HOW MANY RAMADHANS HAVE WE EXPERIENCED?

We were going for our Isya' and Tarawikh prayers (Isya' is mandatory every day while Tarawikh is obligatory prayers in Ramadhan), when suddenly Monsieur A reminded me and the children about Bilal. A year has passed (it happened last Ramadhan) since we had Bilal staying with us. He came on (I think!) 2nd Ramadhan last year to our house.

Bilal is a French muslim and he express his interest to come and spend Ramadhan in Malaysia. He was with us for the whole of Ramadhan and followed us to almost everywhere we go. During Raya, he followed us to Monsieur A's kampung, ie up North in Kedah. But of course poor Bilal had to with stand the nasty mosquitoes there.

I just realised that I had written the above paragraphs and saved is as draft. Too busy in Ramadhan to blog. Anyway, I am still posting this little story about Bilal. BTW, Bilal called Monsieur A to inform that he was in Yemen during Ramadhan this year. Bonjour Bilal!

Assessment (Do you prefer Exams?)

From the 1st - 15th September 2006, I was practically running at the office because on the night of 15th September my organization had a 'malam anugerah' kind of function, and the VVIP was the Minister of Education. Well, nothing like Anugerah Skrin or Anugerah Era, it was an award for Tokoh Pentaksiran Pendidikan (award to people who have contributed a lot to assessment - assessment in education). Does anyone out there realize about the changes in exams/assessment that we went through? Remember the Penilaian Darjah Lima --> UPSR, Lower Certificate of Education --> SRP --> PMR, etc.? BTW, I was the last batch of students who sat for the MCE; yes, I did Maths and the pure Sciences in English.

Last week, from the 18 - 22nd Sept 2006, I was a participant of a workshop on School-Based Assessment (SBA) in Melaka. The Min of Edu (MOE) is presently revisiting assessment (past, present, future) so that we can make our children view assessment as a means to improve their learning. (Graphically: Teaching&Learning --> Assessment --> Improve on Teaching&Learning to make education enjoyable and ultimately children learn). MOE wants to educate/inform its stake holders that assessment (what public know as EXAMS) is to let children know what knowledge they have acquired and how to be better at it (improve their knowledge, skills, abilities).

I hope parents out there will write some positive feedback / comments regarding assessment (loosely, exams) in Malaysia. Write something that may help the society / help our nation, not just criticize the system.

Lastly, a reminder to me and those reading this entry: Observe the holy month of Ramadhan as it should be observed.

5-day Week

Since 1st September 2006 Monsieur A has been on a 5-day week work schedule. It is quite a relief for me as well, at least we will get 2 days/week off from work. Unfortunately, tomorrow he has decided he will go to his office - that room on the 5th floor of the CoIT Building of UNITEN. So, I have decided to go shopping with the kids tomorrow (09092006).

Are you wondering why Monsieur A would want to go to his office tomorrow? You see, enrolled for his Phd in the year .....(quite some time ago, and I've forgotten when!!!). Until this very minute he is still a part-time student doing full-time work. My friends would term it as MAHASITUA (MAHASISWA would be more professional, don't you think so?) So, he needs to hibernate and finish what he is suppose to finish, ie. his research on SVM = Support Vector Machine, Pattern Recognition, etc. Any SVM fans???

Tomorrow my eldest daughter, Arifah, plans to go back to UPM. She has been on a one-week semester break, she will resume class on Sept 11 (ring a bell???) but plan to go back to college tomorrow instead of the normal black Sunday evening. As I am writing this piece, Arifah is not back yet. She has gone to KLIA before Maghrib with Bibah or was it Mimi to send off a friend who will be flying to India (Manipal Medical College) to study medicine.

BTW, all of us in the family were fasting today, including my youngest daughter, Atiqah (10 yrs old). Atiqah, was worried because a few times she forgot that she was fasting and more than once she accidentally drank and also ate chewing-gum. I had to tell her that its OK because it was unintentional and that Allah will not penalize her!