In search of a M'sian Socrates to be education minister

COMMENT | The greatest losers in our education system, with the instability of the Ministry of Education and our inability to find the right leader for the right job in education are, of course, our children in school, from the kindergarten to the university.

When I was doing my educational doctorate degree at Columbia University back in the day, my readings at the early stage concerned the global comparative, philosophy, curricular, politics and the practice in education across the human lifespan. There were also courses in Marxist, neo-Marxist and liberal ideas in education required of those wishing to be “educators” before going into places such as Harlem, the Bronx, Paterson and East Los Angeles to teach and reach the hearts and minds of children so that they will become, like the American philosopher of education John Dewey said, good workers and citizens imbued with problem-solving, creative and critical thinking skills and ability to contribute to the advancement of fellow citizens, especially in a predatory world of cut-throat neo-liberal capitalism and today, “destructive nativism”.

But deep inside, as an educator for almost 35 years now, having taught in multiple worlds, in multicultural and multi-intelligence settings in Malaysia and the US, having also to teach teachers who would be teaching in the Bronx, Harlem and other challenging urban settings, having mentored and coached new ones struggling to make sense of what the culture of a classroom is all about and what schooling and society means, or even things as simple as what should a good lesson plan look like that would make the national standards of the higher-order thinking skills, into all these I have delved and helped teachers and graduate students in education master - but my heart has always been close to my first teacher, Socrates.

Yes, that Greek philosopher who had to drink the hemlock as punishment for making the youth of Athens think. Because teaching thinking is a subversive act, even in Malaysia.

Studying educational ideas in Western and Eastern philosophies and for many years teaching these courses alongside politics, world and US history as well as anthropology, economics and psychology – those human and social sciences you may call these – I find the core of these disciplines to be ...