Ministry of Communications and Multimedia - MCMM (in Malay KKMM) Malaysia

I wrote several emails to out Ministry of Education and have yet to receive any response.

I then wrote to our Minister Tuan Gobind Singh Deo and his team at Ministry of Communications and Multimedia (KKMM) on 22.10.2018. 

Not receiving any reply I wrote again on 22.11.2018 (one month after my first email).

Finally on 10.12.2018 I received a reply from Ministry of Multimedia and Communication apologizing for the late response and saying that they have forwarded the email to the party concerned which I believe is Astro.

Scout mindset or soldier mindset

Not long ago I heard a TED talk by Julia Galef on why scout mindset is crucial to good judgment.

I believe that both mentalities are important. I used the scout mentality to gather firsthand information from my students on why they were unable to read in English but were able to read in Malay and Hanyu Pinyin.

My emails to our ministers on Astro programme

The more appropriate title may be 'Rancangan Tergendala'. I am taking a short break from my continuation of articles on Stephen Krashen. This is a result of a challenge by some opposition members asking me why I had not written to ministers complaining about matters.

I have written several emails to Dr. Maszlee Malik and to Ms Teo Nie Ching and they do not even have the courtesy to respond. 

Similarly I also wrote to Mr.Gobind Sindh Deo to no avail.

Here are my emails to these ministers who probably do not understand what I am writing about. Now. let us eee if the opposition party members will act on this complaint.

Emails to Astro’s CEO - Henry Tan

These are my emails to the CEO of Astro, Mr.Henry Tan and to his PA Ms. Nora Yahya. 

My first email was sent to the CEO on the 8.10.2018 after several attempts to the staff of Astro since 13.9.2018.

22.10.2018

Dear   Mr. Henry Tan,

This is my third email to you.

Peace is better than being right - Is it?

This is a warning to all teachers and parents to be wary of letting babies and kids listen to Charlie and the alphabets.

This morning while scrolling messages on LinkedIn I saw the above message.

I have written many posts on my blog as well as on LinkedIn saying that kids disengage from learning to read when they are confused. 

Well, I definitely want peace as I had fought a one and a half year battle with my former Lions club that had misappropriated funds meant for the poor. The club was deregistered on 28.6.2018.

Astro TV and their 'Tidak apa' (lackadaisical) attitude

My first email to Astro complaining about the BabyTV programme teaching alphabet sounds  that is detrimental to kids was dated 13^th September 2018.

I had also sent a link to my book for them to buy and read as to why that programme is not suitable for kids.

I fail to understand why Astro just cannot promise to stop airing that one programme 'Charlie and the Alphabet' until they are convinced that what I am saying is true and then completely ban that particular episode.

I received several responses and some of the emails are as below.

Correspondence between BabyTV and Luqman Michel (Part2)

Many educators and scientists in the world have said that many kids cannot read because of ‘Dsytechia’ (a term coined by teachers). This simply means that kids cannot read because teachers do not know how to teach.

However, no one has ever said what it is that is being taught wrongly. I know the answer to that question and have said it many times. It is simply because about 20% of kids in the world are prone to shutting down when taught wrong phonemes/sounds represented by letters.

Correspondence to and from BabyTV and Luqman Michel

I wrote to BabyTV, the producer of the programme aired by Astro, on 12^th September 2018.

There was a prompt response on 13.9.2018 from Debbie Pattinson who is the consultant to BabyTV

I responded immediately telling her about the programme that I believe will result in more kids shutting down from learning to read.

I requested her to read a copy of my book.

On 17.9.2018 Debbie responded as follows:

Luqman Michel vs Astro and Baby TV (Part 3)

After almost a month and not making any headway I decided to write to the CEO of Astro.

Here are my two emails to the CEO of Astro.

Sent: Monday, 8 October 2018, 17:48:45 GMT+8

Subject: My complaint on your programme

Luqman Michel vs Astro, BabyTv (Part 2)

The above is the episode on Astro and Unifi that I know will cause kids to shut down. I have explained as to why kids shut down in my blog posts as well as in my book.

On 12^th September, 2018 I sent a lengthy email to Astro where I explained why kids shut down from learning to read. I requested Astro to use what I had discovered on why kids shut down to do a programme to reduce illiteracy. I recommended them to get a copy of my book from the internet.

Here are the main points stating that many kids shut down from learning to read because of wrong teaching of sounds.

Luqman Michel vs Astro and BabyTV

On 12.9.2018 I wrote to Astro stating that kids shut down from learning to read as a result of being confused. 

On 13.9.2018 (exactly a month ago) I wrote and complained about one of Astro’s programmes that I know will cause kids to shut down from learning to read.