COMMENT | Teach students the right way to criticise 

COMMENT | A few years ago, a good friend of mine, Leong, was teaching at a private school in Selangor when he overheard a group of his 15-year-old students grumbling about not being heard by their school management.

Upon talking to them, he understood that the students were unhappy with certain rules and the way things were managed at the school. So, he encouraged them to reach out to the teachers and school management to express their thoughts and feelings. 

The students assured Leong that they had tried to do so, however, all their complaints went to deaf ears. The students even took the initiative to write about these matters in the school magazine, hoping for a healthy discourse among the students, teachers and school management. 

Unfortunately, every written article for the school magazine had to go through a filtration process by a teacher in charge. And so, the students’ criticisms never made it to the final draft of the magazine. 

Teaching English Language and Global Perspectives at the time, Leong decided to use his role as an educator and a true believer in freedom of speech, to do something about it. 

He came up with a term project for his students, to create their very own newspaper. The students themselves decided on the name of their newspaper and the roles they would be playing...