Jarod Yong

This year, many of my colleagues & I worked our socks off for our PMR students. Personally, I have pushed them as far as I could towards excellence in their PMR with  my programmes & beliefs , my BI seminar , my weekly motivation sessions & rewarding students for PMR excellence . Here is a summary of our school's 2012 PMR results: 103 candidates Pass  (You have to pass every subject to pass PMR): 74 candidates or 71.84% (1.5% less than 2011) passed PMR Average Grade (GPS)  (The lower the better) is 2.84 (0.05 more than 2011) Top Scorers : 3 8A candidates. 2 7A candidates. 3 6A candidates. 4 5A candidates According to Subject : BM 99.03% 25 As ENG 74.76% 8 As MAT 96.12% 10 As SCI 99.03% 12 As SEJ 96.12% 8 As GEO 97.09% 19 As KH1 100% 14 As KH3 95.89% 3 As BB ...

For most of my teenage life, I really hated my parents. I blamed them for everything bad in my life. Like all those stupid music/language lessons I had to take. I even blamed them for everything that they didn't do for me. Like branded stuff, being handphone-less & unable to go out with my friends. Now that I am older, I realise that they really honestly did what they thought was the best for me. Deceived by emotions & pop culture, I was blind to all the good healthy things they have given me. Now that I am older, I choose to see them & love them for their good side. Nobody is perfect. Not even ourselves. Everybody has flaws. Especially our parents. Once upon a time, I wanted them to accept me for who I was & not what they wanted me to be. (That's the ultimate desire of every child. To know that your love is unconditional.) I guess now that I know better, instead of pointing fingers, shouldn't I take the lead? I am truly ashamed of the child that I was. ...

When I look back upon the year, I'd stay that beyond my duties as a chief warden, I played a very large part in shaping this year's PMR students. Close inspection of my methods reveals my underlying beliefs in developing these students to face high-stakes examinations. Méthode #1:  Year-long Brainwashing Need I say more? Many administrators & teachers think that one hit wonders like Motivation Camps or Guru Pakar Lectures are good enough to motivate or push students to do better. These programmes are great & they do provide a short-term injection of enthusiasm. However, I do feel like an ongoing programme throughout the year would be more effective . It's human nature to procrastinate & this is especially rampant in today's microwave generation .  Humans need reminders & constant engagement to stay focused . With so many subjects & so much to cover, the preparation should actually begin from Day 1, if not earlier. That is what I d...

STPM 2013 Semester 1 exams were over last week & now the STPM 2012 exams are coming up next week. Basically, the new STPM students (with their first intake this year) will have 1 STPM exam every semester. Previously, under the old STPM (which will run for the last time this year) had students sit for 1 heavy exam at the end of 3 semesters. As a Head Invigilator, I had to instruct my invigilators on what to do & what to say. All of this is really high stakes & protocol heavy as any slip up might end up in complaints or complications. Instead of just yapping & yapping away at my invigilators, I decided to come up with a guide & a step-by-step script of what to say. I developed a guide by compiling key points taken from a Head Invigilator's meeting I attended in Miri recently, the 2 guide books I was given & my prior experiences invigilating PMR & SPM. I piloted this during the STPM 2013 Semester 1 exams last week & improved on it. I wi...

Tuan/Puan, Dengan segala hormatnya, perkara di atas dirujuk. Tujuan surat ini bukanlah untuk bercerita tentang keinginan saya untuk menjaga orang-orang tua saya ataupun mengikut jejak isteri dan anak saya. Saya tidak akan berkongsi tentang kesukaran yang saya hadapi di sekolah pedalaman dan betapa lama saya telah berkhidmat di sana. Semua itu adalah sebahagian daripada cabaran saya sebagai seorang pendidik. 2.  Bagi pengetahuan tuan/puan, saya merupakan seorang guru opsyen Bahasa Inggeris yang boleh ditempatkan dimana-mana sekolah. Maka, saya mengharapkan bantuan daripada pihak tuan/puan, seorang pemimpin dalam JPN yang nampak gambaran besar untuk mengurniakan  saya  cabaran yang baharu. 3.  Saya hanya meminta untuk diberikan satu matlamat di mana-mana sekolah negeri ini, dan sokongan penuh dari pihak tuan/puan untuk melaksanakan misi ini. Saya hanya berharap untuk berkhidmat dibawah seorang pemimpin yang berwibawa. Saya ingin berjasa untuk ibu pertiwiku dan sa...

I have always had a heart for at-risk students. I have many friends who were at-risk students at school &, sadly, they were often misunderstood or falsely accused thanks to preconceived notions. The more that they were falsely labelled, the more that they stopped bothering to prove otherwise. In the end, they embraced & labelled themselves as they have been labelled by a harsh & restrictive education system. That's why so many of them became tough nuts to crack & they lashed out at people trying to 'help' them. At my school, the students are so malleable & respectful of teachers. Still, there are students who have less than desirable behaviours. Instead of punishing them all the time or expelling them from school, I decided to put myself out there & experiment with a new way to reach out to them. I'm no expert, but I think some fundamentals in human behaviour are: - guys socialise via activity. we cant sit down & talk all day like wom...

Hey guys, I won't be writing anything much this weekend except to inform you that I am currently in the process of uploading to my FB Page photos of all the school activities I was involved in this year. After that, I will upload photos from past years in the order of 2011, 2010 & 2009. MY MISSION: Finish the 2012 activity photos by this weekend! YOSH!!! Do check them out here  or  https://www.facebook.com/mryongjk/photos_albums ! If you see something you like, do feel free to LIKE. If you see yourself or your friends, do feel free to TAG. If you see something that causes you to think, do share in the COMMENTS. Check it! =)

BFFs I remember when I was young I made friends with everyone and anyone. I was genuinely colour/status/religious/socio-economic/pecking order blind. I rarely saw the flaws in other people & could see a lot of good in everybody. I worked on clicking with other people & doing things that we could enjoy together. I just genuinely enjoyed the company of other people & enjoyed learning about different perspectives. I guess during that time, everyone was in school & everyone had something in common: bad teachers, good teachers, hot school girls, hot teachers, bloody exams, favourite subjects, confusing subjects, music, movies, computer games, sports, football & so on. We were probably less reserved back then & were more willing to share anything about ourselves with people we barely knew. We also had more time to spend with each other & just hangout. best buddies from uni Fast forward to university & everything was still good. It...

A month ago, the only other Secondary School in our district, SMK Song, paid us a Muhhibah visit. 50+ teachers from SMK Song came in boats & motorcycles to play a few sports games against our teachers. Unfortunately, that was a weekend where a large majority of our 40+ teachers including our principal were not around. In fact, there were only 10-15 teachers around. Still, it didn't hinder us from having a good time. In the morning, we arranged for Netball & Volleyball. Most of the teachers played volleyball. We gave every teacher a chance to play & supported them regardless of their abilities. I played a few games too. I'm not very good but I did have a good time. We have around 10 female teachers in our school but, during that weekend, none of them stayed back. So we arranged for the students to play netball against the female teachers from SMK Song. Unfortunately, only 4 female teachers came from SMK Song so we mixed the teams up with bo...

During this transfer season, I am constantly reminded of a story by the Brothers Grimm: The Golden Goose . This is a funny story about a simple man who was generous to an old man & was given a golden goose. When people saw the goose, they wanted to take a piece of it but was stuck to the goose instead. They wouldn't let go even though others laughed at how funny they looked. Once in a while, a school will receive golden geese in the form of teachers who are head & shoulders above the others. Every school administrator loves to welcome such teachers & they naturally want more of them. On the other hand, they should also be prepared for that one day when goose will want to go. How many principals would refuse to let go of the golden goose? I have heard of too many & sometimes it's the District Education Officers who get stuck to the golden goose. They held onto the goose because it was golden but little did they know that greed & selfishness reaps what ...

I did the Gangnam Style in the jungle! I did it yesterday morning during the Uniform Bodies Camp at SMK Katibas. When I was put in-charge of the morning exercises, I thought to myself... why not? After 1 week of practising every day to downloaded youtube tutorials in front of mirrors smaller than my belly, I made it happen. Believe me when I say, this dance is harder than it looks. Bloody hard. I'm not the most natural of dancers. So if I can do it, so can you. It wasn't a perfect rendition of the dance but I enjoyed it &, most importantly, the students enjoyed it. This was probably the first time most of them heard the song. Some of them even started shuffling at the horse-riding part! **snicker** So outdated! I've got Psy glasses! Now, where can I find cowboy attire? I embedded bits of aerobics to parts of the dance & simplified it to make it easier for the students to follow. Of course, I did not tamper with the signature horse-ri...

When you love something you don't mind spending your hard-earned money on it. That's why men are willing to part with ridiculous amounts of money for a ring with an enormous stone & then splash even more cash on elaborate preparations & celebrations. Also, it's the reason why women are willing to purchase tons of merchandise bearing the images of pop artists although they do not understand a word they say in their catchy songs. It also works the other way around. The more you invest time/effort/money into something, the more you pay attention to it. At the end of the day, you invest because you love it & then you cant let it go because you've put in too much. It could be a vicious cycle or it could be a wonderful synergy of motivation, passion & purpose. I say 'invest' because putting time/effort/money into something you love is never a waste. You will always gain something from it that feeds your spirit. Similarly, if you're a t...