They call me cikgu

My students always ask me how to study physics, do they have to memorize all the formulas and I always told them " no you don't have to memorize all the formulas, what you need to do is to understand the concepts" The question next is how to understand the concepts. Physics concept are very abstract. you cannot see force, you can only feel and see the result of force. I try to make the concept as concrete as possible. I even open my car bonnet to show my students the radiator, sorry girls that all I can do, you cannot take it out because i still need to drive it to school. I encourage my girls to do experiments.

In my schooling years I loved doing experiments. When I was in standard 6, I nearly burn down my house because I was doing a so called experiment. When I looked at my mother's dried flower I make a hypothesis that the flower will catch fire if I put a lit up match near it. Trying to prove my hypothesis I took a match and lit it up, put it near my mother's dried flower and straight away the fire spread to the wall, panicked I go to the kitchen and get a jug of water and pour it to the fire. Lucky for me I was able to put off the fire, otherwise I won't be here to tell you the story. However I was unlucky because my mother reached home a few minutes later so I don't have time to hide the evidence . Come to think of it even if I can hid the flowers the wall is still black of soot.

Back to our topic, students need to experience the enjoyment of doing science especially physics. Encourage them to do experiments with stuff they can find at home, like ask them to bring their roller blade when you are teaching force and motion. let them feel the momentum when they move and the impulsive force when they hit the wall ( Please safety first). I tried this with my girls and some of them enjoy it but some prefer to stay in class and get as much knowledge as they can. I cannot blame them, because here in Malaysia it is not how the students enjoy the class but how many "A" they can get in their exams that matters. I understand the dilemma faced by teachers here, by august we must finished our syllabus and by September the students will be drilled with past years questions. Then when SPM result came out the students with good result are celebrated whereas students how fails are forgotten. Students are competing on who can get the most "A's" The record now is 21A's. My question to you is how can we help our students understand that getting so many "A's" will not means anything if they don't have good thinking skills, creativity and problem solving skills.