On hiatus, as you’ve probably noticed

As you’ve probably realised, this blog hasn’t been updated in a while. It’s mainly because I’m on a hiatus from anything to do with alternative education & youth activism. I’m currently building a base in Brisbane and I’m concentrating on performance and creative production, which I’m passionate about and gives me great joy.
It’s been hard [...]

Stupidest idea for suicide prevention ever.

The Malaysian police is planning to criminalise suicide by arresting those who attempt suicide. According to their twisted logic, jail is enough of a deterrent and besides, they can be counselled in jail anyway.
STUPIDEST. IDEA. EVER.
Mental health, depression, and suicide are issues that touch me deeply. I have lived with depression and anxiety for about [...]

Now What?

I started EducateDeviate three years ago because I was inspired by my recent Up with People trip and remembered that many of my friends and peers wanted to do the same but didn’t know how. It started with a musing about how the year will be – and has grown into a fledgling resource on [...]

The Secret to Career Success

From XKCD:
It’s not too far off from the truth.

Racist brainwashing by Biro Tatanegara – GRR

Biro Tatanegara (rough translation: Civics Bureau) is a Government-run agency that organises mandatory “citizenship” workshops for students that have received Government scholarships for tertiary education. Under the guise of “education” and “building a multicultural Malaysian culture”, these workshops are hubs of anti-Chinese/Indian/etc racism and anti-Semitism, shaming non-Malays while claiming Malaysia to be a Malay-only nation.
Education [...]

Malaysian royalty is surprisingly awesome.

This excerpt comes from Wikipedia but references a Bernama article, which doesn’t seem to be working at the moment:
On July 2008, Regent of Perak Raja Nazrin Shah said that getting a string of As is meaningless if students fail to understand, appreciate and practice good values, and describing that excellent results as mere pakaian luaran [...]

How Blogging Has Impacted My Life (contest entry)

The people at Brazen Careerist, a Gen Y-oriented career and jobs website, are giving away a free ticket (worth US$425) to SXSW Interactive, one of the world’s biggest digital media conferences. To get a shot at the ticket, they’re asking people to write a post on how blogging has impacted their life. I’m a conference [...]

Advice from Harvard ex-Dean: Slow Down

Those of you heading to Harvard, or to university in general;
those of you waiting anxiously for SPM/STPM results (have you even taken the tests yet?);
those of you putting in 24-hour days to get those “top grades” to get into something like Harvard thinking it’s the Holy Grail;
those of you pushed into the 24-hour days lifestyle [...]

Malaysian Youth Index – Absolute Rubbish

The Malaysian Youth Index is an analysis of surveys done on 4087 young people in Malaysia aged 15-40 in 2006. The idea was to get a feel for how young people in Malaysia are faring and what they get up to in their spare time.
It’s absolute RUBBISH!
The Index does not tell you anything about what [...]

Interesting changes afoot

So it seems that there are quite a number of interesting changes to the Malaysian education system, following the Ministry of Education’s blueprint:
1. A holistic, less exam-oriented primary school curriculum. I like this idea. The early childhood years are highly formative and children should be given the opportunity to explore all facets of life and [...]

Young Malaysians – how can we support you?

Hey EducateDeviate readers – especially from Malaysia – I need your help.
I’m planning to apply to the Sauve Scholars program, a one-year fellowship based in McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where you are given full support and resources to research, study, and work on a project of your choice.
I would like to use the year [...]

Homeschooling vs Socialization

This comic strip pretty much sums up my response to “homeschoolers don’t socialize!”:

Thanks Tammy!

National Service = Racial Segregation

Ethan’s experiences at his National Service term strongly reveals just how racist the system really is – and how it’s institutionalised:
We were asked several times to line up according to race (Malays here, Chinese here, Indians here, Dan Lain-Lain here) in order to distribute the races equally when it came to sorting us into classes, [...]

Rites of Passage

We don’t really have all that many rites of passages in Malaysia.
Each religion and culture has their own rites, sure. But there aren’t really that many that apply to the whole country.
Take graduations, for example. In many countries (particularly Western ones) high school students are sent off with a ceremony – acknowledging their effort, celebrating [...]

Is dropping out necessarily a bad thing?

I just saw these series of ads today and, as odd as it may seen, the sentiment portrayed here rather annoys me:

I completely agree that education is important, and as the ad says, it’s good for everyone. (After all, that’s what guided the formation of EducateDeviate.) However, what annoys me about campaigns like these is [...]