being reflective

Actually this post is to respond to what one of my student, Siyin, wrote in her tag – that she finds it hard for her to know me as being so reflective. So I think I will just blog about being reflective in general and what is it for me to be reflective.

I think being reflective simply means giving one time to be alone and be still. This is very rare and getting rarer in this society of Singapore. Everyone is so rushing for things to get done. Every student is rushing for homework to be completed, projects to be discussed and also excelling in his or her CCAs. Every teacher is rushing to complete his/her syllabus, ‘enriching’ the students with programs and also marking homework from students and meeting datelines. Time has become so precious that it is as if our 24 hours has become 12 hours per day. A big ironic thing is that as technology advances, it is supposed to shorten the time for meetings for work and thus giving the family more time to spend together. However, what one discovers is that there is now less family time, children are not interacting as much as before and that most of the time parents are not at home but somewhere. We ask – where have all the time ‘saved’ being spent? When do we start spending time with those we love?

But posing these questions is easy – answering them is tough. Even harder is knowing the answers and acting upon them. Recognizing that even spending time with love ones is so tough, what can be said to spending time with oneself? When will we begin to realize how attention seeking is the flowers that are besides the road? When will we begin to realize that in order for us to learn and grow, there is aspect of giving oneself ample time to be still and be reflective? Not to mention also the need for space for us to be truly with ourselves without any distractions or implications? There is a need for the practice of being alone – where being alone is not about being lonely. And in this MLS course, it really helps me to being alone.

In my life, I have been enjoying being with people, especially youngsters. For the past 12 years when I first stepped into teaching, I have been enjoying human interaction in my profession. It is always going and keeping on going with minimum breakaway from what I am doing. If it is doing curriculum time, it would be teaching and marking; if it is during holidays, it would be bringing students to overseas trips or improving on my notes for my students.

In this course, I am given time to do reflection – away from my normal life of teaching and preparing notes. This is very difficult for me initially. I have been so bonded with what I am doing that I felt so detached from the very thing that I am passionate with. However as time passes, I find that it is important for me to get detached away so that I can spend time learning more and greater things. My scope of Singapore education has begun to open up and deepen at the same time; my readings have given me different perspective of leading and guiding people that I am with; and as I reflect, I find more and more things that I can improve as a subject head and a teacher. I recall and recollect my journey so far as a teacher, I go back to my fundamentals; I go back to my values.

So, Siyin, if you are reading this entry, I just want you to know the importance of being reflective – that you will go back to your values and that you will go back to your goals that you set before you start to journey. And I also want you to know that it is tough to reflect because you are breaking the norm of being busy – being blindly busy. But when you do reflect, not going to the mountains to mediate but to just spend perhaps 15 minutes each weekend to be still and quiet, you will slowly begin to know who you really are and why are you doing the things that you are doing. You will clear the mist in your life and be more passionate on the things that you are doing. So, as your teacher, I encourage you give yourself time to do reflection – you might find something that you have never known about yourself before.

The Art of Letting Go...

One thing that NIE did not teach me in 1997 is the art of letting go. You see, back in the old campus at Bukit Timah, I was doing Mathematics under Mr Ang KC and English under Dr Oliver Seet, who we affectionately called him ‘The Terminator’. I had been through all those lectures and also tutorials of how to teach and what to teach, how to make a lesson interesting, preparing lesson plans and also doing school attachment for 10 weeks at Maris Stella High School. Of all the lectures and tutorials, no one, absolutely no one, told me how to let go… or how tough is it for a teacher to let go.

So after one year in NIE, I was posted to Tanjong Katong Girls’ School to be a permanent teacher there teaching mathematics. I was given a secondary two class as my form class and, in those days where I am young and naïve, all I could think of is how to inspire them to be better ladies of the tomorrow. I spent my afternoons after school staying back to coach them, giving them extra lessons or just simply talking to them. I hang out at the canteen during recesses to show them that I am approachable and that I am one of them. i took class photos of them and each individual ones in action during school events. I couldn’t ask for more than being a form teacher of 2E2.

The next year, I followed them up to secondary three. Even though they are being streamed to different classes, I got to teach about 5 classes which I got to know more students. Well, of cause, that includes most of my former form class of 2E2. The usual practice of spending time and sharing with them life lessons still continued and as time went by, I became more like a big brother to them than a teacher. A friend to them when they needed a listening ear, a mentor to them when they are lost in their paths.

Then came 2000, the year where they took the ‘O’ levels. I did not prepare myself at the end of the year when all of a sudden my students are all graduating. That particular last lesson just before the study break was the most unbearable one to me. I remembered bringing them to the computer laboratory and have them to just spend time reflecting and giving thanks for all the things that all we had been through for the past four years. They cried and cried and I couldn’t hold my tears too. I did not leave with them a cheer like what Pak Tee did to his students, I left with them with a closure that they will never forget in their lives, a closure that I would never forget in my life too.

The first day of school in 2001, I was emotionally down. I am lost without them. All of a sudden, 5 classes of 40 students are gone from my sight in a snap of the finger. I was wondering how I am supposed to continue teaching as before with totally new classes. NIE did not teach me the art of letting go…

I got my lesson finally through a one year old kid I saw at Parkway Parade. He was holding hard to her mother by clutching his hands onto her index finger, refusing to let go. Then finally he let go, and got his pacifier.

Letting go is not declaring abandoning, letting go is not forgetting the past. Letting go is about seeing that there is a better future coming. There is a time for everything; and a season for every activity under heaven. My time of coaching and mentoring had come to an end and it was time for them to move on. It was a time for me to move on. And I did, with happiness and joy that they are all grown up.

In 2006, I decide to let go once again...

Strange sighting in Singapore

This is some strange sightings around Singapore that I discovered. The first is a photo that I took right outside my c hurch. If you look very carefully you would notice that the price of the can of drink cost $1 in the middle while the rest cost $0.80. Wonder what is added ingredients inside that is different from the rest.

The 2^nd picture is taken at BEST at Tampines Mall – it’s a life size transformer. No wonder one day, I feel that the world may be conquered by these ‘More than meets the Eye’.

The last picture is a group of gals sighted at Orchard Road doing interview on whether one should take care of his parents when they are old. I was very lucky to be interviewed. This is really strange cos i was just walking to Kino to get my comic books and then i spotted them. Hahaha... i hope they are not so shocked as me... but it was good that they recognized me and called me. :P

YEAH!!!

this is really wonderful... i passed my advance theory examinations for driving. one is supposed to answer 50 questions and the passing mark is 45. heng heng got study during the China trip and did up the 500 questions from the book. last time for the basic theory examinations i got to retake it and passed only on the 2nd time... (never study the first time...)
anyway the moral of the story is: if u study hard, you can achieve!
now the mission is to find a master teach me how to drive....
hmmm... wish me luck!

the walnut story

for those who are so interested in why the 'walnut production', it all comes from the walnut story that i have been giving to my classes from 1998 till now... with all the constraints and restrictions we have in our lives, may we all grow and be like a walnut to maximize our stay on this temporary home...

THE WALNUT STORY
Consider the walnut! If you compare a walnut with some of the beautiful and exciting things that grow on our planet, it does not seem to be a marvelous act of creation. It is common looking, rough, not particular attractive, and certainly not monetarily valuable. Besides, it is small. Its growth is limited by the hard shell that surrounds it, the shell from which it never escapes on its own. Of course, though, that’s the wrong way to judge a walnut. Break a walnut open and look inside. See how the walnut has grown to fill every nook and cranny available to it. It had no say in the size or shape of that shell, but given those limitations, it achieved its full potential of growth. How lucky we will be if, like the walnut, we blossom and bloom in every space of life that is given to us. Take heart! If one nut can do it, so can you.

photos from China trip

well, this is the first time i am blogging officially.. so here is putting some photos up first from my China trip... visited 3 schools.. .these are the kids that is from suzhou experimental school...