‘Sex education’ at last… in 1 Malaysia
By A Mother, The Malaysian Insider
AUG 21 — It was one of ‘those’ days about three weeks ago, when my 8-year old daughter duly informed me that I was assigned some of her school homework. After a long day at work, I marvelled at the way she coolly delegated her homework to me. And I thought that only my office boss could delegate work to me. What a fallacy!
My homework that night was to log into my Internet connection and access a website listed in the following textbook: Bahasa Melayu Tahun 2 Sekolah Kebangsaan Buku Teks, Jilid 2 Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (2006) Authors: Abdul Jalil bin Othman and Faizul Mashura binti Ismail Editors: Zaleha binti Hussain & Fazilah binto Mohamedeni Page 2 www.anglefire.com/me/fomca
According to my daughter, the class teacher had asked those who had an Internet connection at home to access the site and discuss the online content the next day. There seemed to be no other specific instructions. After taking a look at the website address, my gut feeling told me that something was amiss.
So I decided to access the site without the presence of my daughter. A good thing that I followed my gut feeling for lo and behold, the website address pointed to various pornographic sites. I double-checked, used a different web browser, called up another parent (who did not do the homework), and rang a friend. Everyone who accessed the website address reconfirmed my discovery. What was supposed to be a website on consumerism (Fomca) turned out to be X-rated.
Trying to convince my daughter that the ‘anglefire’ website was “invalid” was another challenge in itself. She insisted that I show her the “invalid” message displayed on the website and I had to concoct creative excuses to assure her that it was perfectly okay not to complete her ‘homework’ that night. I know that I did not convince her totally. In retrospect, I am just thankful that I did not have to explain the birds and the bees prematurely to her had I let her surf on her own.
Soon after, I duly informed the school about this grave error. Armed with the textbook, I insisted on the Senior Assistant (who was the most senior person in the office at that time) accessing the website according to what was printed in the textbook. I told him that I could not explain the problem unless he sees the website like how I saw it.
He seemed taken aback with the colourful display of images and links. He took a second look and perhaps, a third. He then looked at me and said “Alamak, ini kinky punya website!” (Whoever said the standard of English is low in 1 Malaysia…. ‘kinky’ was in his vocabulary list!).
And my response was “Ya la, Encik, dan ini homework untuk darjah dua. Ini masalah besar.” Up to now, I cannot figure out the teaching methodology of this class teacher.
