A lesson in democracy

IT had been some years since I taught students in a classroom, since being an Adjunct Teaching Fellow at Sunway University in 2015, and a Fellow with some teaching responsibilities at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore in 2009 – and I remember a fun music lesson I co-taught with a Teach for Malaysia Fellow in 2013.

So when I was asked to teach a group of teenagers last week, I was both nervous and excited.

Nervous because when I look back at my best and worst teachers in my life, I often recall the one or two lessons – or even specific things they said – that made me assess them as such. Teenage minds are impressionable, and so I had to think hard about a lesson plan.

Excited because it was my first time addressing students of Ideas Academy in some years. To recap the history briefly, Ideas Academy was first mooted back in 2012 in a humble effort to provide education to those in need, as a collaboration between the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) and a foundation supporting rights for refugee children.

The school opened in 2014, and today Ideas Academy continues to believe in Education for All, with the mantra that education holds the key to global citizenship which is something that no one regardless of background, race or economic situation should be denied.

We want to ensure every child between 12 and 18 years old gains a strong secondary educational foundation so that they can become responsible, confident and compassionate adults.

In terms of governance, Ideas Academy is run independently from Ideas (and the same is true for our Ideas Autism Centres in Rawang, Nilai, and our new affiliate in Damansara Heights, but I remain the common board member of all three organisations.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, we have combined physical classes with online education as well, with coding and computing always being a key part of our offerings.

And of course, we have students from all over the world, including UNCHR cardholders and Malaysian citizens.

The last fact made the topic of my session even more pertinent, for this was their inaugural civics class.

I started off by asking my students – about 15 of them – what they thought government was for, and what they thought of democracy.

Some of the refugees had fled countries facing war and genocide, and universally they thought democracy was meant to be a good thing. Furthermore, they knew that Malaysia is also supposed to be one, even if they don’t know exactly why that is.

Luckily for me, the students were animated and engaging with me and each other. I asked them what policies they thought were important and what they wanted to change, and what institutions they would use to achieve these changes, and if there were any limits to what they could change. In doing so, we spoke about the branches of government: the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

They knew instinctively that there should be a police force and judges to maintain law and order according to the laws passed by parliament. They easily grasped the idea that there should be some laws that should be harder to change – or perhaps, not changed at all – and that’s how we got talking about Constitutions.

And they understood that there can be other bodies to make sure that the rules are being followed properly, like an election commission, an anti-corruption commission or a body to ensure there is freedom of expression.

Finally, they understood that culture and religion can have an impact on how we can design these institutions – and how traditional institutions like monarchy or religious bodies can play a powerful and positive role in the governance of a country.

What struck me the most is how natural – and democratic – this conversation was. When nudged to think about how they are governed, these young people got excited about designing their “perfect form of government”, drawing on the experiences they had.

I thought I would have encountered a student who would argue to have (or themselves become) a dictator who would make all the right decisions for everyone else.

Certainly there were many such characters when I studied politics at school. But perhaps the experience of being refugees made this inconceivable for them. Or maybe social media has made this generation much more aware of the fact that people disagree on things, and that there should be mechanisms to resolve differences peacefully.

I hope that the jubilantly announced Madani module will draw on the same energy to convey the same themes. In the meantime, I’m happy to be teaching – and learning – again!

The views expressed here are the writer’s own.