my cool buddy~
I attended an immersion program at Madrasah Wat Tanjong for the past two days. So since i'm required to write a reflection i might as well do it here and print it out heh.
It was a really enriching experience as I've learnt quite a lot from this program. Firstly i was quite amused by the prayers because its so long and theres a tune to it. We got to witness their afternoon prayer and i can see their sincerity and devotion while they prayed. We also learnt that they are no different from us as they study almost the same subjects as us such as GP, Mathematics and various Sciences. However those who do religious studies plan to go the universities in Middle East in the future. I feel that their school environment is not as stressful as ours and their lessons are more discussion-based.
I was attached to Hafidzah, who was really a good host as she taught me some of the islamic traditions and some basic arabic language. Moreover, she made me feel at home in a foreign environment and followed me whereever i go. I really want to thank her for her great hospitality.
The cons of this program are that I had to miss two days of lessons which can really be quite bad because term 2 is really quite a hectic period with teachers rushing to finish the syllabus and all the PDPs competitions are round teh corner. So maybe this program could be held after the exams where things are going at a much slower pace. Secondly i feel that the school should not prepare the lessons intentionally during the program but just let us sit in during the lectures or tutorials so that we get a true gauge of how their lessons are run in actual fact. I was expecting to learn some basic arabic language from the teachers there but the arabic lesson turned up to be not a language lesson but more of teaching us values of Muslims.
Anyway it is still a fruitful experience to be amongst students of different culture and religion. I hope the school will organise more of such activities to increase exposure of students and hopefully overseas exchange programs would be taken into considerations as well.
Yuanjing on 4:36 AM