When I stood up for Neo Chye Huat

Paper aeroplanes flew.

He talked loudly, walked about when the teacher was teaching. He also played truant.

For the sake of the rest of the class, he was often made to stand outside the classroom. But that didn't bother him one bit. To him, it was freedom. Before long he had wandered away to disturb the students in the neighbouring classes - those sitting at the back of the class next to the door. Other times he would be shouting across to students having their PE lesson in the basketball court.

The old school was designed as a quadrangle with classrooms overlooking the court, so you can imagine the noise he made with his shouts.

The discipline master had to play catching with him often.

To be honest, if this was something out of a movie or a story book I would have laughed out loud at the hilarious sight of a discipline master running after a wayward student.

But this was Chye Huat. And I? I was his form teacher.

Chye Huat was the reason I had to attend an interview that would determine if I could be confirmed me as a teacher.

The situation was so bad it got to the stage where the discipline master decided to keep Chye Huat by his side, literally. Wherever the discipline master went, Chye Huat tagged behind. Other times he was made to sit in the staff room.

But Chye Huat mostly behaved himself during my lessons. He even studied for my tests! In the beginning when he attempted to disrupt lessons by talking, I gave him many opportunities to talk. LOL I threw questions on the lesson at him.

Perhaps he didn't know how to respond to not being punished. Eventually he stopped his antics because he didn't want to answer my questions. He just slouched in his chair.

The complaints from the teachers went to the principal.

And then the school wanted to expel him.

I was shocked. I thought that was a rather drastic course of action and as his form teacher, I did not support expulsion for him.

Perhaps their reasoning was: why keep him in school when you cannot keep him in the classroom?

I, however, was of the view that if some rapport could be established with him, he could be changed. But I was alone in this. Young and naive. That was what my colleagues thought although they were too polite and kind to tell me.

But my principal walked into the staff room and proclaimed loudly, "Our students are devils, you know. They are not angels."

I knew she was speaking for me to hear. So did my colleagues. I felt miserable. I think I would have felt less miserable if she had come straight up to me and told me as much.

Several times after school, I had had to sit with the discipline master in the Principal's Office to meet with my principal. The meetings were about Chye Huat but it felt more like I was the one being disciplined - for that resistance.

I appreciated that the school did take my stand into consideration and did not simply push through with their choice. The discipline master told me they would suspend him for 2 weeks. But to give him a good shaking-up, they would tell him he was expelled.

I was relieved.

Chye Huat was nonchalant when told that he was 'expelled'. But before a week was over, he ranged me up at home one night and told me tearfully over the phone that he wanted to go back to school. He asked me to help him.

Naughty Chye Huat was crying but I was very happy to hear from him. So Chye Huat came back to school and he was thankful to me for my 'help'.

Thus I concluded my two years' training with this episode as the grand finale that went into my principal's appraisal of me. My principal also did not request for me to continue teaching in this school as a trained teacher.

What about Chye Huat?

Sad to say, he did not make the best use of the second chance given to him. Friends told me he was back to his old ways. Eventually he was expelled - a second time. This time it was for real. Chye Huat ranged me up again. He wanted to go back to school. But how could I help him? I was no longer a staff of the school.

When I was a trainee teacher

I did my training in a school that was made up of academically very weak students. A number of them were overage having repeated in some years.

There was a shortage of teachers at that time and I taught lower secondary English, Mathematics amd Science.

I didn't like teaching English. Correcting my students' compositions was like re-writing 40 compositions all over. In some cases, I had to correct every sentence. And since we had to set a composition exercise every other week, alternating with comprehension, I found myself writing compositions non-stop.

I was a very good Math and Science teacher though. Through getting to know my students,I learned very early on in my training not to make any assumptions about what my students already knew or should know. Their foundation was really very weak.

I was very systematic, organised and clear in my explanation. And I watched keenly my students' faces for their response to everything I said. I discovered that I had an enormous amount of patience. I don't remember ever feeling despaired that they couldn't understand even the most basic thing. If they did not understand the first time, I would try to explain the same thing again in a different way, or I would speak slowly and pause to emphasize whatever that I thought needed emphasis and to allow the idea to sink in. And I would explain an idea or concept as many times as needed, whether to a class or to individuals, until they were understood. You cannot move forward unless your students are moving forward with you.

The change in my students' facial expressions - from looking lost to "I see light", from frowns to smiles - those were the moments of satisfaction for me.

Years later I was on a few occasions stopped by people on the roads or wherever and they would tell me I was their teacher and that I was a very good teacher.

It amazes me that there are people who think they are doing students weak in their studies a great favour by calling for streaming to be delayed or worse, to be abolished altogether. They think by doing so they are taking away the stress of learning or the misery of a label. The reality is that the earlier you catch a child who is lagging behind and help him or her to consolidate their foundation, the less stressful learning will be later on for them because there will be less catching up to do.

Our students are devils, not angels.

"Our students are devils, you know. They are not angels," my principal proclaimed in the staff room.

Those words, spoken sarcastically and addressed to no one in particular, were meant for my ears.

I was just a trainee teacher then doing my first posting in a secondary school.

I went into teaching after I gave up going to university because I did not want to give up studying and being a teacher meant the chance to continue to study while also drawing a salary which would allow me to contribute financially to help my mother.

It was a bold decision given that I was a timid student who preferred to fade into the background rather than be the focus of attention or in the spotlight. But such was my desire to study that I was ready to take that plunge.

It was the beginning of putting on a very brave front again and again that belied the nervousness underneath. For me, to stand in front of a class and take charge took a lot of courage. I had to be the person that I was not.

Thus I did not go into teaching because of some childhood ambition to be a teacher but I was a good teacher to my students.

At the end of my training, I was one of the very few who were not confirmed. When you have to go for an interview before you are confirmed as a teacher, you know that is bad news.

I'll tell you why I was not confirmed another time.

Dreams

It had always been my dream to go to university but the day I received my A level results, I gave up that dream.

Still, that did not stop me from applying for a place in the science faculty in NUS - just so that I could say, "Hey, I also qualified for university." Hence I conclude that there exists in each one of us an egoistic self that manifests in varying degree.

I was filled with joy when I received the letter of offer. It was a joy that lasted until matriculation day when it was replaced with that tinge of sadness. The passing of that day was a seal on my decision.

I made that decision to lessen the burden on my mother. I have a younger sister and younger brother and they were both schooling. My younger sister also had dreams of going to university. I felt it would be very tough for my mother to support both of us in university. I decided that my younger sister who is the smarter one, should go to university.

Thus my pathwary diverted from my friends'.

Do You Also Watch The World Pass?

Do you also watch the world pass by

like I have to do

not of choice

but of circumstances

yet by choice

because of circumstances

To walk away

would be heartless and cruel

And you can't find it in your heart to do

Thus like me

you have chosen to be

                                                                         a prisoner of

                                                                          circumstances

                                                                          because 

                                                                         LOVE

                                                                         shall rule,
                                                                        not circumstances.

                                   

When Kampong Folks See A Rat

Kampong folks' response to the discovery of a rat is completely different from the heartlanders.

I remember when I was a kid growing up in a kampong, whenever a rat is sighted, he whole kampong would come alive with shouts of "There's a rat!"

Boys and men sprung into action with sticks and what-have-yous calling out, "Where, where, where is it now?"

The search was on and all possible escape routes sealed.

Almost all the time, the poor rat will be caught and its life terminated. The size of the rat is their trophy. 

My World Of Mathematics

Mathematics is about comprehension and the training of the mind to be nimble, clear and logical. You cannot do mathematics with a cluttered mind.

I enjoy Mathematics for the processes that it takes me through, the challenge and the satisfaction.

I consider myself an average student in Mathematics and it was through sheer hard work that I obtained good results. Hence I had less confidence in myself than my lecturer had in me. He saw the results while I knew the effort I had to put in.

I recall spending hours working at difficult questions and being so completely engrossed that time as well as the external world with its noise, chatter and activities would fade out of consciousness. Locked in a different world, these were also the moments when it was most enjoyable, fruitful and satisfying. 

There were times when after my mind got so tired trying to find the solution, I went to sleep and in my sleep the solution presented itself. What joy!

The satisfaction that comes from solving a difficult question is indescribable. The greater the effort, the greater the satisfaction. But sometimes, it's "why didn't I see that in the beginning?"

Sad to say, whatever you have learnt, if you have no occasion to use it or practise it, you will lose it in some way. Hopefully the processes remain. 

Kampong Drama

My neighbour who was a few years older than I, who also sewed my school uniform for me, was a very talented person.

She wrote her own scripts and she wrote the songs for the scripts as well.

My siblings and I were the actors in the drama she presented to the kampong folks.

There would be practice sessions in the evening when she would teach us to sing and act our part. She also bought materials to sew the costumes for us to wear. She made whatever other ornaments that were needed as well including the headdress you see in this photo of me.

Freedom From Unwelcome Visitors

 One of the joys - great joy - of moving to a HDB flat was freedom from unwelcome visitors in the night.

These are.....the cockroaches.

We had plenty of them for company in our kampong home and it wasn't because we didn't keep our house clean.

It was bad enough that they came crawling out in the night time. They can fly!

A flying cockroach is much more frightening than a crawling one. It is unpredictable.

When they flew I ran, instinctively.  I never knew where to run because they didn't have a fixed flight path. So I always ran to my mother. 

My mother is the brave warrior at home. She simply brought her palm down on the cockroach and then she would say, "只是 蟑 螂, 有 什 么好怕?"

 

I Grew Taller

Between the beginning of Sec 1 and by the end of Sec 2, I grew much taller. I must have grown at least 5 cm.

From this tall..

To this tall. 

My Fiercely Protective Mother

My mother was fiercely protective of us, especially after father passed away.

My siblings and I loved to play in our neighbour's house because our neighbour, being better off, had added features to their house - a staircase leading to an 'upstairs' with rooms.

That simple act of climbing the stairs was itself a thrill.

And so it was that one day, we were playing in our neighbour's home. This was after father had passed away. Another neighbour, an elderly one, came out of her house to us and in a nasty voice, ordered us to go home. She said we were different from other children because we had no father and we ought not to be playing with the other children.

We said not a word and went home. 

That day, when mother came home from work, as is our usual routine, we told her what we did and what happened that day. I had never seen my mother so angry before. Not angry with us, but angry with the elderly neigbhour. My mother was never a quarrelsome person. But that day, she demanded to know in what way we were different from other children.


That's me playing with a neighbour's son.

I Gave Up My Dream Of Going To University

It had always been my dream to go to university but when I held my 'A' level results in my hands, I gave up that dream.

I believe in each one of us, there exists the egoistic self. That egoistic self manifested itself that day when I went ahead to apply for a place in the Science faculty in NUS even though I had already decided in my heart that I would stop my education.

Why?

So that I could say to myself that I did qualify for university, that I was good enough!

Receiving that letter of offer from NUS brought me joy, a joy that lasted only up to the day of matriculation when it was replaced with a tinge of sadness. While it lasted I held out hope against hope that maybe, just maybe I could perhaps just allow myself to go on to pursue my education in university. A windfall or something like that. I loved to study. I felt envious of my friends who would be moving ahead...

But my older sister had not been in very good health and my younger sister and brother were still schooling. My younger sister was brighter than I and like me, she too dreamed of going to university. 

I could have applied for a bursary or a scholarship but my mother had shouldered alone the burden of bringing up four children for so long, and to have two of us in university simultaneously would be, in my mind, too great a burden for my mother. I didn't want it to be so hard for her.  My mother felt very sorry. She was really the greatest mother anyone could ever wish for. She never ever had a negative word to say of her toil and labour for us. I have no regret in making that decision even though it was very sad for me to have to give up my dream. 

Thus my pathway diverted from my friends'.

                                              My younger sister and I. Don't we look like twins?

Father's Last Words To Me

 My handsome father.

His last words to me: Take care of your mother when she is old.

He also told me that he would not be able to bring me up.

Honestly at the age of 9, the enormity of those words did not sink in. He was sitting in the narrow passage way that led from the living room to the kitchen. I was alone because my siblings were in school.

When finally he drew his last breaths. I was by his bedside. Three very deep breaths that seemed to suck the life out of him with each one. And then he was gone, his eyes open. His mind was lucid to the end. Though fuzzy now, those images remain in my mind.

They say that when a person passes on with his eyes open, it's because they are worried for the people they leave behind.

This must be true (??).

                                                                                                            That's Father when he was still single.

I Wanted To Join NCC But Ended Up In Photography

I wanted very much to join the NCC. But there were many others like me. So we had to queue up to be assessed for our suitability. When it came to my turn, the teacher decided I was too small. She didn't think I would have the strength to lift a rifle.

I was very disappointed to fail the selection test. I might have been smaller than most girls my age but I believed I was strong. 

We lived in a kampong house that had a retractable roof run by a simple pulley system in the kitchen.We opened it every morning and pulled it shut at night. Whenever it rained, the roof had to be pulled shut fast or the clothes and everything else in the ktichen would be wet. Since my mother had to work, we often did this ourselves even though we were kids. I don't remember being considered too young to pull a roof, so I had a lot of practice to build muscle strength. 

Shut out from NCC eventually I joined my best friend in the Photographic Club. It wasn't a deliberate choice. I was just something I drifted into. Not exactly a good choice because I had no money to invest in a decent camera but the teacher in-charge wasn't strict and didn't care what camera we use. But I had fun in the dark room printing photos from negatives, developing them in the solutions and then dry them. It was fun to print my own photos. 

That's me when I was in Sec 1.My uniform was sewn by a neighbour a few years older than I who attended the same school.

The Shock Of Seeing The Word 'Failed' Written Into My Report Book

 

When I was in Sec 1, I not only failed my English exam, I failed Math too!

Because she was illiterate, my mother had always left it to us to monitor our own studies beyond emphasizing ever so often that 'our future is what we make of it'. And I had always given myself room to fail - in tests - as long as in the end I passed my exams.

To be frank, it wasn't failing English or Maths that shocked me as much as seeing the word 'Failed' written into my report book. 

I knew my mother was concerned. 

I read and I practised - everyday. I read all the worked examples in the Math textbook and did ALL the exercises in it. That must have been the most hardworking period of my life. 

And I made the greatest improvement I had ever made in my English and Math results in all my years in school.

My Father's Books

My father was a self-taught man. At a very young age, he came to Singapore in search of greener pastures.

He also died young. When he passed away, he left us a roof over our heads and little else besides his books. The pages have all turned very yellow by now but we have kept the books for the memories that they hold. They are all western recipe books and 'teach yourself how to cook' books - in English of course.

There is even one on 'army catering services', so he probably learned English from the British troops of that time. He was a Cook.

My Teacher Made A Sacrifice For Us

It was the first day of the new school year, my second year preparing for the 'A' levels.

Mr Nathan came to class and announced that he was taking over from the previous teacher. He was our new Economics teacher.

Explaining that he was not exactly trained to teach Economics but as there was no other available teacher, he had decided to step forward and offer to take us in Economics, he said:

 I am sacrificing for you.

Then seeing that there was no response from us, he rephrased himself for emphasis:

I am making you a sacrifice. 

Sir, Do You Know What You Are Talking About?

"Sir, as a student, I am asking you, do you know what you are talking about?"

And there was a stunned silence.

There are some things that happened that become indelibly etched on your mind and this (question) was one of them. We had just got back our 'A' level prelim Economics paper and there was one troubling question where none of us could agree with the teachers' answer. So there was much 'lively arguing' coupled with increasing frustrations.

Finally, Syed Ahmad stood up - and he was tall - and asked, "Sir, as a student, I am asking you, do you know what you are talking about?"

And he remained standing with his eyes fixed on our teacher. I thought our Economics teacher, Mr Nathan was going to explode. But amazingly he kept his cool as he turned slowly and deliberately away, walked a few steps and then turned back again to face Syed Ahmad. Whatever else was said after this was lost but that question remained.

Audacious? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But we were thinking students.

My Mother Learns To Write

 

 My mother may be illiterate but she is really an amazing woman. For so many years, all she could write was her name, something we taught her which she did with weak strokes so that she could sign our report books after father passed away, and because she wanted to learn to write her own name.

So I was amazed one day when I found a number of square exercise books with Chinese writings in them. I thought my nephew had been practising writing. It turned out that they were my mother's work!

It all began with the day her cell leader told the group that writing verses would help them to remember the Word of God. My mother said she didn't know how to write. Her cell leader said it was okay. She would help her. So she held my mother's hand to write the first time. Just one time. My mother believes that somehow with that, she had also received an anointing that enable her to write.

Memorable Primary Three

When I was in Primary 3, I had a PE teacher who thought school was an army camp. While other children enjoyed their PE lessons, he made us march during every PE lesson. He was probably someone straight out of the army because he was very tanned.

Thus I learnt commands to turn left and right, to march and to stop. You know, that 'pusing ke kanan pusing', 'pusing ke kiri pusing' and 'berhenti'. And if you turned to the wrong direction, down went his knuckle on your head.

We were an entertainment to the children from the other classes who got distracted from their lessons and watched us in amusement.

Unfortunately he was also my form teacher. P3 was like hell. In class, you knew you were in trouble with him if his lips started to curl like a smile. Hahaha. And it's always because you had made mistakes in your homework.

But I was impressed by his signature. I couldn't make out the signatures of my other teachers but I could read his name very well from his signature. His name was Jimmy Ng.

Me When I Was In Primary 6

 

So I failed my English exam. I went home that day and told my younger brother and sister that we would only be using English to converse from then on. I said it was important. LOL

We had been using dialect at home because mother is illiterate and could speak only dialects. My brother and sister did not protest. And since that day, we converted to speaking English -except when speaking with our beloved mother.

This is me in Primary 6. Fierce?

I was No. 2 child in the family. They say the second child is the naughtiest.

So I Did Fail In English

When I was in Sec 1, I failed my English exams.

I didn't know what was a 'verb, noun, adjective or adverb', and there was a whole section where one had to identify all the verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs in the passage. I left the whole thing blank.

It was quite an event for me to be called into the staff room to sit my with English teacher while she explained to me what I could do to improve my English.

She didn't tell me what a verb was or anything about the rest. She asked me to read more books.

Fortunately it was the mid-year exam.

My Mother

My father looked at me and told me he was sorry he would not be able to bring me up. Then he said to me, "Take care of your mother when she is old." I was nine.

Those words stayed with me.

A few days later he passed away at home. He took three laboured breaths that sucked the life out of him with each one. He was lucid to the end.

My father was a stern man of few words. But he was a good man. For several years before he died, he could not work because of his illness. So my mother took on the role of breadwinner. She worked as a washerwoman.

She was a strong woman with a never-say-die attitude. She was also very hardworking. She soldiered on, waking up very early before dawn to go to her employers' homes. She had several employers. Some of them wanted the cleaning done before they left for work.

When my father became bedridden, I watched my mother tend to my father's every need. Never once did she complain. It must have been very tough for my father because being an Asian man, he always felt very strongly about his duty to his family.

My mother worked 7 days a week, 364 days a year. Her only day of rest was the first day of Chinese New Year. It was a day we greatly looked forward to because it was the only day of the year when we could have breakfast together as a family.

The constant exposure to detergents hurt her hands a lot. Every night she would apply an ointment bought from a Chinese medical hall on her palms. Sometimes they got so bad the 'holes' in them made them look like 'beehives'.

She also suffered from bouts of gastric attacks. It was the result of going to work in the morning on an empty stomach. She would endure the pain and carry on working until she reached home in the afternoon. Thereafter she would lie down in bed and pressed a pillow hard against her body to stifle the pain.

My mother was a forward-looking woman. What little she had, she gave us the best. For as long as we could, dinner was eaten together as a family until we grew older and our school schedules took precedence.

Dinner time was when my mother would impart life lessons to us, teaching us how to be good, guiding us, telling us not to quarrel with each other but to look out for each other as siblings. We learned to share and to care. We shared an apple. We shared our experiences in school. We talked about our friends.

My mother believed that 'life is what you make of it. If you are willing to work hard you will enjoy the fruits of your labour.' My mother also encouraged us to study hard for a bright future. She put her hopes in us.

To ease her burden, we took over the household chores. So we learned from very young to cook simple meals, wash and iron the clothes and clean the house while mother worked to put food on the table. It was a kampong house that my father bought. Being young and playful, we turned the house cleaning chore into a fun time sliding on the soapy floor. My mother was always tolerant of all that.

Help came in various ways. Being illiterate, my mother was ignorant of the financial assistance schemes available to help her. A kind uncle helped to fill up forms and put us on MOE (Ministry of Education) financial assistance scheme for the poor. That provided much financial relief for her because we didn't have to pay any fees and we had free textbooks. Then there were the bursaries.

Our clothes were mostly hand-me-downs from kind neighbours and relatives. Our first television set and refrigerator were also given by kind neighbours after they bought new sets.

My siblings and I spent many evenings singing together. That was one of our favourite pastimes. We enjoyed singing and it warmed mother's heart watching us singing happily away. The house was filled with warmth and laughter.

Hard times do not remain forever.

Today my mother is proud that three of her four children are graduates. My eldest sister would have done very well in her studies too if she hadn't fallen very sick once which really affected her. She went to a good school but did not finish her education there because of her sickness. Still I am glad that she is well today and happy.

We did not grow up with luxuries. Yet we never felt that we lacked anything because we had something very precious - a mother's love and warmth which made for a very happy childhood.