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...