Why the Malaysian education system doesnt work, part 3 of 3:

Knowledge and Understanding

In this third part of the series, I will try to outline the third part of the
label evil industrial globalist, which should be attributed to those who
actually like the current Malaysian education system, or at the very least
these are their ideological buddies whether they know it or not.
The first part described the industrial part of this label, going back to the
reason for the creation of a public school education system, having its
foundation in a need for factory workers that could take orders and be
compliant. The second part described the evil aspect, outlining briefly and I
do mean briefly how the current system encourages and spreads evil by
systematic abuse and various brainwashing techniques.
So what about the globalist part? How does that fit into the picture? As I said
towards the end of the first part, Malaysia is currently engaged in a race to
the bottom, to produce the most obedient and ignorant workers, so as to be
attractive for outsourcing contracts for multinational corporations. Whoever
wins this race, however, and there are certainly many contestants, will be
the ultimate loser, and will see its resources drained, both of the natural kind
and the human kind.
There is a reason there is a brain drain going on, and its not because
Malaysia is losing this race. The contempt for critical thinking and analytical
discourse is increasing by the minute. Looking at a number of the comments
the previous part has garnered on Facebook makes it clear that ridiculing
critical thinking is a common practice.
Ironically though, those very comments are exactly what Ponerology
describes is the pre-condition for institution of evil systems and pathocracy
in a country. Let me requote it for your benefit:
During happy times of peace dependent upon social injustice, children of
the privileged classes learn to repress from their field of consciousness the
uncomfortable ideas suggesting that they and their parents are
benefiting from injustice against others. Such young people learn to
disqualify and disparage the moral and mental values of anyone whose work
they are using to over-advantage. Young minds thus ingest habits of
subconscious selection and substitution of data, which leads to hysterical
conversive economy of reasoning. They grow up to be somewhat hysterical
adults who, by means of the ways adduced above, thereupon transmit their
hysteria to the next generation, which then develops these characteristics to
an even greater degree. The hysterical patterns for experience and behavior
grow and spread downwards from the privileged classes until crossing the
boundary of the first criterion of ponerology: the atrophy of natural
critical faculties with respect to pathological individuals.

When the habits of subconscious selection and substitution of thought-data

spread to the macrosocial level, a society tends to develop contempt
for factual criticism and to humiliate anyone sounding an alarm.
Contempt is also shown for other nations which have maintained normal
thought-patterns and for their opinions. Egotistic thought-terrorization is
accomplished by the society itself and its processes of conversive
thinking. This obviates the need for censorship of the press, theater,
or broadcasting, as a pathologically hypersensitive censor lives
within the citizens themselves.
This is exactly the kind of behaviour that I have observed, even from ones
who supposedly are a part of the intelligentsia of Malaysia. This is not a good
sign. There is no need for overt censorship if the citizens are perfectly
capable of censoring themselves.
Think about that for a moment.
What is knowledge and understanding anyway?
The best cure, or immunization, against this kind of pathological process is
knowledge and understanding. If you know about what is being done to you,
and understand how it fits into the bigger context, it will have much less
effect.
The purpose of this post is to get you, the concerned reader, to realize how
what is being taught through the Malaysian education system is to a large
extent irrelevant. However, instead of pointing out the uselessness of rote
learning and memorizing facts, I will instead violate the rule I set out for
myself in the first post to not offer any alternatives or suggestions and
instead suggest what would be useful to learn in school, and roughly the
process for doing so. Hopefully by seeing that, and comparing with what is
there now, it will become apparent just how wrong the current approach is.
The first step is to understand the process of learning, from perception all the
way up to application. This process starts with data, the raw perception of
the world around us.
This can be collected and organized by individuals familiar with a particular
field, and then transformed into what we could call information. You know,
like books and Internet websites. Once information about a topic is available
in a comprehensible format for someone not intimately familiar with it, other
people can read and listen to this information.
When information is perceived and processed by an individual, who can
connect it to previous information and fit it into his or her mental mosaic of
how the world works, it can turn into knowledge. I say can, because if the
receptor, the person trying to acquire said information, is flawed in the sense
that their previous knowledge and beliefs are imperfect or flat out wrong, it is
entirely possible that the new information is distorted and instead creates
lies and beliefs that are not true, objectively speaking. This is why it is

essential that anyone wishing to truly understand the world around them
should first critically assess their current beliefs, and if they are rational or
not. If they do not do so, it is highly likely that any new information pouring
into this muddled glass will just add to the volume of nonsense, without any
true benefit. Scientists, Im looking at you!
Once knowledge has been created in an individual, and lets for the moment
assume that it is correct for the sake of argument, the next step is to
transform this knowledge into understanding. The purpose here is to be
able to relate the new knowledge with as many other pieces of knowledge as
possible, connecting the dots if you will, and be able to apply said knowledge
in as many different contexts and situations as possible, to see where it
applies, and where it does not apply. This step makes the knowledge
actionable, as in, you can actually do something with it, without causing
harm to yourself and others. It becomes, in short, useful. Any attempt to
apply knowledge without understanding, or even worse, apply wrong
knowledge without understanding that it is so, is highly likely to cause harm
in various ways.
The next, and final, step in this process is mastery. Im not even going to
attempt to explain this, as its a massive topic on its own.
The point here, for the purpose of understanding any education system, is
that if you do not get to at least the level of understanding, the knowledge
that you have is rarely useful, and any attempt to apply it will most likely fail
and/or cause harm. The question is, where is the focus of the Malaysian
education system? Is it on data, information, knowledge or understanding?
Think about it for a moment.
What should we learn?
Education is not something that we do just because it is a good idea. There
are many good ideas, but not all of them are worth investing time and
money in. So, if we then take the approach that getting an education is in
fact an investment, what should one learn?
As with any investment, you would have to do a risk/benefit analysis. In
particular, you will want to ask yourself the question: what knowledge will I
have the most use of in my life, and how can I minimize the risk of investing
time and energy in something that will turn out to be useless?
In answering this question I am going to suggest that things that can be
learned can be roughly divided into three different types: languages, skills,
and subjects.
Languages are those things that we use to communicate about other things,
including itself. Languages, if seen in isolation, are pretty much useless. It is
only when we apply a language to something, such as talking about
education, that it gains value. But because languages can be applied to such
a vast amount of subjects, they are of enormous value. They are as generally

applicable as possible. Another good attribute of languages is that they are

relatively few. In Malaysia they are basically Malay, English, Mandarin, Tamil,
and math.
Yes, math. You didnt know that math was a language? Well, it is! Like any
language, on its own it has very little value apart from purely academic and
intellectual discussions, but when you apply it to talk about other things, it
has immense value. Going shopping? Math. Building a house? Math. Figuring
out what the bill at the restaurant is going to be after service tax? Math.
Deducing the logical conclusion of an argument? Math. Math is all around us,
and it is the language the universe uses to talk to us. As such, learning the
language of math is perhaps one of the most powerful tools you can have in
your toolbox.
And, correspondingly, not understanding math is a great weakness, and will
ensure that you will be taken advantage of one way or the other in life. The
consequences of not being able to realize that a particular MLM or similar
scam mathematically is risky is something that Malaysians face every day.
Much of my time is spent explaining the folly of various such schemes to
friends and family. I would rather not have to do that.
The second level of things to learn are skills. Skills are things that also are
relatively useless on their own. Critical thinking without something to think
about critically is, well, useless. It is only when we apply skills to something
else that they gain value. But as with languages, since they can be applied to
such a vast amount of subjects, they have enormous value. Like languages
they are also, relatively speaking, few. Lets say they are in the thousands.
Thats few, and among those there is a basic set of about ten that will get
you very very far. Critical thinking, creative thinking, mind mapping, public
speaking, and so on, are skills that I use on an almost daily basis, no matter
what problems I need to solve. No matter what your job is, having ten such
general skills will VASTLY improve your quality of life.
The third level of things to learn are actual subjects. Things like history,
science, sociology, playing the drums and cooking. We apply languages and
skills when learning these, and so understanding the languages and skills
needed for a particular subject is invaluable. Priceless even. On the flip side,
not knowing the language of the subject you are studying, makes it highly
confusing and close to pointless. There is one example of this in the current
Malaysian education system, as it turns out. Do you know which one?
The problem with subjects is that there is essentially no limit to how many
there are of them. Theres millions of potential subjects, billions even. So
from an investment point of view, where you want to get the most bang for
your proverbial buck, investing in a particular subject is a MASSIVE risk. Most
likely the last time you will read about a specific subject, or have a need for
it, is in school. Once you are out in the real world, where grownups go about

their business getting things done, what you will actually need are mainly
languages and skills, and any subjects required to be a productive member
of society you will have to learn on your own after you left school.
The question now becomes: what is the Malaysian education system focusing
on? Is it languages, skills, or subjects? And when it teaches languages, such
as math, does it focus on the importance of being able to apply it to other
subjects? And when it teaches subjects, does it involve applying skills or not?
Think about it for a moment.
That which has true and lasting value is left out. Pretty crazy, huh?
So how should we learn things?
Because of this immense risk of not learning the subjects you need to get a
job while in school, it is really important to know how to learn new things.
The process of learning. If you have this, then whatever is thrown at you, you
can say I dont know, but give me a minute and Ill figure it out. If you are a
pure-bred product of any established education system, your answer would
instead be: I dont know. Please instruct me. These people you want to stay
away from, because theyll never get anything done, and will need handholding all the way. If they do manage to get something done, its not done
properly as they have no method for assessing the quality of the outcome.
So how does learning work? How do you acquire new skills? There are two
models I know of which are pretty good at explaining this, and they are
basically variations of each other. One is called Shu-Ha-Ri, and comes from
the field of martial arts. Here is the definition from Wikipedia:
It is known that, when we learn or train in something, we pass through the
stages of shu, ha, and ri. These stages are explained as follows. In shu, we
repeat the forms and discipline ourselves so that our bodies absorb the
forms that our forebearers created. We remain faithful to the forms with no
deviation. Next, in the stage of ha, once we have disciplined ourselves to
acquire the forms and movements, we make innovations. In this process the
forms may be broken and discarded. Finally, in ri, we completely depart from
the forms, open the door to creative technique, and arrive in a place where
we act in accordance with what our heart/mind desires, unhindered while not
overstepping laws.
In my experience from practising traditional Japanese martial arts, this
progression of learning and understanding is extremely useful, and can be
applied outside the field of martial arts.
During the shu phase we learn about the basics and facts on a specific topic.
If we are studying, for example, the skill Six Thinking Hats, we learn about
the skill itself, the method it proposes, and roughly what it is for. Then we
apply it to some set of pre-defined examples, which are ordered to be

progressively more complicated and sophisticated, for the purpose of

learning the method itself. We do not invent more steps, that is, we do not
try to apply creative thinking to the process itself, but only as a part of
executing the process. This is the shu phase, where we acquire the
knowledge about something.
After having done this, so that we are familiar with the skill and how to apply
it to pre-defined and self-contained problems, we then proceed to apply this
skill in a more natural environment, where problems to be solved arise
naturally, and where we get to test our understanding of the skill. We have to
define the problem ourselves, what the constraints are, how to apply the
skill, and we also get to assess the validity of the result. We may even start
to modify the process, all the while keeping in line with the original
constraints of the method. This is the ha phase of learning, where
understanding is achieved.
When this has been done for a long, long time, and we know by heart how to
apply this skill in various conditions and contexts, to a large variety of
problems, then we can attempt the ri phase, wherein we can choose whether
to follow the process, or invent a completely new one that solves the same
problem in an entirely different way.This is the ri phase, where mastery is the
end goal.
We have mastered the technique, and can apply it fluently and with ease, no
matter what life throws at us.
Now consider the Malaysian education system: what level does it focus on
(shu, ha, or ri), and how often is it that you get the opportunity to get to the
ri stage in understanding a skill, in a guided fashion?
Think about it for a moment.
That last part of the question has an easy answer: zero. In the olden days,
when we had master-apprentice teaching, at least a few would reach the
level of master under the guidance of a willing master, so as to continue a
tradition or trade. Today, when we focus on the average, we are destined for
mediocrity. The end result of this is that our society becomes an idiocracy,
the rule of the ignorant. Generation after generation, less and less
understanding remains, and society gets more and more atrophied, leading
to a downwards spiral to eventual destruction.
What does it all mean?
As I hope is clear by now, the outcome of the current Malaysian education
system has very little value. A grading system that involves systemic
cheating by all involved, a mental and emotional environment that promotes
mental unhealth, and a focus on learning things that have little value, all
contribute to the wet dream of evil industrial globalists, those who wish to
use Malaysia as an outsourcing country for the purpose of easy access to

uneducated, easily controllable workers, who believe that the managerworker system created by Frederick Winslow Taylor, focusing on standard
specifications, targets and inspections, is the right way to go. It is in the
interest of globalists that Malaysians are educated enough to be controllable,
but it is not in their interest that you take charge of your own destiny with
knowledge and understanding.
There is of course other, even more troubling, consequences of this
madness. This is not the first time in history that a society has seen large
amounts of angry, uneducated and unemployed youth. As one typical
example, in Nazi Germany this was taken advantage of by shrewd political
forces that directed this anger towards a part of the population, claiming that
they were running all businesses, banks, money flows, and dealing between
themselves. Ignorance is the food of fear, which eventually leads to hate. It
would be a shame to see history repeat itself.
Unfortunately, there are two things that can be said about history:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to

repeat it

The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing

from history
Will this be true again? Or can Malaysia be immunized with knowledge and
understanding to avoid this from repeating?
We shall soon find out.
Sumber : https://rickardoberg.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/why-themalaysian-education-system-doesnt-work-part-3-of-3-knowledge-andunderstanding/