Alina Amir — What the Future of Learning Could Look Like

Note: The Ezra Zaid Project is proudly produced by a crack team of audiophiles and the best way to enjoy it is to listen to it. This allows for greater nuance and emphasis that sometimes may not translate as well to the written transcripts that are available to download for each episode. It would be best to cross check the corresponding audio, before quoting us in print.

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Early on in her career, my guest today on the show, Alina; she remembers that raw enthusiasm of when she first became a teacher.

ALINA

I was so excited to wake up every morning, that when I was actually really sick, that I felt really bad I couldn't go to school. That I was thinking, who the hell is going to teach my class? Like I felt this huge responsibility and also this energy, that I just want to go to school every day, and meet my kids. And that was when I realized I am in love with this job. I love it. I love every single bit about it. I feel like I had so many ideas on how to deliver my lessons, it was so exciting. And I just enjoyed every bit of it.

[Music]

Pretty much in any school you go to, there are two camps: the ones who work really hard to achieve their goals and the ones who can’t wait to leave and get home. The same rule applies not just for students, but for teachers too. And so, you can imagine, as a teacher, which camp Alina belonged to.

ALINA 

I remember being locked into school. They locked me up, and I got stuck. And I had to call my kids and my kids had to bring in like tangga, the ladder so that I can jump out from the second floor down. Because they locked me up. 

EZRA 

Sorry, why did they lock you up? 

ALINA

Because it was after time, like it was, they had to go home already. [laughs] They locked me up. And good thing I have my kids, my kids got all this ladder and I remember, I had to tell them “move!” I had my backpack and I jumped over. What a day.

EZRA

I mean, you know, if you weren't locked up in school as a student, at least you got your opportunity as a teacher.

ALINA 

Right? Yeah

[Music]

You are listening to the Ezra Zaid Project. On the programme, Alina Amir. 

EZRA

What did you want to be when you were a kid?

ALINA  

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. Yes! And I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher for like, the longest time until, probably like when I was in standard three or standard four, I wanted to be Pengacara Nona, okay? Very specific, because I saw Normala Samsuddin and I'm like, oh my god, she is beautiful. I want to be her when I grow up. And then I watched a lot of Buletin TV3. I want to be a news anchor. And then I decided, you know what, all of these ambitions are not ambitious enough. I'm going to be just like my parents, who are doctors, I'm going to be a doctor. And then I didn't get an A for SPM in biology, and that changed my entire career path.

And so while Alina did not fulfill her dream of delivering the nightly news. But that initial gut instinct: to be a teacher, turned out to be pretty prophetic. Now, she commits to helping students learn, grow and excel. And not just in biology either.

ALINA
I am one of the cofounders of Arus Academy. We're an education social enterprise. We will look at developing content, teacher trainings, student programs. We work mainly with the Ministry of Education as well as international organizations like UNICEF Malaysia, we work with other NGOs as well, and private institutions to bring education to schools and to reach out to as many kids as possible in Malaysia.

Most of her time now is spent towards making learning relevant again. But much like her pre-teen aspirations of reading off a teleprompter, she was drawn to the slippery art of crafting spreadsheets and slides.

ALINA

Upon graduation, I applied to work as a management consultant. 

(Ezra laughs)

ALINA

And I got in, I got a job. Like, a few months before I graduated, I got a job in KL. Came back, started my job in management consulting, and then had an existential crisis. And I thought to myself, is this it? Is this my life? Am I going to be a management consultant for the rest of my life and suffer? And so I thought, I had this existential crisis where I thought there was no meaning in my life. Like, if tomorrow I was not going to wake up, nobody was gonna care. Nobody at work was gonna care. I had left no debt whatsoever in anybody's life. And that was when I remembered that once upon a time back in college, I saw a Teach for America ad and I thought, oh my god, so cool. Take like a you know, two-year break and to Teach for America. Such a Western thing, you know? Yeah, take a break after college. And then I remembered Teach for America and I saw the ad for Teach for Malaysia. I'm like, two years, I'll come back, I'll come back to management consulting after two years, and I never did. So, here we are.

EZRA

But I think it's safe to say now that you're very decided you found your thing, right? 

ALINA

Yes. 

EZRA

And how would you in your own words? Like, how would you describe what is that thing now that you've landed on?

ALINA 

I think I started off very ignorant when I was going into education. When I was going to education. And I thought like, you know what, I have a degree, I have this professional job. Now I'm like, sacrificing my professional job to be a teacher. Because I'm so great. And I'm so smart. I'm going to go into the schools, and I can teach them everything I've ever been taught, like, how difficult could it be Ezra? To go back into high school and teach whatever that you know, this already like you, you passed every single subject in high school. It was very, very difficult. None of my kids in my first six months of teaching passed any of my exams. They sent in like empty papers, proving that I have taught them nothing. They make fun of me in exam papers, when I ask them questions, and they're like, jawab la sendiri you know, like answer this yourself. 

EZRA  

High school kids are brutal. 

ALINA  

Yeah, they have no respect whatsoever to me. And that was when I realized that nothing I've learned in my life was helpful ever, in like, in the situation that I had to start over. And learn how to build relationships from zero just because I come in confident doesn't mean people were gonna listen to me at all.

EZRA  

And what were those relationships that you felt that you needed to build?

ALINA 

Like, I needed to understand where they were coming from, I needed to understand why they were so angry at so many different things I wanted to understand. I had to understand why they didn’t think that education was important. Because for people like me, education was number one. But for them, like they don't see the value of it at all like they don't see the point of it. They're very proud of not wanting to learn, and they make it very obvious, and they tell it into my face that they don't want to learn any of this like this was not going to help them at all. At that point, I had to just start with a clean slate in my mind, that I was not going to force any of them to pass any of my exams anymore, that I just wanted to understand where they were coming from and why they were that angry?

For all the effort she was putting inside the classroom, Alina realised that she needed to understand what was happening outside of the classroom walls. The school she was assigned to was in a small town in Penang, located in the north of Malaysia. It was ranked in the bottom 50 out of more than 2000 secondary schools. The number one disciplinary offense? Missing class. Students would simply roam the halls rather than attend class. 

ALINA  

Most of our kids about like, 70% come from the B40 communities. They come mostly from broken families, single parents. Their mums and dads work multiple jobs. Most of the fathers work as like lorry drivers, construction workers. Their moms would open up very small, small warung, kedai to sell food. And most of my kids had ambitions to work at the factories nearby. That's where their older siblings had ended up at. And that's where they think they're gonna go. 

EZRA  

It was a familiar marker for them and other family members and all that. Yeah.

ALINA  

Yeah, like that's what my elder brother did. That's what my eldest sister did. So that's probably what I'm going to do as well. Yeah, and because the other siblings landed a job without having to be so smart in school, without having to have any certificate. They didn't think like, if they could get a job, I can get a job.

EZRA  

So how did you begin that process of trying to understand where the kids were coming from? And how did you walk in a day in their shoes? I guess.

ALINA  

So, not all of the kids hated me at the beginning. So kids did like me. I took advantage of that first. And I had a group of kids who would just follow me everywhere. And then I decided, you know what, I'm gonna follow you guys everywhere too. And I live in this flat house just right across the school, you can like, I literally walk to school and come back. And all my kids happen to live in the same flat as well. So I remember in the evenings, that we would take walks together, we would take walks together around the flat area. And they would show me okay, this is where we hang out. This is where we play. And there's like this sofa that people throw out. You know this old sofa that people throw out. It's right at the trash thing. And they would just sit there by the trash on the sofa, we'd like fat rats running around. And that was their lepak place and they were okay with it. And that was when I thought oh my god, I did not grow up this way. I would never understand how it's like to grow up this way. I would never, I would never understand how they think unless I spent enough significant time with them. 

And Alina did just that. She invested her time in getting to know all about her students.

But as the years went on, that energy she brought into the classroom began to wear off. She almost couldn’t recognise herself. 

ALINA

I remember the exact moment that I started to think maybe teaching is no longer for me. I was already in my fourth year of teaching at school. For me, who was teaching a class where I know most of them had literacy problems, had literacy issues, they did not understand Bahasa very well, they could not read or write Bahasa very well, they do not understand Bahsa why so very well, and I was teaching Sejarah at this point yeah. And this particular assignment is a kerja lapangan, where you actually have to do research. I give you like a topic and you have to go out, get interviews in, get surveys in, and then you have to analyze all this data. And then you have to sort of give your idea and your opinion on it.

This history (or Sejarah) assignment was going to be assessed on what they understood from it. It wasn’t going to a paper-based exam or in a multiple-choice format, of which they were used to. So, due to this national policy change, students were now going to be assessed on a rubric. This would give them the chance to display their comprehension of the topic in a more expressive way. And in many scenarios, this can be good for the students. But in other cases, not so good.

ALINA

But when I was going through that process for my kids, especially for the kids that was in the classes that were struggling and most of the kids there had trouble reading, writing. And it's either a pass [or] fail for them. I knew the kids better than anybody else because I've been teaching them. For some reason, when you do any kind of assessment in Malaysia, there will be an answer scheme somewhere on the internet. And I can see everyone's answer was the same. Like I know you get this off the internet like I know, because it's not [an] exam anymore. It's [an] open book. It's open everything so you can do apa-apa je. So how am I supposed to just close one eye? I know you got this off the internet. And I had, I had a lot of like, arguments with other teachers. And I had to remark every single one of my papers because you were unhappy with the way I was marking them. But I was marking them based on the relationship I have with my kids, not based on what they were giving it to me because I know for a fact they were copying each other. They were copying the textbook, none of it was anything new that came from their head. So do I assess you on the basis of my relationship with you, or do I assess you based on the rubric?

[Music]

This left Alina in a dilemma. And for many teachers like her, it was becoming an all too common experience. It impacts how teachers teach and assess, how students actually learn and also how parents track their child’s progress. 

ALINA

It was very difficult internally like I was, I didn't want [to], I didn't want my administration to be angry at me. I didn't want them to be angry at the kids. I didn't also want to feel the kids, even though they deserved a failing mark. So it was very conflicting. And that was when I think, I just, I just - it just sort of switched off. I just switched off and I just went with the flow. And that was also when I thought, oh my God, I'm going to be one of them. Because I'm going to let the system eat me up. And I'm just going to allow all this to happen. And because of the pressure from the administration, I actually had to change a lot of my marks for the kids. So I was very pressured at that time. And I had to change my points for the kids. And that was when I thought, I can't do this, I cannot continue being a teacher in a system like this. Like if someone else who had never thought my kids are going to come in and tell me how to assess them, then I don't want to be part of it.

EZRA  

How did you respond to that? What is your next step to trying to achieve what's I guess what vision you have in your head?

ALINA

I think that was when I thought I was, whatever I was doing in the classroom, whatever I was doing with the kids, I'm just gonna meet another hurdle. Like that the system is just going to be too big for me to fight. And I needed to be outside of it, I needed to be not influenced by it, I needed to create a, not just a safe space for my kids, but [a] safe space for teachers to just teach. And when we started Arus, that was what we wanted. When we, initially we started off as a safe space for kids to come. But along the way [it] just grew to be a safe space for teachers to be just good teachers, and to create relationships with your kids and to understand them. Assessment or rubric did play a big role in the way we assess our kids, but we assess our kids truthfully, and honestly. And they understood the rubric. And we made them understand that. And the system just did not allow me to be the teacher that I want it to be for my kids. And that was why I left.

Fast forward to today, it’s been 7 years since she [co-]founded Arus Academy. Their objective? To provide children with an education that would develop into a continuous love for learning. And so, they created student programmes that would encourage a problem-solving mindset through design thinking, robotics and 3D modelling. 

ALINA
Our most immediate thought was, we cannot wait for the system to figure this out. Like if we were to wait, our kids that we have right now just you know, fall through the cracks. And we can't wait, why not? We just save the kids now, like now. So when we first started, we adopted the maker education approach, where you learn through making things and we also wanted to integrate the technology bit of it. Because we were in a very industrial area where there's a lot of like tech factories, and we were telling our kids that you know, you don't have to, you don't have to be part of the factory workers. You can actually be part of the creating team, designing new tech. And so that was when we introduced microcontrollers to them, we introduced the code program. And we loved integrating the science, the tech, the engineering math elements into one. That also happens to be something that was a term that was growing to be more popular, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) but we were doing it because we really thought the approach was meaningful for our kids. But eventually, as we were growing, as we were creating a lot of content and our kids were participating in all sorts of external competitions and events. We got into the newspapers and all that. And just people took note of it. And people say, oh, you guys are teaching tech. You guys are teaching coding programming blablabla. Why don't you guys create this content that can be shared to other teachers? And we were like, oh, you guys want Arus to create content for you guys? Ok, sure! 

Alina intuitively knew what teachers needed. They needed 21st-century teaching pedagogies. Teachers needed training and support on stuff like coding & programming skills, or how to create content. If teachers translated 21st-century skills into everyday teaching and learning opportunities, then sky's the limit. But similar to the kids in the classroom, change can be hard for teachers too. 

ALINA

Then I thought, we don't have to restrict ourselves to just the kids in Arus Academy. We could actually make our content open-sourced so that any teacher and any child could have access to it. And up until today, all of our content has been open-sourced, if you want it, you can have it. Teachers can access any of our lesson plans if they want to. Whenever we go into projects with partners, we make sure that the content will be open source for teachers. And it's even more pertinent now because everything is digital, and all of our content has been organized digitally. And that was why I think also when we went into pandemic, we were so quick to pivot, we were so quick to pivot, we were so quick to put an organized content online, that it's one of the places where teachers go to get resources now. From the content that we created last year, I was just checking the numbers, we got more than like 45,000 teachers accessing it. And we only have some, like 170,000 teachers for secondary schools. But our content is only meant for Form one, two, and three. So that's a pretty good number.

EZRA 

You know, how people have adapted to the whole pandemic situation. And it has been so challenging and difficult in so many different ways. But you must say, for the thing that you're doing, you know, especially with Arus Academy, creating digital content so that kids can learn. Describe to me, I guess, the pace and the intensity before the pandemic. And I guess when the pandemic happened, it almost adopted your entire thing wholesale, didn't it?

ALINA

Yeah. Before the pandemic, we were doing very small training programs with like 30 to 40 teachers at one time. Pandemic started, we were running webinars and workshops for hundreds, thousands of teachers at one time. And that just sort of accelerated everything. I think a lot of teachers know us because of the pandemic, because we were providing so much content.

EZRA 

It is strange about how some folks find an opportunity when things are so difficult. And this must have felt like a window opening up for all of the work that you've been doing over the past few years in trying to, I guess, have an impact and change the way people learn.

ALINA  

The craziest thing about this is that we have been doing this way before the pandemic. We have been trying to showcase our work way before the pandemic. We've been trying to tell people to adopt digital learning way before the pandemic. Nobody sort of felt the sense of urgency as we did. And when the pandemic hit us, that was when people were actually looking for okay, how can we upskill? How can we just use Google workspace now? How do we do? Arus has been using Google workspace forever. We've been enrolling our kids into Google Classroom since we started. So those are things that, it’s exactly what we're doing before this. Now, we're just reaching out to more kids and more teachers because they finally saw how important it is for them to know all of the skills.

EZRA 

What have you observed by, you know, the droves of people who, I guess had to make that switch? 

So, a quick note: what you are hearing there is Alina's young boy. He broke through the parameter; and naturally, wanted his Mom's attention.

ALINA/EZRA

See, he's up. Hello? Hi, what's your name? Ali? Okay, do you want to be on a podcast? I know. I mean, who doesn't want to be on a podcast? (inaudible audio and laughs) 

ALINA 

Ezra, what was the question again? Sorry.

To be honest, I forgot the question myself. But with that, maybe Ali gave us the most natural as a lead-in for a quick break. More with Alina Amir of Arus Academy. Stay with us. 

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Welcome back. One of the things that I often come away with after speaking to Alina is her commitment to this robust vision that she has about the future of learning, and what that could look like. I asked her to elaborate that sentiment a little bit more; and what that means to her personally.

ALINA

I think I just love learning new things. I just love figuring things out. And I just want the kids to be able to see or feel the same love for learning. I just want them to fall in love with learning. Like once you get used to it once you see that something that you're learning is useful for your everyday life, you would want to know more. You would want to fall in love even more. And that was what I was trying to give to them. And whenever I'm in a classroom, I don't even have to hype myself. I just immediately become super passionate about the thing that I'm teaching and when you're listening to someone passionate, I guess you, it's somewhat contagious. It makes you feel like eh, asal la you excited sangat? Like, why is she excited? Like, what is Cikgu Alina so excited about - 

EZRA

There must be something.

ALINA

Yeah! Like, look at her. She’s bringing in all these things, posters la, apa benda la. There must be something why she’s so excited. And I think I want to make kids tell me that that's what they like about being in my class. Because of the energy and because they could share their thoughts. 

EZRA

You get what you give almost. 

ALINA

Yeah, and, and I and it's actually like, the fastest way to get out of feeling down like you're down and then you go into a classroom, and immediately you can't be down. You can't be down in front of a classroom, you have to hype yourself up. And I would always leave the classroom with a lot of adrenaline and just excitement for the next class. When is my next class?

EZRA  

It's funny that you mentioned that because I remember a video was circulating recently about I guess, there must have been a camera in the hallway of this teacher or lecturer who was just about to go into the classroom. And he's clearly had a long day. He just takes a moment. And he just takes a deep breath. Just start smiling before he walks in. And I think it went viral because every teacher I assume, right now.

ALINA 

Yes! I know that video, I felt that and I'm like, oh my god. That's exactly what we do every time before we enter a classroom, no matter how bad your day has been.

EZRA
It's showtime.

ALINA
Yeah, showtime.

EZRA

The pandemic almost, for you and your team and everything that you've been developing, creates this urgent demand. And was there anything that you observed? And like, did it almost validate a lot of these early bets that you, you put on yourself about what learning could transform to?

ALINA 

Um, what we observed with our teachers [was], they were very scared of anything digital, very scared of anything that requires technology, very scared when things are automated and they cannot figure out why it's automated or when something doesn't work. And I think just making sure, just taking away those anxiety and those fears for our teachers at the very beginning was super important that we didn't even jump into, like, how to organize your folders? We didn’t even jump into that. We were just focusing on your mindset, like, it's okay, if things break down, it's okay. If things don't work, it's okay. If you can't hear if it's okay, if you can't speak, I'm just trying to get them [to] be okay with going remote. That's number one. So a lot of the mindset has to change for us not even like tech skills, because surprise surprise, once they learn they get really good at it. The older the teachers are, the more hesitant they are about adopting tech. And they will always apologize. That’s the bit that got to me like I didn't expect this. Like I'm really sorry, I'm old, so I cannot do this. I’m like, no, yes, you can. That was also when I thought somebody should do a research on our teachers' growth mindset to see whether they are open to wanting to, you know, learn new skills as they go. Because if you don't have [a] growth mindset, it's very difficult for you to then ask your kids to have [a] growth mindset. That was another thing that we sort of like to think about. And when we started, think about that, now every time we do workshops we always start off with, let's start with the meaning of growth mindset. Do you have it? Yes, you do. Let's start the workshop.

(Ezra laughs)

ALINA

They have been introduced to tech before this, but not just in an organized way. So it's not like they have never tried tech before, they have. But because it was messy for them. It was not a good experience for them. They just don't come in with very high expectations of you know, this is going to work. But whether they like it or not, it's here to stay for a while. And I think the teachers are starting to really open up and requesting for upskilling. So there's a bit that I'm very happy with. If there's any good outcome from the pandemic, [it] is that our teachers are being upskilled at a very, very fast accelerated rate. So that's something that is good for the long run. Yeah.

EZRA

So I guess it's hard not to, I guess, maybe talk about, you know, the pandemic and what that means for like, schools and learning and kids and stuff. And we're, I guess, you know, in another lockdown, and we're, you know, a little over a year now, since it first took place, have we learned anything new and significant about what we could be doing or should be doing or, or certain observations that, that maybe we could adopt a little bit better?

ALINA  

I think what surprised me the most was the lack of a contingency plan for education as a whole. Like our education system did not have a proper plan B in place if it were to close down physically. And that was the bit that like, something that you assumed but only when it happened, you were like, cannot be. How can like an entire system do not have a plan B, you know. And I still don't know what the plan B is up until now. That was, that was one of the big sort of, like, we can't rely on anybody but ourselves. Like, if you want education to continue, then we sort of have to put in effort, everybody should put in some effort into it. I mean, that, if we are to learn from this pandemic, is that we should have a proper contingency plan so that if it ever happens, again, we know exactly what to do. Just like, last year, it happened, this year, it happens and we still don't know what to do. So if we are ever going to learn, we should have a strong contingency plan. And remote learning requires infrastructure. Like it or not, if you don't put any infrastructure in, you don't put in devices, devices are not connected, then nobody's learning. Nobody. If you give them crappy devices, and you give them crappy connections, again, nobody's going to learn anything.

EZRA

Has there been any meaningful alleviation? On to either, you know, teachers or students or the system? Or has there been something that's been quite important, substantive and say, hey, that's working, we need more of that.

ALINA  

I feel like they have we, as a teaching faculty, as teachers have not tapped on collaborating as well as we should. And if we're talking about remote teaching, right? It does not have to be or stuck in within just your school area. I mean, imagine if every Sejarah teachers in Malaysia collaborated. Or imagine if an entire district Sejarah teachers collaborated, that means I don't have to design a classroom every time someone I can take turns, and I can then focus on checking in with my kids, I can focus on assessment, blablabla, I don't always have to design my classroom. So we have not tapped into collaborating very well, only because there has never been the culture. We do not collaborate. Like you know, how we say teachers are the CEO of the classroom, but do we really teach them how to be [a] proper CEO? What is your school thinking like, you're in like bankruptcy, or you're like, you're losing all your customers? What do you do? Like how do you pivot? Our teachers are not quick enough because they would not give it this training. They were given training in pedagogy, blabla, but actually managing your kids, managing your mindset, managing your people, those are actually really important skills that teachers should have, especially when you are facing a pandemic like this. 

EZRA

There are a lot of concerns right now among parents about how this is playing out between learning online screen time, and actually just having anything going, and what the future might actually look like.

ALINA  

I have a three-year-old and I'm considered as a very kiasu parent as well like I'm keeping track of what my three-year-old is learning. Right? So when he's at home with me, on difficulties, and most days are difficult. He's just in front of the TV, and he's just watching a lot and lots and lots of TV. At the beginning of the pandemic, that depresses me because I thought I was failing as a mum, but I'm thinking, it's a freaking pandemic. There's an exception for these things. It's okay, as long as at the end of the day, I regroup with my child, talk to him, ask him what he watched on TV, get him to communicate with me, tell me what he learned, blablabla. And that, I think, is meaningful for our kids. And for the first time ever, Ezra, parents are actively getting involved with our children's learning. Like before, they didn't really care, like, as long as my kid goes to school, I'm sure he's learning something. And if we didn't learn anything, that’s the teachers’ fault,blablabla, right? Now, they actually care, like, what are my kids learning. 

EZRA

What prompted that?

ALINA

Because not seeing your kids physically going to school makes you think that they're not learning. Like, it does not make sense. Like, just because you pray, it doesn't make you a good person. Just because you go to school, doesn't make it smart, doesn't mean doesn't mean you're learning. And I think parents need to take a bit more responsibility of what the kids are learning. So for example, I had a lot of guilt with my child. And now I'm communicating more with his teachers to ask like, what exactly should my kid be learning so that if I'm going to miss your zoom call with him anyway,  I'm not gonna put many hours in front of his zoom calls because I have the zoom calls of my own. And what do I need to do to make him learn? So communicating with your teachers [has] always been important. It's just that we have never done it, we have never done it in a way, this frequently. And I think this is an opportunity actually, for our teachers and parents to, to communicate and understand each other. I know teachers who run zoom sessions, just for parents, to get them in the right mindset, to set expectations that are and this is important. This is the country that we want. We want a school system that communicates with both parents and students.

EZRA  

Are you feeling inspired? Are you feeling stuck now because of the pandemic? In the sense that you've been rewarded in some way about the vision that you had. But at the same time, there's also like in this indefinite scenario where we don't know how long this is going to [play out]. It's actually changed our education system in a really, really meaningful way, hopefully, for the better. But is there something there that you see, well, maybe this is now the opportunity to change gears or switch gears, or raise the bar a little bit?

ALINA  

I feel like instructional design is going to be a very important skill for teachers in the future. But for now, like how you design your content online is going to be very important for yourself to be considered as a skilled teacher. That's number one. Number two is - 

EZRA  

Before you go there, like and why is that important?

ALINA  

Because a lot of the content can actually be self-paced. So imagine Khan Academy, imagine Coursera and then imagine a learning management system where our national syllabus [are] on it where anybody can go into a Coursera, sit for an SPM. Like, you don't even have to go to a physical school, go through this course, sit for SPM, get your cert at the end. We would then be able to reach out to as many kids as possible who is connected to the internet. That’s number one. A lot of the content that is being organized in Google Classroom should also be meaningful. Just because you have a Google Classroom doesn't mean okay, I'm going to put assignments here, I'm going to put my videos here. No, organizing your google classroom is actually really important. That's how your students look at your courses. That's how your students experience your course online without you present. So we need to start thinking about without any facilitation, the way I organize my content online is it's something that is comprehensible for my kids, is it something that is meaningful, that’s one, and as we get out of this pandemic, hopefully, teachers should be able to do blended learning. Blending technology with physical interaction. And this should be a norm, you know, physical classroom is it, we don't have to wait for the pandemic to upskill ourselves with this. And blended learning requires our teachers to be digital content creators. Because a lot of the lecturing, sebenarnya, even in a classroom setting, you just can watch it. You create, you create all these stations in your classroom, for those who need further revisions, sit at the station and watch the video again, for those who understand, sit at the station for assessment, for those who are done, sit at the station for discussion. And all of this can be done in a physical classroom sebenarnya. And when, if ever, the physical classroom is missing, it's not difficult to then transition into purely digital learning.

EZRA  

Are you optimistic about where things are headed? I mean, despite you know, such being the, you know, despite being in this pandemic tunnel, like is there light at the end of it.

ALINA  

I think I am very lucky to be working with very inspiring officers in the Ministry of Education. Like, I cannot say the same for the entire system, but I happen to be working with a group of people in the Ministry of Education, who is setting up the digital infrastructure at the back end. And they are passionate about wanting to reach as many kids as possible. And they are passionate about wanting to upskill our teachers. And as long as we have these people in the ministry, looking out for the greater good. I'm actually very optimistic.

EZRA

Alina, are there other fractions of society that are left behind as a result of this pandemic? I mean, you know, kids who, you know, don't have an internet connection, I mean, and what's being done to, I guess, negotiate that.

ALINA

I think a lot of the kids have been left out. Not just kids, in terms of support ke apa, it's also teachers in schools. Teachers have been using their own funds, for internet, for laptop, for setting up to do at home, for everything. And teachers have this tendency of wanting to also help equip your kids. So I know teachers who have, you know, bought earphones for their kids to make sure you know, it's working, bought things for their kids to make sure it's working. And we have not supported our teachers very well actually, to make sure that they are equipped. We talk about kids being equipped, are our teachers equipped? They're borrowing laptops, they are buying things out of their own pocket. And we're talking about teachers who are connected in the city center. If we go remote, right, even providing learning kits, making copies of these learning kits, those are still taken out from our teachers pocket.

EZRA

What are like three things that you'd love to see happen, just so that it will alleviate some of these burdens that we've been talking about, especially, you know, for classrooms or teachers like just something that something that's tangible. 

ALINA

So many things actually, Ezra. I really don't see how we can do remote learning without devices and the internet. So, that’s number one. And if you want to say three, okay, that's number one. So you equip them with devices and the internet, that's number one. Number two, you need to provide them with very high-quality content of learning. Do not rely on Youtube, do not rely on like existing quizzes online ke apa, but it has to be meaningful for the kids, it has to be, it has to be a good experience for learning for the kids.

EZRA 

Could you give me an example of what that would look like? Or I mean, what does that mean exactly?

ALINA

So when we talk about teachers creating content, teachers must also be equipped with skills on how to create content, you see, or if you go on YouTube, you will see a range. Some videos go for about an hour and a half.

EZRA

Yeah, they are really long.

ALINA

Who is going to sit through that? And is not the teachers’ fault, because teachers have always been taught that deliver as much as possible so that you can complete your syllabus. But what teachers need to understand that in a remote setting in a virtual setting, students will not sit through more than seven minutes of lecture. So that's one, right? This is a skill, chunking your lesson is a skill. And this skill does not come naturally. You have to teach it, you have to show them how to do it. When we talk about assessment, right? Assessment needs to be diversified. Not everything has to be ABCD. Okay, assessment, designing the assessment, assessing the assessment. And now everything is digital. You don't actually have to like create graphs on your own. You need to know how to use the Google Sheets. You’d know how to generate all of this. You need to know how to analyze about this. And you just have to be quicker, quicker at doing all of this and how do you be quicker? You learn how to automate things, you need to learn how to automate things. And a lot of these things can be automated if you learn the skills. So devices is one. Number two is providing content and how do you provide content, you need to make sure that your teachers have the right skills to run remote teaching and learning.

EZRA

Because as you said, like everybody's talking about education now because you can feel the frustration getting to that boiling point. But it does also feel like it can be the first thing that people forget once and if the world resumes. And I guess my question is, are you cognizant of utilizing your voice to make sure that the conversation continues and what needs to happen?

ALINA  

Yes, at every teacher training that we run, at every meeting that we go into, especially with a ministry are with the State Education Department, with every conferences, teaching conferences, education conferences, I would always make sure that I tell them, this is an opportunity, if it's not, it's don't think of it as a crisis, it's really is an opportunity for us to scale our education system. They’d have a proper contingency plan when anything happens and to adopt the future, we have learning and teaching. And it has to be beyond the four physical walls. And I think that hasn't been the message for every time I meet with teachers and every time I meet with the Ministry of Education. And I will always tell them that if we were to fall back to how we were before, then we learn nothing. And we would have wasted these two years for nothing.

EZRA

Is the anxiety surrounding what it means to be a teacher now. So unique to I guess, you know, I mean, it's it's such a, it's such a specific experience and like, Can you share any of the conversations that you've had with the teachers who, as you say they put these expectations and markers on this about what it means to fulfill not just their professional needs, but also to make an impact on the kids like, what does that conversation sound like?

ALINA

I think a lot of our teachers are also starting to see value in upscaling themselves professionally, like a lot of our teachers are actually sitting for Google educators, certified teachers, Microsoft Certified teachers, and it is a big deal. Before this, this was not like something that teachers would take up, but now they have a legit like pathway where they can get certified in digital skills and all that. And that's something that has been brought up over and over again, among the teachers. Like, I'm really glad I'm part of this upscaling training because now I can actually use it in my classroom. And they can see your kids interacting with them better when once they know how to organize their lesson better, once they know how to make it interactive. We had a teacher last year that we supported in Sarawak, who always had like, connection issues. But at the end of the day, she came back to us and said, because you guys taught us how to design all of these classrooms, that our kids, even after school reopened, insisted that they wanted to continue Google Classroom. And so when they see that the kids are invested in it, the kids actually like using this. It makes them want to continue using digital learning. But if you make digital learning a better experience for your kids, they won’t request it, and then it's so easy to fall back to how it was before.

EZRA

It feels like the kindergarten teacher that you want it to be. It feels like now you're helping, like teachers now more than like the kid, you know what I mean? Like you've made that transition? Is that something that you wouldn't agree with?

ALINA  

Yes, definitely. And you know how, like, when you first started a business, people always like, Alina how do you scale up? Um, I used to hate that question. Like, why do you care? Like I like, can't you see the kids I'm helping out right now. But now I'm thinking, How do I scale up? And the fastest way for me to scale up is to reach out to as many kids as possible and how do I do that? I need to do that by empowering our teachers by providing them as much support as possible, as much resources as possible. And, Arus has become part time like helpline, or for teachers. Like I get telegram messages from teachers asking me questions like, Alina, how do I share my like, this Google Doc to my students. Literally, I'll go through step by step with them. And we have this telegram group for teachers that has thousands of teachers in it. And whenever they have issues, they go on the telegram group and ask, and Arus doesn’t answer anymore. The teachers are now helping each other and answering each other's questions. And that's amazing.

EZRA  

So I mean, like just straight into the camera, Alina if you could like reach out to any teacher that's that's that's listening and say, Hey, if you need, you know, resource A or help with this or issue with this, you like this, just go for it, go for it.

ALINA

So for all the cikgu-cikgu in Malaysia, if you need resources, you need someone to brainstorm ideas on how to create interactive lessons. If you have issues with assessment and how to analyze assessment, if you want to ask any questions about how to make your lessons more interactive, more engaging, more meaningful, please do reach out to us. We are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and my own personal email you can email me at alina.amir@arusacademy.org.my

EZRA

That's great. It's like a PSA, the more you know. I mean, just yet, thanks for having the chat with me like I, you know, I'm I'm gonna, you know, make sense of this, this conversation that's gone in a few different directions. But I really, really appreciate the chat. And I really, you know, I'm sure on behalf of many, many other Malaysians, all the good work that you're doing, and I think it's terrific and I hope you keep things on the level and things saved as well for you and your family as well. 

ALINA

Thanks Ezra. and you stay safe as well. 

OUTRO

Folks, that was Alina Amir. As mentioned she runs Arus Academy with centres in KL and Penang. 

I would really encourage teachers who have just listened to this episode, please do explore those useful resources at their website - that’s https://arusacademy.org.my/; more than 45,000 teachers across the country have found it super useful, it might help you too.

If you're looking to upskill or even have a very specific problem, drop

Alina an email at alina.amir@arusacademy.org.my 

[Music]

CREDITS
The Ezra Zaid Project is made by me, Ezra Zaid. I host, produce and edit the show. 

This episode was written and produced by me and Chun Saw.

The team that contributed to this episode includes Isa, Sabrina Yusof, Melati Kamaruddin, Rahmah Pauzi and Chun Saw. 

Special shoutout to my intern Isa: Her 3-month internship has just come to an end. She’ll be pursuing some new opportunities but she'll still be involved sporadically with the Project. My personal thanks, and we're wishing her all the best.

Additional music is by Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder featuring Rakin Suflan. 

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Listen to previous episodes on ezrazaid.com; you can subscribe to our newsletter there, the EZ thread or subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or however you listen to podcasts. 

And until next time, stay safe and we’ll see you soon.