Frequent Flyer

Assalamualaikum.

I miss you. And I admit, I have been around but not really committing the best of times to sit down and write.

Now that I am, do hang around for a while. :)

On the flight home I sat with a mother and her teenage boy. That night, EK409 was crowded with people. I mean really crowded with people it unusually felt like hopping on a bus to balik kampung. Yeah there were all sorts of people. All these while I've been on MAS and MAS only, so the sight of passengers from all walks of life-and too many of them-is rare.

You can't judge a book by its cover but my impression told me that the woman and her son were in search for a new start, or I don't know, but they didn't look happy. The teenage boy talked not more than a couple of times to his mother, and his mother can speak but one or two English words. They both left their entertainment set switched off from the start of the journey, and never looked away from the emptiness of the black screen they gazed at. The boy looked out of the window from time to time, and yeah-that's fairly it, nothing much they did, except for the mother waking me up merely after half an hour of me finally getting my eye-shut. Three words she said; and those were "Excuse me? Toilet."

Wait-I'm not a toilet! But you get what she meant, she wanted to go to the loo, a message delivered using the least number of words possible, true?

So I found myself struggling in between the lost seat belt to let her through. And later struggling with my own muse.

I-and this is a fact-hardly fall asleep on the plane. I prefer enjoying the view or simply watching movies and reading books. And once I was awake the question that struck me much earlier revisited. What was the woman up to? What could she be doing alone with her child, where she came from, can she really converse in English-and if not-who booked her ticket and exactly how did she get herself and her boy on the plane to a country where English is a second language?

Now please don't get me wrong. I am a future teacher and it is my job to understand how things are, why they are so, and how to reach out. I learn about all sorts of school of thoughts and how to teach but when I open my eyes to the real world it is not the 'ideal classroom' out there or in this case an 'ideal world' we're living in.

Which has always been a surprise that is always there on the doorstep.

In an ideal atmosphere variables do not exist therefore all the teaching and learning theories we learn are almost 100% applicable. In an ideal world you plan what you want to do, and it happens the way you want it to. But this isn't an ideal world we're living in. It's what we call the real world, from which we learn how luck can turn its back at us. So in this real world case, how on Earth did the mother manage to get herself and her son on a plane to Malaysia-for whatever reason it is-when everything she needs to get done from booking a ticket to checking in to board the plane-is done in English?

***

Look. What I want myself to think about, at the end and apart of my wondering about whether I've brought along my Malaysian sim card in my bag, is what is going to become of me. What I saw, throughout the short seven-hours-journey impacted me massively in realising what's happening around me, how it is true that English language-like it or not- is a lingua franca everyone must be really keen of mastering, and how I and my fellow cohort will one day play a critical role as a supporter of learning, ready or not. And this is where we will get to practise theories we learned, then succeed or maybe fail, understand why certain ways work while others don't, and prepare back up plans for future steps.


Our mission is one: to assist learners become a functioning part of the society.


Until teachers become a functioning part of the society themselves, inspiring and supporting the society's development will remain a beautiful vision we see but sadly can't achieve.


Oh yes. I believe I haven't been on the most unpredictable parts of my journeys just yet. So haven't I seen the best of views from many angles there are. I am now a second year student, soon a third year, a future teacher, trying my best-despite the limitations of mindsets I am accustomed with-to get a better view of where I am and how far I've come in every step I take.


The best of surprises is there to come, insya Allah, and when it's here I believe teachers better be ready to open our eyes to see, and hold out our hands to embrace whatever it is the future throws in.



You have a great week. :)