1. My youngest talkative daughter, S Marsya, spent her first 2.5 years of primary schooling in Australia. She picked up Australian English extremely fast as the school she went has a special remedial program for non-English speaking students. She did well in that school. English becomes her natural language...
2. When my family returned to Malaysia, she had a hard time to adjusting herself to the Malaysian schooling system. For a long time, she was clueless when people around her spoke in BM. Unfortunately, Malaysian schools do not have a special program teaching BM for English-speaking students.
Although she quickly befriended English-speaking students at the school, her performance at school was badly affected. Her BM mark was around 20% for several terms initially. She did not do well in BM and subjects that were taught in BM. Except for English, her performance in Science and Mathematics which were taught in English was average. We sent her to extra classes (tuition) but the improvement was so slow.
Sometimes I have been wondering what went wrong, what had happened to this good student, were we wrong to bring her along to stay in Australia, etc etc. In fact, I was totally surprised when her class teacher told me recently that she was a quiet student.
3. She sat for UPSR this year. My wife and I did not expect any excellent results from her although we prayed hard to Allah. We did not put any pressure on her but have been encouraging her and telling her that she is a good student. We will be happy if she gets 2As for English and Science or Mathematics.
4. On Nov 13, both my wife and I decided to be late for work to go to her school, meet her and see the official results which should come out at 10 am. Unfortunately the school decided to have a award ceremony and postponed the release of the results after 12 noon. Upset we took her back home. Looked like it was going to be a bad day for us.
5. We went back to the school at 12.30 pm. Saw a few female students crying while their parents and relatives (I supposed) trying to consoled them. I guessed these girls were upset for not getting the straight 5As they had expected. On the way to see her class teacher, we met her best friend Priyanka. Priyanka achieved 4As and 1C. I let my daughter and my wife collect the results from the teacher. I could not tell anything from the facial expressions. My daughter came to me and told me that she got 4As and 1B. I was stunned! I guessed that was why both of them did not show any facial expression.
6. We left the school in a state of shock. We were quickly joined by my other daughter, S Amira who just finished her Math SPM paper. She was also pleasantly suprised by the results. We decided to celebrate Safra's achievement at the Treats. On the way to the car, I told S Marsya to check her result slip again to make sure that the results was hers. Alhamdullillah, her name was clearly spelled out on the slip.
7. Alhamdullillah. I remember a verse which Allah says "Ud'uni astajib lakum" (Ask from Me, I will grant it!). Yes Allah has answered my prayers! S Marsya now knows that she could excell in her studies.
8. I decided to take an emergency leave for that day (though I continue my work from home)! I am still elated till now!
