MASUKAN INI ADALAH SATU UCAPAN. OLEH ITU IANYA DITULIS DALAM FORMAT UCAPAN. BACALAH PERLAHAN-LAHAN SEOLAH-OLAH SAUDARA SENDIRI YANG SEDANG MENYAMPAIKANNYA.
CLOSING SPEECH OF CHAIRMAN
KUMON EDUCATION MALAYSIA
AT KUMON INSTRUCTORS’
CONFERENCE
LEVEL 2, PRINCE COURT
HOTEL CONFERENCE HALL, KUALA LUMPUR
5th APRIL, 2014
At 3.00 pm.
Assalaamua’laikum
Warahmatullaahi Wabarakaatuh
And good afternoon to
everyone present.
Yang Berbahagia Datin
Professor Dr. Amla bin Salleh, Member of the Board of Kumon Malaysia.
Mr. Kenichi Kitao,
Kumon Asia and Oceana;
Mr. Masahiro Takatsu,
General Manager,
Kumon Education Malaysia
Mr. Mitsuo Okabe,
General Manager,
Kumon Support Asia Pacific
Sdn. Bhd.
Dear Insturctors,
Ladies and gentlemen.
I must first of all
congratulate all of you
for having gone
successfully
through another
conference.
The conference this time
is being held
after the 100th
anniversary of the birth of the late Toru Kumon,
who is the founder
of the Kumon Method of
teaching.
The centenary celebration
was held in Yokohama, Japan
on Sunday 16th
March, 2014 as it was a convenient public holiday
and the hall at Yokohama
city
could accommodate 7,000
Kumon instructors and associates
from 34 countries around
the world.
The conference hall is also
situated in very strategic vicinity.
The real birthday of Toru
Kumon was 26th March, 1914,
in Osaka in the Kochi
Prefecture, Japan,
that is 100 years by 26th
March, 1014.
This Centenary Celebration,
held 10 days earlier,
was a great and a
memorable event.
It was a celebration in
memory of a great man.
Toru Kumon was inspired
by his eldest son,
Takashi,
who was not doing too well
in mathematics
when he began his second
year at elementary school
in 1954.
At first Toru Kumon’s
wife, Teiko, helped their son Takeshi.
She successfully persuaded
her husband Turo Kumon
to take over the teaching
of Takeshi.
After all Toru Kumon
started his teaching career in mathematics
after his graduation from
a university
in 1936,
vowing to make his classes
interesting
and encouraging his
students to self-learn.
Toru Kumon blamed the
method of teaching mathematics
in school
as being the cause of his
eldest son’s inability
to master the subject.
When Toru Kumon began to
teach his son by himself he developed a system which became known as the Kumon
Method.
Because of the popularity
of his method
among other parents
the first Kumon Center was
opened in Osaka in 1956.
In 1958 Toru Kumon founded
the Kumon Institute of
Education.
Turo Kumon’s method was
not developed overnight.
He developed the Kumon
Method
with passion
as he was teaching and
supervising
his beloved eldest son,
Takashi.
Step-by-step Turo Kumon developed
the worksheets
for independent self
learning.
As of now,
at any time,
there are more than 4 million
Kumon students,
studying in about 20,000
centres in the world.
Of these 2.5 million
students are from outside Japan.
Malaysia currently has
about 40,000 students in 188 centers.
We have 185 instructors.
Compared to other ASEAN
countries
we are behind Indonesia,
Thailand
and The Philippines
in term of number of
students.
But, as a percentage of
the population of each country,
we are the leading
country.
Since 1956,
19 million students
have enrolled in Kumon
Centers worldwide.
Toru Kumon died of
pneumonia on 25th July, 1995
after having lived for 81
years, three months and twenty days.
I do not know of any one
man,
in history,
except for those who
discovered
mathematical theories and
formulae,
who has been of service
to the teaching of
mathematics
as Toru Kumon has done.
We are here today because
of him.
Without him there is no
Kumon Method to teach.
I learned from reading
and attending conferences
in Tokyo,
Nagoya (Ms. Miho’s
hometown),
Bangkok,
Yokohama (Miss Mizue’s
hometown)
and various conferences
locally,
in addition to dialogues
and discussions with Kumon’s officials
at all levels,
that the most important
component of Kumon’s success
is ‘The Instructors.’
I was most elated
when I heard Ms. Allen
Abdullah
revealed in Yokohama
that he opted in favor for
the Kumon Method of teaching
as against the famous
Elly’s Smith School method
where she was the
principal of the school.
I saw many women in my
trip around the world,
especially when I attended
Kumon’s conferences,
which are dominated by
women.
But I must confess,
that my motivation bloated,
when I saw,
not young women,
but elderly women,
who had served as Kumon
Instructors
for more than 45 years,
energetically coming up
the stage,
with proud looks,
telling us how much,
each and everyone of them
have enjoyed
having served as Kumon
Instructors
and feeling the
satisfaction
upon seeing hundreds of
their students
- being successful
Those of you present here
today,
who have served for a long
period
would know better the
meaning of what I said.
As Kumon instructors:
- You are the chosen ones,
- You are the franchisees and the instructors,
- You are strong believers in the value of education,
- You believe in the ethos of continuous improvementin order to offer the best supplementary education possibleto the children who study with you,
- You face the challenges of running your own business,As you own the Kumon Centersand you deliver the results,
- You have been trained as instructors and have attended further training sessions,
- You interact among yourselvesand are further exposed to new ideasconcepts,experiencesand methodsthrough seminars and conferences,
- You have the continuous support, training and guidancefrom the management of Kumon
- You are obsessed by high standards and expectations
- You enjoy seeing the smiles on the faces of your students when they have successfully completed their worksheets,
- You strive to improve the students when they have just reached their Just Right Level.
- You know that our childrens’s future is the future of our nation and the future of the children of the world is the future of mankind.And, having been an elected representative in Parliamentand the State Assembly for 30 years,from 1974 to 2014,I must confess,that I have the greatest satisfaction of my lifein being associated with Kumon.Among us today is Datin Prof. Dr. Amla Sallehwho is an expert in counsellingat University Kebangsaan Malaysia.Her late husband Dato’ Mahadzir Khir,a very close friend of mine,was once a Deputy Minister of Education in Tun Dr. Mahathir’s cabinet after serving in the University of Malaya.Both husband and wifehave written many articles and books on education.With her presence among usI hope that with her presence, the management of Kumonwill have a softer image,and future interactions with herwill further assist in the expansion of Kumon nationwide.We need to have more small seminarsand group discussionsall over the country,as often as is possible,in order to share and upgrade our capabilityand our students’ performance.If there is anything that I have learntfrom all Kumon conferences,it is –THE MORE SMALL SEMINARS AND GROUP DISCUSSIONS we haveto improve our performancethe more knowledgeable, committed and efficient we become.Let us therefore work conscientiously for the growth of Kumonas this is one of the best way for usto help our country.I was in the Cabinet of Tun Dr. Mahathirwhen we decided that science and mathematics should be taught in English.We were horrifiedwhen this policy was reversed, for whatever reason.It is important for all of us to rememberthat all knowledge are written,and that they are writtenin the various languages of the world.Besides the nationalistic value of a languagewithin the terriroty of a peoplewho speaks the language,and the pride that goes with it,civilisationss of the worldhave never been built on pride alonebut more soin the knowledge that its people command.If a person understands only one languagethen the knowledge that the person haswill only be those which are written or deliveredin that language alone.If knowledge from other languages are not translatedinto the language that the person knowsthan I would say that that personis imprisonedwithin prison of that language,and will remain poorif knowledge available in that languageis limited.Even a person who speaks only the English languagecan be said to be living in the English language prison,however,since knowledge is vastly available in English,the person is therefore living within a very large prisonwith abundant knowledge,or within a rich and prosperous prison.Even developed nations likeGermany,Japanand Franceencourage their people,particularly the leaders in the various fieldsto master the English language.Even China and India,with such a big populationare encouraging its students to study English.Kumon has its own method of teaching English.Looking at the RRLor Recommended Reading Listone cannot avoid admiring the distance that Kumon has gone in perfecting its English teaching lessons.Staff and instructors,Ladies and gentlemen,If we work hard enoughwe can be the leading nation in ASEAN,in term of the number of students,despite our smaller population.This is my promiseto the top management of Kumonat Lunch time in Yokohama.No countryin the worldhave succeededwithout enough number in the populationwith intellectual strength in mathematics, science and English.Therefore,our promise to the top management of Kumonin Yokohamais also our promise to this beloved nation of ours - Malaysia.With this I declare the conference closed.Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Sanusi bin Junid, Pengerusi Kumon Education Malaysia
No comments:
Post a Comment