The Learning Teacher

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. 

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; 

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil 

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? 

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;         

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; 

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil 

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. 

And for all this, nature is never spent; 

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;        

And though the last lights off the black West went 

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — 

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent 

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1877) Published:1918

 three layers

        there are three layers of rural areas

        the first became towns and cities a half-generation ago

        the second now becoming towns

        with yellow electricity and greyish pipe-water

        here some of the characteristics of jungles are intact

        the third is still a jungle by itself

        only the electricity of the sun permeates it

        the stars compensate for the lack of light

        by shining extremely brightly

        as they never do in towns

        which mock their services.

Omar Mohd. Noor

To the turtle

          you who suddenly

          marooned here

          with mouth full of blood

          and sand

          in this territory

          on this beach

          your longings

          for the sanctuary

          has come to an end

 Latiff Mohidin

Translated Mansor Ahmad Saman

Heir Conditioning

Grand dad did you breathe

before air cons were invented

was it hard staying

alive without modern inventions

Grandma weren’t you flustered

as you fluttered with paper fans

could you communicate before

faxes and long distance calls

became basic necessities?

Grandchild we lived

before your age because

of our ignorance,

we did not know

pollution, stress, traffic jams

destruction of forests, streams and hills

we feared God and nature

now nature fears you and

money is your new God.

 M SHANmughalingam

The New Road

From a distance

I could not quite make you out -

a dark grey object

on a grey new road.

As I approached

you became clearer:

a monkey dragging a foot.

The sound of my car horn

only made you stop.

You stood on one hind leg

and looked at the approaching object.

I slowed down

and saw you through my window.

I  hoped you would turn back

and go where you had come from.

You stared at me

and broke into a scream.

Your angry eyes

seemed to echo my very thoughts.

As I drove on

I dared not look behind:

shame and sadness

do not save lives.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani

In an earlier last blog I got started on the topic of plagiarism - intellectual theft or the lack of oginality. This whole phenomenon seems to be a plague in academia. There are those who don't seem bothered by it while others are quite revulsed. I am totally against it.

The last two theses I examined were both riddled with it. One was a Masters thesis and the other  was a doctoral thesis - both from two different public universities.

The Internet is a doluble-edged sword. It provides students with access to information they can use as they please and it also reveals to others how the information or knowledge has been used or misused.

There are software like Turnitin which help police academic writing. However, what needs to be done is not punishing students (and academics) but educating people on what is plagiarism and how to avoid it. There seems to be awareness but a lackadaisical attitude towards it, with the hope that one will not be caught.

One lecturer told me that she will not dare put her lecture notes online simply because it will show her up! She said: When we lecture and use powerpoint, we can get away with using other people's materials but when it is there for others to download, we will be found out!

Therein lies the problem. Students know when lecturers use other people's materials and do not cite them appropriately. So they do not expect their lecturers to penalise them when they are merely following what their instructors (am avoiding using the word role models) had done.

Now a little sidetracking. Years ago  when I was a undergraduate, I had submitted and essay on 'Heart of Darkness' to my tutor. He came back to me saying: it's all your own ideas. Why didn't you make reference to any critics? At that time I felt that my own ideas were indeed what was solicited for the essay (though I had not heard of reader and personal response, at that time) and there was no need to go to the library and read the critics - which I discovered many of my coursemates were doing and writing 10-page assignments!

In due course, I discovered the invaluable contributions of critics and learned to cite them appropriately too. 

After I started reading the critics I knew which of my coursemates were parroting other people's thoughts as their own. In one of my more cruel moments I did exclaim rather loudly that I had read that somewhere. My tutor said I was being unkind, How ironic!

Anyway, the point is that we can be original and we can share other people views. But what is important is that when we do use other people's work we must acknowledge that we have drawn from other people's work.

There are no two ways about it - plagiarism is not to be tolerated and is punishable even to the point of expulsion from the educational institution.