As I marked the exam papers, I could not help from wondering this thing “What does it mean to be a truly educated person?”. Looking at some of the lackluster inarticulate answers of my PG students, I was wondering what went wrong in my class. Did I emphasis the wrong thing? Did I emphasis exam results than what they should know regardless of whatever grade they might get?
I encourage my students to be reflective. I give them reflective questions. When I found a note about what kinds of questions that self-regulated learners ask themselves, I share the note with my students. In one class, I discussed with them about self-regulation model/theory and using the note, we discussed about how we can use it in different context of our lives. I did my best in this case to guide my students not to be good test takers, but true learners. But again, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink“.
But one thing that I notice is not many of my students are avid readers. Meaning, not many of them like to read. When I asked some of them if they have the textbook that I have recommended, NONE of them have the textbook (this was my UG class). Unfortunately, it happens not only in my UG class, but also in my PG class. The only difference is for my PG class, they realise the importance of having a textbook in the middle of semester, so by week 10 (there are only 14 weeks in one semester), majority have the textbook. Well, better late than never. The UG class? I rest my case. Perhaps they did borrow the textbook from the library and it is just that I don’t know about it (husn zahn in Arabic – or in English it means think positively or in Malay – bersangka baik)