With extreme sadness, on the death of Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi, I wrote these two notes on my Facebook page.

ALFATIHAH
he just wanted to
live to be a good man
and to grow up loving life
- ar

MALAYSIA: THIS NATION
must go on a long soul searching trip
for the future of our children
especially when it comes to education
and religious extremism
there is no point taking pride in becoming
the TOOTHPICK CYBER CAPITAL of the FOREST-CITY WORLD
when our schools are turning into
concentration camps for religious instruction? - ar

Days before the young boy died, I wrote these:

“Dear Allah, please open my parents’ hearts to allow me to transfer to another school because I cannot stand it any more. Please, Allah, make my wishes come true.” from the boy, Mohamad Thaqif’s diary.

What is the value of these kinds of tahfiz schools when the human mind is structured to value thinking rather than merely regurgitating information they are not using meaningfully? Don't these religious school implementers read theories of human intelligence, philosophies of education, constructivism and critical approaches to teaching, and the writings of the liberal philosophers of education?

Yes, have them memorise, memorise, and memorise and make them only proud of that - don’t them to analyse, analyse, analyse and synthesise and have them form their own opinion, because thinking is a dangerous and subversive act to those forcing them to memorise. This is how IS operates and how Boko Haram works.

Don’t these educators in the religious schools read any of the methods of effective teaching and effective learning? Or at least understand that you cannot force children to love learning by having them wake up at 3am, lose sleep, and when they cannot learn effectively, you allegedly beat them up?

Outcomes of learning

What is going on with the Education Ministry that is supposed to have resolved these issues of philosophy, paradigm, pedagogy, processes, and outcomes of learning, especially in the so-called tahfiz/memorisation schools?

This news is the saddest I have ever read about a child in Malaysia. This child is damaged and his future as a thinking, feeling, and exciting being is perhaps lost - if he had survived the ordeal of amputations. What a heartless, mindless, and soul-less system of schooling and learning.

What actually is to be achieved in these schools, besides forcing children to merely store information in containers called the ‘brains’ that ought to be used as active, thinking, feeling vessels? We have already been independent for 60 years... what’s the problem of not understanding the meaning of education, the state, and a thinking citizenry?

Monitor these schools closely, please - they mighty evolve into breeding grounds of something the nation will regret. Under such a boarding school system and culture, anything can happen, contrary to the wishes of the parents. Kids can be abused, intelligence subdued and their emotional and mental capacities destroyed. And some might even be sexually abused.

The formative years of 0-2 and 2-12, and 12-18 are periods that require special understanding of the child’s mind, if society wishes to turn its citizens into powerful-intelligent-loving-wise individuals who will serve society selflessly. That’s what ‘sentimental, romantic, progressive, and brain-active’ education is about.

Don’t we ask our teachers to read Socrates, Rousseau, Montessori, Froebel, Raden Ajeng Kartini, Munshi Abdullah, Dewey, Freire, Gardner, etc. before we release them as ‘teachers’. Don’t we have that reading programme in our teacher training schools and our universities?

What then must we do? Before many other children lose their legs and arms just for going to school? We must get good, humane, and humanistic educationists to look into these schools - from their philosophy to the method of disciplining the child. - ar

DR AZLY RAHMAN grew up in Johor Baru, Malaysia and holds a Columbia University (New York City) doctorate in International Education Development and Masters degrees in the fields of Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies and Communication. He will be pursuing his fifth Masters in Fine Arts, specialising in Fiction and Poetry Writing. He has taught more than 50 courses in six different departments and has written more than 350 analyses/essays on Malaysia. His 25 years of teaching experience in Malaysia and the United States spans over a wide range of subjects, from elementary to graduate education. He has edited and authored six books; Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present, Future (2009), Thesis on Cyberjaya: Hegemony and Utopianism in a Southeast Asian State (2012), The Allah Controversy and Other Essays on Malaysian Hypermodernity (2013), Dark Spring: Essays on the Ideological Roots of Malaysia's General Elections-13 (2013), a first Malay publication Kalimah Allah Milik Siapa?: Renungan dan Nukilan Tentang Malaysia di Era Pancaroba (2014), and Controlled Chaos: Essays on Mahathirism, Multimedia Super Corridor and Malaysia’s ‘New Politics’ (2014). He currently resides in the United States where he teaches courses in Education, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Political Science, and American Studies. His forthcoming book, One Malaysia, under God, Bipolar, a joint project between Gerakbudaya and World Wise Books of New Jersey, USA, is his seventh compilation of essays on Malaysian Cultural, Creative, and Critical Studies. He is currently working on his eighth book, on Gifted and Talented Education in Malaysia, honouring a prominent educator. Twitter, blog

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.