My self-initiated holidays (ie. leave and off plus public holidays) has come and my mum is smart enough to jump at this opportunity to do spring cleaning. So there’s emptying of cupboards to see if things are still of use and whether there’s an urge to get rid of them. I took out box after box of secondary school textbooks, worksheets, notes and some research papers I’ve done in the past (yes, Chinese High students are that smart). I juz ripped off the lid of the boxes and throw away all those worksheets. Previously I attempted to sell secondary school textbooks at Bras Basah but failed terribly because the O Levels syllabus have changed and the textbooks are of no second-hand value anymore (yea, so much for Integrated Programme, we still use O Level syllabus textbooks). So I guess I can only dump all of them into the recycle bag and contribute to ecology rather than society.
In any case I found my pre-school report books and realised how meticulous my school was with the assessment of my childhood developments. Apparently they assess stuff like physical development (like muscle control, muscle coordination and ability to relax), social/emotional development (like willingness to share about themselves and care for others), moral development (like respecting authority, having responsibility, and ability to sense what is right and wrong), intellectual development (memory, visual/audio discrimination, concentration and understanding) and aesthetic development (response to music, enjoyment of music and arts). Those are indicators of ordinary child development, not so much assessing skills and abilities but making sure that the kids are growing up properly. I’m proud to declare that I achieve ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’ on all counts except a couple of stuff; apparently my teacher thinks I’m only ‘Average’ when it comes to taking initiative or showing independence. Worst still they think I don’t enjoy music.
The other part of the report book assess my abilities and skills, namely speech (listening, conversing and communicating in English and Mandarin), story/logic (listening and appreciating stories and sequence of events), structured play (constructive stuff like building blocks and puzzles), arts, music, reading, writing and mathematics. Apparently I was weak in speech when it comes to English Language and I’m unable to tell a story in the proper sequence, often rambling and jumping here and there. Finally I respond poorly to elements of music. Now I kind of understand why I have been exposing myself to many realms of knowledge: visual arts, digital media, programming, sciences, social sciences, literature and even philosophy but I hardly bothered about music.
The comments of my form teacher reflected my talkative nature which manifest themselves extremely early in my childhood – “Has shown good works. Playful & likes to talk to friends during lesson time. Must strive to improve his English Language”. Everyone knows ‘playful’ is not much different from saying that the child is naughty and it’s definitely not a positive remark. 6 months after penning those remarks she decided to rephrase it, saying “Has maintained good works. Attentive & participative in class. Has been conscientious in speaking English. Keep it up!”. Of course now she decided that I’m attentive in class, probably the play class when I build blocks and then she says I’m participative, probably in conversations with my friends. I still can’t quite make out what ‘good works’ means but in any case I’m apparently very bad in my English and she’s merely applauding my effort to speak more English (or whatever that sounds like English to her).
And all that, was 1993 – the year I went to Nursery.
