I was chatting with my Mum about how my experiences in school have shaped my thinking about life and I realised I’ve much to thank The Chinese High School for what I am today; if I’d be able to pen a letter to my alma mater, this will probably be it:
A Zillion Thanks
As one gets on with life one often forgets what was that makes what is and what will be; cause and effect is never clear but there is little doubt my life have changed positively as a result of my Chinese High experience.Thank you all the wonderful teachers who have demanded high standards of coursework, integrity and conduct from me and rest of the boys studying with me. It was the teachers who appreciated my potential and helped me maximize it; I was talkative but hardly confident of speaking to a crowd – Mr Yap Meen Sheng spurred me on with his praise of my ‘good voice’; I wasn’t exactly interested in Mathematics because I couldn’t see its applications in the real world – Mr Png Kiow Leong made me interested in the subject with his funny antics; Physics was the science I had least confidence in but Mr Lam Yong Koy’s passion in the subject fueled my courage to take on it; I never believed I was an English person, but Mdm Ong Lay Peng’s selection of my essay for the Commonwealth Essay Competition ignited a passion for writing that will continue through my life; Geography’s study of lifeless landforms and the anonymous ‘society’ would remain that way without Ms Esther Cheong; I was inspired to organize my notes and study systematically because of Mr Lim Teck Huat’s great systems of personal organization and his treatment of the subject of Chemistry. The list might not end if not for my poor memory.
Thank you, the school’s focus and pursuit of excellence. The school’s emphasis on skills beyond typical Secondary Education benefitted me greatly. Oral Participation points was a system that incentivized contributing in class discussions that will make it natural for me to participate in all sorts of lessons I attend in future. The Major Research Paper paved the way for me to pick up research skills from Ms Esther Cheong as well as on my own; it also gave me to confidence to handle humanities research papers. The Thinking Programme in lower secondary and the course in Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats introduced me to the world of ‘thinking about thinking’ that I deem extremely life-changing today. The Arts Elective Programme that I eventually became part of offered me a foundation in fine arts, digital media and art history I would never have gained anywhere else. And the 4 years of participation in the Projects’ Day Competition have created experiences where I picked up management and communication skills that I’ll never have known about in a typical Secondary School.
It was Chinese High that offered those wonderful memories of being a boy in a boys’ school: rushing down for a 25 minutes recess where 10 minutes is spent queuing and eating within 5 minutes so that we can play chapteh; irritating each other by hitting each others’ backs between lessons; writing bad remarks about teachers on the whiteboard at the end of each lesson; using the classroom clock as a frisbee and end up damaging it; kicking a football in the classroom and end up causing a piece of concrete to chip off from a pillar; wrestling with each other in the classroom at the end of a tired day; imitating the gestures and accents of the teachers. Thank you my fellow Chinese High boys for all that jokes, class habits (adding a ‘b’ behind everyone’s name; which explains my screen name ‘Vib’, from ‘Kevib’), and bullying that made me stronger.
At the point when I left Chinese High, I was glad – because I was tired of the competition, of the flawed system of assessment (penalizing students who were specialist in certain subjects and heavily biased towards average but all-round balanced students). But eventually I benefitted from it all and when I stepped out of the school I realized how valuable my education there was. In JC, my Service Learning project experience made it possible for me to organize community projects; my project and research experience made my Project Work smooth and earned me an ‘A’; my rigour of discussion in humanities essays as a result of grilling by humanities teachers in Secondary school earned me the position of being a writer for model essays.
A zillion thanks to you Chinese High, the peers who’ve gone through the entire journey with me, and the teachers who have guided me on the way. I’ll probably never thank the school enough and today, I’m proud to be one of the pioneers in the Hwa Chong Alumni Youth Chapter and offered a chance to contribute to the school even after graduating.
Regards,
Kevin
I wasn’t the perfect model student, nor a great one in the eyes of the teachers and the school but I am happy with the place I have in the school – I’ll use my potential wisely to do the school proud eventually.
