Everyday I went to KMSS, I intentionally abstained myself from watching the students doing their rehearsal for the presentations on our Speech Day. I want to enjoy being surprised, and having a spontaneous thought about it. The presentation will reflect the values internalized throughout the year.
I am glad I did.
We have three performances.
The first one is the coral speech by our girls, combining Malay, English and some Arabic , titled ‘The Happy Family’, or ‘Keluarga Bahagia’ in Malay, or ‘al-Usrah al-Sa’idah’ in Arabic. Their performance was good, full of joy, funny, with good coordination and level of confidence.
Congratulations girls!
The second one is the one I got surprised. The boys were performing Dikir Barat, and it was in three languages. Or dialects I would say. One was the Kelantanese version, then followed by Nogoghi Sembilan, and then summed up with the ‘western style’, in English. I am so happy watching them doing the performance which also related to ‘appreciating your family’ theme, because I have this thought for quite sometimes… I think many Islamic School, mainly the private one, do not show their identity of being domestic, or Malay, or Malaysian. We use English as the medium of communication and teaching, we as part of the ummah would concentrate a lot on the international affairs involving Muslims, mainly Palestine and Syria, but at the same time, we belong to this place, this soil, and I would love to see some reflections in the performance.
Having silat, dikir barat, any traditional dance or song… would be nice.
I can still remember many years ago, when we discussed about establishing KMSS. We wanted the school to have the proficiency in English language, and Arabic too, but we also want our students to have the local, national identity. We do not want to produce graduates who are detached from the society they are living with.
So, at personal level, I congratulate the boys and the teacher who coordinate the performance for such an amazing, entertaining and fun performance.
The third performance was done by our boys. They sang beautifully Maher Zain’s One Big Family. They surprised us when at the middle of the song, they came down and shake their hands with us. I didn’t expect that.
I hope they sang more songs.
While enjoying the performance, I remember al-Jahiz who emphasized the importance of music, chess, archery, polo and other similar activities in education. I hope that being Islamic would not stop the students from expressing themselves. They need to exercise their aesthetic appreciation even though I don’t know if there is any contemporary scholars would endorse music to be part of Islamic schools’ syllabus.
Have a happy holiday dear sons and daughters, stay calm, stay charm, stay safe, and don’t forget to revise your Quran memorization. Al-Quran is your most sensitive mate. You leave it, it leaves you. You forget it, it forgets you.
Shaping excellent character!