To Sec 3 Henry 2010

凌晨２点２７分。睡不着。

Going through the pictures I took of you since the first day of school this year, I couldn’t help but notice how some of you had grown over the last 8 months.







I was hatching this little “plan” when I knew I will be your form teacher at the end of last year.

I didn’t manage to witness and guide the crucial transition of my last form class, Sec 4B, from lower sec to upper sec because I became their co-form only last year when they were already in Sec 4 and were very well-adjusted into upper sec life. In a way, I was not there with them when it mattered. And because I didn’t even get to teach most of them, I was regretfully, closer to my other classes than to my own form class.



So when I knew I will be taking a fresh batch of students all the way to their O Levels, I was filled with excitement. I wanted to be the kind of form teacher that will be there for my students and I very much like to forge a close relationship with my form class.



So this is my plan: I will be with you throughout the two years, I will see you grow. You are growing to be young adults. These are two important years ahead of us. As your form teacher, I want to motivate all of you to be the best you could be, not just academically but also in terms of character development. I want you to excel not only in your studies but also in terms of personal discipline, integrity, and sense of responsibility. – Marist ideal of a gentleman scholar?

I like to take photos of my classes and go through them when I have time to savour the good memories of my time with them. And here’s the other part of my little plan: to help preserve all my memories of you, I will be taking pictures of you from the first day of school and throughout our times together as a class. By the time you are well-prepared for and sit for your Os, I will have a good collection of our happy memories together, and I will make a photo-board with our pictures for every one of you as your graduation momento, to wish you all the best for your future endeavours.

But I think this little plan of mine has been derailed.

实在不想承认自己那么在乎你们，因为觉得自己从一开始可能就只是一厢情愿。

How should I begin?

I took an almost instant liking to the class but now I am not sure if the feeling had been mutual. I love to banter, and you guys are good at that. I like silly jokes and you are never short of those: How do you tell a Marist from a RI boy at Junction 8? The RI boy wears his pants higher. I like it that many of you are witty and funny- a fun lot to be with.



Maybe I didn’t start the school year with the right tone. Do you still remember our Class Theme is “My Class, My Pride”? I tried to instill that sense of pride by organizing somewhat different and perhaps fun activities for the class.

We had started off, at your suggestion, this special "left-wing" and "right-wing" seating arrangement of 3 in a row, with a wide isle inbetween the 2 "blocs" - quite distinctive from other classes, and quite a fun arrangement too; we probably had fun learning about and experimenting with democracy through our class election; we should have had fun at the photo-taking session with the Class Theme and Chinese slogan; we certainly had fun doing classroom deco; we had some fun setting off 70 over party poppers at the CNY Celebrations; we had fun celebrating birthdays; we had fun doing class debates which I think you guys are truly great at, etc.



We could have been too carried away with having fun. Then the complaints started coming in. We are too fun-loving, we are too noisy, we talk too much, we don’t pay attention during lessons, we need to be shouted at to behave, we don’t hand in homework, we are failing our tests, we are too dirty, we have unkempt hair, we don’t wear our uniform properly, we are caught playing computer games in class… I thought, it could be my fault for not setting the right class tone at the very beginning. But then, I also thought, I have always been firm with all my classes and I am not known for being lax in class discipline.

Still, maybe I had not been firm enough with you. So we had to change.

First, the unique sitting arrangement had to go, beacause some teachers strongly felt that it contributed to your talking non-stop.

On the TPC “wish-list” for the class, almost all of you had written that you felt that as a class, we could have been more attentive, make less noise during class time. We talked about this, and you agreed that we had to improve our behaviour. I told you I don’t really need you to be the best academically (although that would have been ideal), but we need to strive to be the best in behaviour.

So, I have to be even stricter with you than I was at the beginning, stricter than I liked, stricter than I might be with other classes. You obviously did not like it and the whole process of change was fraught with struggle.

Was that when it all started? How it came to what it is today?

Do you remember how disappointed you were when we did not win any prize at the Chinese New Year Classroom Deco Competition? We had put in so much effort to dress up our classroom- we hand-made 2 huge and cute tiger paws out of paper clay (which was unceremoniously removed and discarded without our knowledge), almost 80 “mandarin oranges” for each of our desks with nylon nets (some mysteriously ended up at the GO), an awesome paper-mache tiger head (that kept falling off the TV screen no matter how much tape we attached to it), the swathes of brilliant red cloth that draped across the lights in the classroom (but ended up blocking the projector), the shimmery colour-coordinated paper boards with the heart-shaped cut-outs that dangled beautifully from the lights, the crimson table cloth at the teacher’s table with the glass bowl of “gold-coins” and real mandarin oranges (btw, who took my glass bowl?) … Yet, we did not even manage to win any of the 5 prizes in the competition.



You kept asking, “Why didn’t we win?” Remember what I had told you then? That sometimes in life, not all our effort will be appreciated. We have tried our best, and that is good enough.

I think maybe it’s time I practice what I preach. Or rather, believe in what I preached.

That sometimes in life, not all our effort will be appreciated.

In Term 2, my boss told me some Maths and Science teachers had feedback to him “out of concern” that they read on Facebook the class wanted to petition against me, to replace me as your form teacher. I refuted it. I read that letter. It only said there was never such an intention, for the class values me. Had I misinterpreted R’s letter? Or was there some other letters that were being circulated that I did not get to read? What about the letter the class monitor wrote on behalf of the class, which promises that the class will change for the better? The smiley icons that some of you put next to your signatures, complete with “so and so signed here”, were it all for show? You are all but 15, I don’t want to imagine you could pull a double-face on me.

Just recently, a senior teacher said some teachers had told him the class wanted to wage a cold war against me at the beginning of this term. I could not believe it.




At the beginning of Term 3? Wasn’t it when I thought we had let bygones be bygones and had welcomed you back to a new school term, as I always do, with biscuits and sweet treats, which you seemed to enjoy. I still smile at the memory of how some of you had tricked me into walking to the back of the classroom so that you can help yourself to more of the stuff on the teacher’s table while I turned and walked away from it.



At the beginning of Term 3? Wasn’t it when we had worked together as a team to clinch the 2nd prize in the Marist Youth Day costume competition, and for the first time, tasted the sweet fruit of victory together as a class? All the happy faces that beamed before me while we were snacking, singing along to Pokemon and other funny cartoon tunes as we waited for the sales results announcement, were they not real?









Were you then already harbouring the thought of shooting a petition or a complaint of some kind against me when the opportunity arises?

Does it explain why it took so many of you more than 2 weeks after the end of your June holidays, detention sessions and phone calls to your parents, to hand in just a single piece of 200-word holiday assignment?

Does it also explain why despite the 7 weeks given to prepare for the class test and many pep talks, only 2 out of 33 of you passed the first mini-test of this school term?

And when given a re-test on the same topic, almost all of you still failed?

Was leaking answers of the test to my other 2 classes also part of the “plot” to upset me?

Is that why despite my best efforts at talking animatedly to make the lesson interesting, and my constant pleas to you to pay attention in class last Thursday, you continued to talk non-stop?

The person who had written in to complain had thus described me in his blog “on the first day of the term… lets say she was practically a saint” before going on to launch an attack against me.

Just like I do not need you to be angels (whether in disguise or not), I have never pretended to be a saint, nor ever intend to. I would rather be an interesting and real teacher, than a “flawless” but dull one. I have been upfront with all my students that I am rather short of patience, so please don’t test me. But I try my best to bring my temper under control.

So it seemed like even this person saw how hard I was trying. But apparently, that effort was not enough for him. He could not or choose not to appreciate it.

My question then is: were you purposely testing my patience, pushing me to my limits so that I would lash out at you and we could start a “cold war” and you could than lodge your complaint? I shudder at the thought.

不是有人说过，只要你真心诚意去关爱学生，他们自然会感受到的吗？

As part of the report I was asked to submit to answer for this complaint, I printed out an email apology sent on 4th Aug by the very same person who had written in so swiftly on 2nd Aug at the very onset of our supposed “cold-war” to complain against me.

This person had written in his blog on 1st Aug that he is out to “seek vengeance” and that his father had told him to openly rebel against me (wow!).

So how, in the short span of 2 days, had he so quickly come to his senses, to arrive at the conclusion that whatever had happened was but an “unpleasant misunderstanding”.

Was it merely a misunderstanding? Should I take his words at face value?

One of you wrote to me: “I know it is very hard to be a Form Teacher for this difficult class… I know that it is very selfish of us to ask you to keep lowering your already low standards, but perhaps we can change this by some serious discussion with people in the class who truly want to study.”

Thank you for your suggestion and I really appreciate your thoughts and encouragement.

We have had serious discussions aplenty.

I take your feedback seriously, which is why I even came up with questionaires to collect your written feedback on how I can make your learning more effective (sadly, many of you did not take it seriously and wrote nonsense in the forms).

You said I set impossibly high standards, so now I am constantly re-adjusting my expectations of the class to align with reality.

You wrote in your essay that I scold you a tad too much, so I toned down this term and did not even scold you when nearly the whole class failed the mini-test.

When you said you didn't like standing two steps forward at the morning assembly like the class next door, I acceded to your request because I agreed that it could be quite uncomfortable.

I am also constantly thinking of new ways to motivate the class (welcome treats for all at the beginning of every school term; giving out free files to each and everyone of you at the first day in school for you to file your Chinese notes; a Toblerone choc bar for the birthday boy; the occasional "surprise" snack for giving the right answers to revision questions; prizes for the top 3 students in the class at the exams; the 5 stamps inexchange for 1 mark "mark redemption system" to encourage classroom participation and good effort; the newly introduced "免死金牌" for the highest scorer in a test or assignment- please tell me what else I can do to "incentivise" learning and encourage good behaviour! )

Protest as you will, I don't think my effort is being appreciated, esp. by those who just can't be bothered with learning.

I hate to lash out at you, but when I am forced to, you do not expect things to return to normal immediately. Especially not when you do not show any remorse for what you've done and do not put in any effort to remedy the situation or change for the better.

I am no saint and I need time to cool down. Call it a "cold-war" or any other name. I do not think what I do is unjustified. Don't tell me I am wasting your time, I set you class assignments and you are expected to complete them. Don't tell me you want to be taught, coz when I am trying so desperately to teach you, to engage you, you did not want to learn.

When I am not angry with you anymore, I will be most willing to forgive, forget and move on.

But as one of you have said, it is a vicious cycle and all our effort will come to naught so long as those who are bent on sabotaging our effort continue with their ways.

I am tired.

So this shall be it.

Here are the photos. And all the best to your future.