‘FISH philosophy’; peculiar term for excellent skills.

Knowledge and skills may come in unexpected name and title. But its significant contributions to the human world, transcends its peculiarity of name and terminology. This is replicated through the ‘FISH’ philosophy. Initially, I thought it was an acronym or abbreviations from combined words. But my assumptions was wrong as it represents a sets of skills in which the process, tools and language deemed essential for creating a workplace full of creativity, innovation and inspiration. I realized that most of education philosophy revolved around a rather serious and complex words, acronym or abbreviation. Therefore the fish philosophy name depicted from the film, “FISH! Catch the Energy, Release the Potential”, produced by John Christensen suits it well since its main focus is to create supportive and encouraging workplace.

In terms of education sphere, fish philosophy can really help to improve the scenario and condition of the classroom. In other words, since some of Malaysian schools are overly consumed with external examination result such as UPSR or PMR, particularly in ensuring that their students are top scorers, the condition of the classroom has changed. By means, as most of the time are spent on doing drill and practice of the mock examination test papers, time for enjoying the learning are decreasing significantly. This is the good opportunity for the fish philosophy to fit in and changed the teaching and learning condition in the classroom.

Using four simple practices namely, Be There, Play, Make Their Day and Choose Your Attitude, teacher can improve their students’ learning experience as well as their teaching. A positive and vibrant classroom would definitely produced successful teaching and learning experience. For the first practice namely ‘Be there’, teacher should be there to monitor as well as assist their students’ understanding regarding the lessons taught. But in the Malaysian context, some of school teachers have to attend external courses that can extend for longer time thus affecting the implementation of this philosophy. What administrator or parties concerned can do is provides in house training as well as short courses that effectively and efficiently make use of limited time. Furthermore, administrator can reduce the ‘clerking’ work which reduces the effectiveness and their availability in the classroom. For practice namely ‘Play’, teacher can integrate interesting games and activities that help students to enjoy while at the same time play. Through technology, students can enjoy their classroom learning experiences by doing computer based games; singing songs or watching videos that best correspond with the ‘Play’ practice.

For the practice namely ‘Make Their Day’, teacher can integrate this philosophy by addressing the students’ self confidence with good and motivational words. In other words, the use of this word can encourage them as well as rectifying the serious condition which may emerged due to the dullness of the lesson. For instance, teacher can use interesting and enjoyable songs to make their day in the classroom enjoyable besides chatting about their background experiences in congruent to the lesson taught. Lastly, teacher can practice ‘Choose your attitude’ by being a positive and optimistic person. By means, every student’s mistake and errors are treated as a trial and tribulations of learning. Therefore, instead of scolding and punishment, teacher can facilitate and advise them on how to improve their work and rectify the problem from persisting in the future. Besides that, teacher also need to train student to practice these skills as it can bring benefit that are deemed essential for teaching and learning process.

All in all, fish philosophy help to translate the importance of changing today’s education scenario into a positive, supportive, encouraging and vibrant environment for learning. The metamorphosis of the classroom condition will definitely provide all school stakeholders concerned with benefits that transcends its dullness and traditional learning situation. In addition, effective and wise decision has to be made for successful integration of technology to complement the implementation of fish philosophy in the schools particularly the classroom.