Pah to your Pendidikan Moral!

The lovely lady sent me a link to a reader's comment in The Star today: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/2/12/focus/3251506&sec=focus

In case you are too lazy to click on it to read it, the gist of it is this: The writer, one P. Srithanran, has recently witnessed three rather high profile people accused of corruption waving and smiling at television cameras as they are whisked into court. She draws from this the conclusion that "...It looks as though being charged with corruption is something to be proud of or which is normal. It also looks as though all of them had gone to war and returned victorious....there were hugs, patting and shaking of hands."

I have absolutely no problem with that. It is a perfectly fair assumption to make, although one could also possibly have made the following:

1) When you intend to claim trial, the last thing you should probably do is to look as though the weight of the world rests on your shoulders. A far better strategy is to look as though you have nothing to be worried about. Remember, these people she refers to are people in high positions (ie politicians). Being good actors is in the job description.

2) Assuming they weren't acting (a rather large assumption), might it not be that they want to show a brave face to the world, to instil some confidence in their supporters and family that there is nothing to worry about, that there is no doubt in their minds that they are innocent, and that this would be borne out in court. No problem.

But again, I'm also perfectly comfortable with her allegation that the accused are proud of being corrupt. What really narked me though, was the conclusion to her article, these immortal words:

"If such attitude spreads, then it would be easier to count those not corrupt than those who are. I think Pendidikan Moral should be introduced as a compulsory examination subject."

Are you daft, woman? That one sentence has just completely ripped to shreds any semblance of credibility you may have had. What kind of numpty says something like that? For one thing, Pendidikan Moral is already a compulsory subject - it's compulsory for all non-Muslim students. Or are you suggesting that it be made compulsory for Muslims as well? And even if it wasn't already a compulsory subject, what possible good could studying for this subject do for our morality? Have you simply forgotten what it was like? Or are you one of those ancients who left the Malaysian education so long ago, when it was still halfway decent, before the whole system was changed and brought to its current dismal level?

Pendidikan Moral, for those of you fortunate enough to have never had to go through its many wonders, is a subject with X number of arbitrary moral values (I forget now what X is). In my time (admittedly, I took the SPM in 2002, ages ago now), I think X was something like 88, but these days, in the characteristic dumbing down of the academic system (as if Pendidikan Moral could be dumbed down any further, hah!), it appears to have been reduced to 36. In order to score well, we were told that you had to remember and regurgitate the X values word for word. One word out of order, and it wouldn't count.

Questions were along the line of "You are crossing the road and you see your neighbour trying to cross. She is having trouble. What values can you apply in this situation?". For crying out loud! Help the old lady across and stop bloody agonising about it! (Sorry. I had to heavily edit out this article after writing it to take out all the family-unfriendly words that were in my initial post, but left that one in). How is being able to tell the old lady exactly what I am doing (Aunty, I am helping you because this shows "respect for the elderly" and "consideration for others". Not "being neighbourly", mind you Aunty, because that doesn't quite apply in this situation. If I helped you weed your garden, then that would be the "being neighbourly" bit). How does being able to do that improve my moral values at all? Being able to word-perfectly put a name to something does not make you any good at it. I can probably recite to you the FIFA rulebook, but that doesn't make me a good football player, it just makes me a football geek who needs to get out a bit more. Tell me, Ms. P. Srithanran, how does making that mind-numbing, time-wasting, pathetic excuse of a moral education course compulsory (it already is!) make us less likely to be corrupt? "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't accept that bribe, it would be 'dishonesty'. Not 'being dishonest' mind you, that's ok, I just can't practise 'dishonesty'"

If the government wants to instil moral values in today's society, it's going to take a lot more than just memorising 36 values or however many values it wants to feed its young. Send the children to old folks' homes. Send them to volunteer. Send them to build bridges, irrigation supplies, hospitals. Show them what life is like when human beings forget to be kind to one another. When the young see what the world could be like without values, the values will find their way into their hearts. No reading or writing necessary. And no, the National Service doesn't count. It is far too little, far too late, and far too pathetically planned. I will resist the temptation to blog about that for now, or this will turn into a swear-fest the likes of which the world has never seen. But as for Pendidikan Moral, and P.Srithanran's stroke of genius, I have but one word: PAH!