M’sian teacher reveals that he took an hour to explain 2 math questions to his 9yo students

A little over 3 months ago, education minister, Fadhlina Sidek has shared that Malaysia’s education curriculum is on par with Singapore and Japan’s standards. She shared that the education syllabus set for primary 1 to primary 3 students are able to help the students master basic levels of reading, writing, calculating and reasoning skills.

M’sian teacher takes 1 hour to explain 2 math questions to his students

Following her claims, a Malaysian teacher named Mohd Fadli has shared a picture of the question he had to teach his students. In his post he said,

“These are the questions that I have to teach my 9-year-old students today.”

He continued on in his post revealing that he had spent over an hour explaining the questions to his class of 38 students, but even after taking an hour to explain, only 4 students in his class were able to understand the question fully. He added on saying that he had to give the students plenty of tips all the while guiding them through the question in order for them to answer it.

In the picture he shared, the question given requires students to figure out the difference between the amount of people that frequent a fruit festival as well as the number of pearls in a box based on the amount given by other boxes. Fadli explained that it is extremely difficult to teach students such difficult questions at a young age because every student’s capabilities are different.

“There’s no doubt that the curriculum written is of high quality, but how do you ensure that the kids are able to cope? Given that there are different factors that could slow down the student’s progress”, he said.

He then explained saying that students are only given 5 hours of math classes a week and with the number of students in a class, it can be difficult to accommodate to all their needs. Fadli then raised the question in his post, asking how are parents going to help their children given that teachers are also having a hard time getting their students to understand.

Following his post, plenty of parents have commented on the issue and here’s what some of them said:

“My kid is currently 9 and occasionally he is still confused with adding and subtracting, how are they going to understand questions like these?”

“My child is in primary 4 this year and he is still unfamiliar with division and multiplication, it’s a struggle for me to even explain that.”

“I agree that we cannot just compare the syllabus we have. We have to compare other factors as well, there are times where the math teacher could be absent and when students ask questions on certain questions, we’d have to think carefully before teaching them. Moreover, every teacher’s teaching method is different and we don’t want to confuse them.”

“What about parents who weren’t given the opportunity to continue their studies, but they became parents? How are they going to cope?”

“Teachers have to go through the teacher’s course and they’ll still find it hard to teach, how could it be easier for parents to handle when they can only teach their kids based on how they were taught years ago? There are times where the method could differ between the parents and teachers, it makes it more difficult.”

Could you answer the questions? Let us know in the comments below!

Tap here to give us a ‘Like’ on Facebook and stay up-to-date on the latest news!

Also read: M’sian teacher sets up mini mart in classroom to motivate students, wins the McDonald’s Teacher Inspiration Award