00:00 [Music]
00:03 How do you get from Penang to Sabah?
00:06 The answer might seem obvious to most,
00:09 but this simple question was the start of a project
00:12 for Sean Stanley Anthony Das
00:14 to give his students a taste of flying on an airplane.
00:17 [Music]
00:23 Sean's light bulb moment led to him building a flight simulator
00:27 in his classroom at Sekolah Kebangsaan RPS Banun Idbera,
00:31 located an hour away from Gerig Town.
00:34 But beyond that, the project opened a path for Sean
00:37 to adopt a creative teaching approach,
00:39 particularly beneficial for his students,
00:42 many of whom struggle with literacy.
00:45 [Speaking in Indonesian]
00:50 [Music]
00:53 So imagine this, going to a class
00:55 where two out of 80 students are literate.
00:59 They can read basic words,
01:03 though they may not comprehend it,
01:04 but they have basic reading and writing abilities,
01:07 but the majority of them don't.
01:09 So how then do you teach the textbooks
01:11 or contents from the textbooks to a class
01:13 which cannot even read?
01:15 [Music]
01:24 To build his flight simulator,
01:26 Sean, who teaches science, roped in his students.
01:29 [Music]
01:32 Me and a few students, the secondary boys,
01:35 we went into the forest, chopped off some bamboos
01:38 to make the foundations or the base of the aircraft.
01:43 And I went around school collecting unused boxes
01:47 from teachers.
01:48 [Music]
01:53 In just a few days, the typical science classroom
01:56 was transformed into the cockpit and fuselage
01:58 of the school's new airline, Air Banun.
02:03 With the help of a projector
02:04 and by creatively rearranging the classroom chairs,
02:07 Sean was able to take his students
02:09 on a virtual journey to distant lands,
02:11 from the pyramids of Egypt
02:13 to the volcanic mountains of Indonesia.
02:16 It makes me think that in the classroom,
02:19 a lot of possibilities,
02:20 a lot of things can actually happen.
02:22 We can bring, like as educators,
02:24 though some realities may be distant for our children,
02:27 we can bring these realities to our children in our classroom.
02:30 [Music]
02:32 He hopes that these initiatives will debunk myths
02:34 about the abilities of Orang Asli children,
02:37 and more importantly,
02:38 inspire them to take their community to new heights.
02:42 And I hope that one day,
02:44 no matter whatever profession my students may be in,
02:48 they will also be going on to be an inspiration
02:51 to others in the future as well.
02:54 Dhanushwaja Reza, FMP News.
02:57 (dramatic music)
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