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MALAYSIA –Samuel Isaiah

Teacher Sam, as his students fondly refer to him, has been a teacher in action. Samuel Isaiah is an educator in Malaysia who has found his purpose in bringing together theory and practice as a way to empower the youth. Owing to his unconventional teaching approaches, creative methods and guidance to help Orang Asli pupils – he made it to the Top 10 Finalists in the Varkey Global Teacher Prize 2020. To aid his efforts and take them a notch higher, Ranjitsinh Disale has opted to share a part of the prize money and partner with Samuel. After all, they are leading with the same guiding principles and core beliefs.

DRIVING FORCE

Fresh out of college, Samuel knew it was time to stop viewing the world with rose-tinted glasses when he was deployed in a rural indigenous school, one of the worst performing schools in the Pahang district. On day one, Samuel was asked not to pay much heed to Orang Asli children because the other staff members thought it wasn’t worth spending time on them. It was the notion that society cannot help those who struggle to embrace it. The disregard for their welfare and potentially bright futures is what drove Samuel to challenge the status quo.

IMPACT

Samuel’s school of thought stems from using frameworks and policies in relevance to culture, context and society. He has a sound knowledge of pedagogy and is an efficient planner. At the school, he introduced innovative programs including a crowdfunded project that gave the children access to a 21st century English classroom.

Students were drawn in with his methods to teach English through learning music, playing a Ukulele or eco-learning projects that gave students the confidence to discover their potential. He also introduced Asli E-pal which was an electronic pen pal email exchange project.

The Pekan district education office spoke of Samuel’s creative approach; “Samuel thought outside the box to introduce unique ways of teaching that were well-received by the pupils. They began showing great interest in learning the language and the passing rate of the subject improved.”

CHALLENGE

The attitude of the teachers and the passive acceptance of failure by his students posed a dual challenge for Samuel to succeed. The Orang Asli community has long suffered poverty, and has the identity of the ‘Other’ because of how society continues to push them to the outskirts. Their cultural identity had become confused and the children started to believe in the stigmas the outsiders posed. The teachers slept through classes or simply skipped them, and the students continued to travel down the rabbit hole where no inspiration was to be found. This changed with Samuel’s efforts as he travelled 200 KM daily to be with the students and spend considerable time with them even after school owing to the “Tree School” project he started where he would teach under trees beyond school hours.

STEP FORWARD

Ranjitsinh Disale’s contribution towards Samuel’s efforts will propel him in the direction of creating real change for students. Samuel will adopt a three-pronged approach to utilize the funds received and use them to uplift the underprivileged students in Malaysia.

EMPOWER THE EDUCATORS

Through professional development programs in association with a non-profit firm he co-founded, Samuel hopes to empower the teachers who can help uplift the student communities. These programs will focus on creating a network of teachers with potential funders that can fuel their ideas, generate seed funds and grow the prize money amount by reaching out and collaborating with Industry leaders in Malaysia.

Developing a sound infrastructure is key to long-term impact and Samuel will do so by creating sustainable community learning hubs for students in need. His plan is to introduce 2 learning hubs in the next 5 to 10 years that are tech-enabled, propose project based learning and are run by community members. In the long run, these projects will also add to human capital development.

SUSTAINABLE LEARNING HUBS

PUBLICATION & RESEARCH

Samuel is currently doing a Master’s in Educational Policy and will thereafter join the #IndigenousESD network chaired by UNESCO in Reorienting Education towards sustainability. The intention is to use the funds for publication and research and hopefully bring about changes in policy recommendations, introduce new learning approaches and create a conducive learning environment for Indigenous children and youth.