Monday, September 1, 2008

Cikgu Unta

Some time back, son Naj recounted the story of a standoff between a participating teacher and the facilitator of an English language workshop conducted under the New Straits Times' Newspaper-in-Education (NIE) programme.

The said teacher constructed a sentence that goes - "The camel stores water in its hump." The workshop facilitator rejected the sentence, pointing out that camels do not store water in their hump. The hump is for storing fat.

The teacher was very annoyed. She insisted the sentence be accepted in toto because it was grammatically correct. The facilitator refused, saying that facts supersede grammar, more so for an educator like the workshop participant.

The facilitator reasoned that the workshop materials would be used by participating teachers as a teaching primer for students when those teachers returned to their respective schools. T
hus, this teacher's students might assume that camels store water in their hump because their teacher said so.

The lady teacher was adamant about the correctness of the sentence construction and refused to budge. The facilitator was equally adamant about getting the fact right first before accepting the sentence. Unfortunately,
I have forgotten who gave in at the end.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The more unta of the two did.

Kama At-Tarawis said...

hehehe lap, ada saja. bila nak kawin ni lap? mana buleh bujang lama-lama? takkan takdak kot kat kola kedah nun yang sesuai.. habaq mai i tulong pi pinang.. pak abu sokong tau! selamat berpuasa lap, jgn ponteng tau!