Staff Professional Development SMK Bandar Bintangor

If I were to look for one Principal who is as enthusiastic as whom Michael Fullan likened as one with full moral purpose and a sense of direction in leading a school, the most likely candidate would be none other than Sirat Malikin, the Principal of SMK Bandar Bintangor. During our brief interaction while managing Leadership and Education Management Course in Sibu last June he requested that if I could deliver something of collaborative and cooperative learning and my response was I would be comfortable with the subject (I was ringing back some module written when pursuing my doctorate at UWA and a brief visit to Hong Kong in 1999) if I can be available to his planned staff development schedule. Barely two months later he called in the midst of my session with Sabah School inspectorates and gave him my words that I will be coming during the month of Ramadhan as the remaining August I was fully occupied with meetings and evaluation programs.

Last Saturday, 6 September and 6th Ramadhan (both are the ninth month for both gregorian and Muslim Calendar) I took the first flight to Sibu to proceed to Bintangor for the session. Right ath the arrival exit Sirat and one of his teachers were waiting to drive me to their school. Thanks for the good bridge, the journey took us less than an hour, which three years ago took me more than two hours. We started at 0930 with all his teachers turned up. The muslim teachers must found it a little bit difficult to make as it is Ramadhan and having to endure for the next three hours. The teachers were collobarating and cooperating... a sense I thought Sirat was subtly subjecting himself with his knowledge on the subject which he pursued in the 90's in Manila under the Innotech training program then.

Making sense of the significance of the subject I started by socially profiling the teachers using Michael Fullan's four-corners training strategy. The attention was excellent. I accommodated the environment where the session was held. The three-hour session (with 20 minutes break) was used to discuss on approaches in classroom management and approaches to collaborative and cooperative learning strategies.

(moved from medang.blogspot.com)