JANUARY 22 — A peculiar advantage from my fairly disadvantageous career trajectory is that I still deal with interns.
They do not enjoy dealing with a relic. The low perceived value of the organisation and its mission mean the interns are not the cream but rather the broader average.
Two things are generally revealed about them, as they struggle to deal with non-repetitive tasks. That they are generally allergic to math and science, and that they hate history classes. In and out, every batch teaches me.
Their lessons ached within me, reading the prime minister’s announcement that undergraduates must endure recalibrated mandatory Malaysian history classes.
Apparently, too many young Malaysians emerge from 11 schooling years shallow or ignorant about our Constitution and the story of Malaysia.
They want to drill in the lessons in university when they are pursuing a degree in engineering, food technology or graphic design. This is the solution, to them.
Outrageously indifferent
Please forgive me if I do not shout Eureka in the street reading about this ingenious solution to manipulating the young to be subservient to the state’s strict interpretation of the past.
There are reasons why history lessons in schools fail to tantalise the students. And accentuating technological shifts are going to turn the latest effort by the government to screw in our students’ heads right into a farcical exercise.
Firstly, history is critical to the development of a person.
Who we were, tells us about who we are, and guides us to who we should aspire to be.
Then why my cynicism?
It stems from why generations of Malaysians detest history lessons. Our history lessons stifle free thought which is to a child of this century, weird ass.
They live in a time where nothing is straightforward yet they have to swallow the official and two-dimensional state version. Marks are for memorisation, not for opinions.
In impolite language, the state wishes to indoctrinate the next generation.
Perhaps, it is wholly appropriate to update our education ethos in how to engage students in the history classroom.
For starters, I asked AI (ChatGPT) about its opinion about history education, with this question, “How accurate is the history taught in Malaysian schools?”
The machine falls into deep introspection and answers in 14 seconds. The following bits, telling:
“Reasonably accurate on the basic timeline and headline events, but it is not designed to be a neutral academic survey. It is explicitly a nation-building subject — and that purpose shapes what is included, what is emphasised, and how sensitive episodes are narrated.”
The shorter summary would be, sneaky indoctrination.
There is less space for uncertainties and obviously no contradictions.
Even without AI, students live lives and in life they quickly observe uncertainties in all relationships and responsibilities, with contradictions a norm.
Yet, these young adults must believe on face value that the past was completely clear cut without question marks?
And if they were passive and disinterested by the time they take their SPM, somehow when they are older, experienced and rebellious in their late teens or early twenties they would obediently adopt the official version?
There is an opportunity here though I am 150 per cent sure the government will spurn it.
It’ll be happier to have 10 per cent more input stuffed into our young people’s heads through additional telling sessions in university rather than engage openly with young adults and enjoy rigorous debate about the past with an awareness they may reject the official version.
If in three years of Large-Language Model AI, revolution in education is rife, how much more independent learning builds in the years to come in the age of machines?
Mat Kilau and Chin Peng killed those in British uniforms
Imagine that is on a slide during the undergrad required history class.
Will upset some. Parallelisms are atomic in historical discussions.
But our history is complicated and the upside of antagonising discussion points is to draw people into sharing their perspectives.
Are discussions resolved? Of course not, that’s not the purpose. It is finding out whether civil discussions can be had in the present about the past which informs us how sturdy Malaysia is after almost 70 years.
Also, if they are incendiary, these classes will be exciting at least.
Far better than what will transpire with the new plans. More staid classes which students assume are an unnecessary detour in their journey to a degree.
History, whether we hate it or not, never goes away. Contentious history lurks in the shadows, forcing second guesses among proponents and detractors.
The PM’s insistence
The rejig of history for university students underscores the prime minister’s fears that the students do not get it.
And if they do not get it, and it is bad when they do not get it, using the same method from primary and secondary schooling in the tertiary level will only trigger more resistance.
The indoctrination method is from the old century, applicable only in North Korea and Iran, synonymous with controlled states.
Malaysia, whether our politicians acknowledge it or not, is stepping in the direction of freer information.
The appreciation of our history cannot be forced anymore, and certainly not beaten into our young.
The best option left is to invite them to the discussion as empowered participants, which is also incidentally the way knowledge is championed in the international universities Malaysia wants to follow.
It is a scarier and less guaranteed path, and probably frightens a vast number of lecturers unaccustomed to open and frank exchanges.
But it is a path of purpose, not a public relations stunt.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
