in my essay. Soon after, it was absolute shock. My teacher called me and scolded me. I couldn't remember what she said because she kept blabbering, but the gist of it was that the use of symbols in an essay was totally unacceptable. It was a taboo. That experience was absolutely different from my expectation the night before.
Though I did change back the symbol to the word, it was only on paper. I believed I had done nothing wrong. The use of the symbol was totally right and smart as well as creative. And I went through many errors trying to write it, for crying out loud!
So whenever I see the opportunity to use the symbol "&", I will use it instead of many other variants of the symbol invented by others, which were much easier to write as an act of rebellion to my teacher. Actually, it was more to rebellion against my teacher's reaction. The symbol "&" has a stigma on me, and bits of this memory surfaces every time I write the symbol.
Recently, I realized that had my teacher reacted differently, praised me despite saying that it was inappropriate to use symbols in an essay, I would not have this stigma. I would probably be interested to learn more about formats and do's and don'ts in writing essays. Probably I would respect her more and probably my relationship with her would be better and closer.
Nevertheless, I know this happened for some reason. Somehow it was a blessing in disguise.
Still, I believe that teachers should never discourage her students for anything they do, especially primary school students. React neutrally and ask them why they did that. If it is a bad thing, tell them why it is bad. Tell them truthfully and let them see and evaluate the pros and cons of their actions, and I believe that if they can see that an action does more harm than good, they will leave it for good.
Children like to rebel and if scolded they are likely to rebel more, mentally if not physically. However, if they are not discouraged, they feel that it is alright to do such things and it makes them feel satisfied. With parental guidance, they can then evaluate their actions and identify which is good and which is bad; and trust me, children want to become good people. They want to become superheroes and save civilians. Aren't they good people? Nobody wants to grow up to be a murderer! Well, except murdering villains — like in the movies!
The important thing to remember is to be careful with how you treat the children because your advice and actions will be the foundation of the lives they are going to build.
That's it for a bit of my memory and my opinion.
p/s: just recently I realized my way of writing the ampersand was different than the conventional method..no wonder it was hard for me to write it beautifully..
One day in primary school, my Bahasa Melayu teacher asked her pupils to write a short essay (a very short essay; it's primary school, isn't it?).
That night I managed to write one page of the A5-sized exercise book, but one word was not right. There were smudges on the word "dan" which was at the edge of the paper so the word was not really legible. So I erased the word with the intention to write it again, but it seemed that there wasn't enough space and I had to write it in condensed typography. It made the word stand out in the essay, which was not beautiful to me because it wasn't uniformly written.
Then I had an idea. What if I substitute the word with a symbol? I had seen many of the symbol "&" in posters and television so I thought I would use it. The problem was I didn't know how to write the symbol. Luckily, we had a PC. So I searched the keyboard for the symbol and eventually found it.
At first, I looked and stared at the symbol to figure out what path my pencil would have to take to write it. It looked like number eight but it was not number eight. I tried rotating my book around and writing the number eight upside down, but it turned out to be a horizontally flipped version of the symbol "&". I erased and wrote the symbol again and again just to get right in that tiny space of the page. It felt like learning to draw.
When I finally got it right, I smiled. I smiled happily. I managed to solve the problem, and now it looked beautiful. I was so proud of myself, I felt like the day has finally ended and I needed to sleep. I kept thinking how my teacher would praise me, seeing how smart and creative I was to have used the symbol instead of the word because of the tight space. That night I slept soundly.
The next day at school, still imbued with pride, I turned in my essay. Soon after, it was absolute shock. My teacher called me and scolded me. I couldn't remember what she said because she kept blabbering, but the gist of it was that the use of symbols in an essay was totally unacceptable. It was a taboo. That experience was absolutely different from my expectation the night before.
Though I did change back the symbol to the word, it was only on paper. I believed I had done nothing wrong. The use of the symbol was totally right and smart as well as creative. And I went through many errors trying to write it, for crying out loud!
So whenever I see the opportunity to use the symbol "&", I will use it instead of many other variants of the symbol invented by others, which were much easier to write as an act of rebellion to my teacher. Actually, it was more to rebellion against my teacher's reaction. The symbol "&" has a stigma on me, and bits of this memory surfaces every time I write the symbol.
Recently, I realized that had my teacher reacted differently, praised me despite saying that it was inappropriate to use symbols in an essay, I would not have this stigma. I would probably be interested to learn more about formats and do's and don'ts in writing essays. Probably I would respect her more and probably my relationship with her would be better and closer.
Nevertheless, I know this happened for some reason. Somehow it was a blessing in disguise.
Still, I believe that teachers should never discourage her students for anything they do, especially primary school students. React neutrally and ask them why they did that. If it is a bad thing, tell them why it is bad. Tell them truthfully and let them see and evaluate the pros and cons of their actions, and I believe that if they can see that an action does more harm than good, they will leave it for good.
Children like to rebel and if scolded they are likely to rebel more, mentally if not physically. However, if they are not discouraged, they feel that it is alright to do such things and it makes them feel satisfied. With parental guidance, they can then evaluate their actions and identify which is good and which is bad; and trust me, children want to become good people. They want to become superheroes and save civilians. Aren't they good people? Nobody wants to grow up to be a murderer! Well, except murdering villains — like in the movies!
The important thing to remember is to be careful with how you treat the children because your advice and actions will be the foundation of the lives they are going to build.
That's it for a bit of my memory and my opinion.
p/s: just recently I realized my way of writing the ampersand was different than the conventional method..no wonder it was hard for me to write it beautifully..
