I had always viewed education as a very fun activity, although my schooling started with the strictest eastern educational system with most of the lessons conducted in English. It was an exasperating time when Singapore was going through the first 10 years of gaining independence and industrialization, fighting for our survival as a very small country state. We had English speaking campaign. The country deemed it necessary as a communicating vehicle to attract MNCs (Multinational Companies) to set up manufacturing facilities in our country.
In my memory, the furniture in the classes were organized in straight rows, each student was seated with a table in front, and the bags were laid on the floor beside the chair. Everything was aligned neatly. When teachers were conducting classes, no one was supposed to talk or even ask question. It was a very solemn process. I was a very obedient boy, almost motionless when attending classes, did not even dare to look elsewhere except fixated on the teacher conducting the class. If I could, I would not even dare blink my eyes. We were taught to respect the teachers; their words were treated as gospel. Parents were very grateful to the teachers and treated them with utmost respect.
I did well in my PSLE (Primary School Leaving Exam) and was admitted to Raffles Institution. To my horror, this school was very different, students were smart, some of their parents were rich and powerful, teachers were very relaxed in discipline. It was the Wild West compared to where I came from. Where I came from a place that was regimental, strict, austere, revere, and teachers carry canes to discipline students. For the first few days of school, for my small size and loud laughter, a much bigger kid choked me; I was stunted and did not know what to do. Luckily, I sat beside a regular fighter from the same primary school. He was puzzled why I did not react to the boy that was choking me, he probably saw my face turning red, and he started hitting this bigger boy's hand with his fist. The bigger boy released his hands and I went straight to the teacher to launch a complaint about him. I had another shock, he was just verbally warned. From then on, I realized I had to avoid these kids and kept myself out of trouble, because teacher’s responsibility was teaching and students' discipline was not their matters. Learning was very difficult. We seldom had discussion. However, there were a lot of test, especially English lessons, every lesson was a test, otherwise it was the reminiscence of his glorious day of rugby and swimming 20 laps. We learned to be very independent. We did our own research and gathering of information. For geography, we visited embassies to collect phamlets and literature about their countries. We swarmed the library to do research. We were acquainted with the cataloguing system of the libraries. Some even knew where to hide referrence book so that they can have the same book the next day when the libraries reopened. Classes only lasted half a day. We had the rest of the days doing our own games or hobbies. We had more time to ourselves, exploring things outside the classrooms. I was active, playing table tennis, badminton, and street soccer. I took up photography too at the age or 15, went on to win prizes in Photography Salon competition, gave photographic lessons to other students and I was in-charge of the Darkroom. For the digital age, the Darkroom may sound like an application, but it is not. The Darkroom, as the name implicates, is a room that is very dark which is used to process films and printing images on papers, which are coated with light sensitive chemicals. Having a lot of time to ourselves made us learned to organize our own time and extra-curriculum activities. We time ourselves when to mug hard for exam and when to play hard for our games. RI loves rugby. The whole school will throng the rugby field when RI meets the Saint. It was a challenge not only over Rugby but cheering. It was fun. We never worried too much over study, we planned, and we did our research. We developed ways of learning and understood how to answer exam question. One very important thing to remember in exam was to write my serial numbers legibly on the exam paper.
In my memory, the furniture in the classes were organized in straight rows, each student was seated with a table in front, and the bags were laid on the floor beside the chair. Everything was aligned neatly. When teachers were conducting classes, no one was supposed to talk or even ask question. It was a very solemn process. I was a very obedient boy, almost motionless when attending classes, did not even dare to look elsewhere except fixated on the teacher conducting the class. If I could, I would not even dare blink my eyes. We were taught to respect the teachers; their words were treated as gospel. Parents were very grateful to the teachers and treated them with utmost respect.
I did well in my PSLE (Primary School Leaving Exam) and was admitted to Raffles Institution. To my horror, this school was very different, students were smart, some of their parents were rich and powerful, teachers were very relaxed in discipline. It was the Wild West compared to where I came from. Where I came from a place that was regimental, strict, austere, revere, and teachers carry canes to discipline students. For the first few days of school, for my small size and loud laughter, a much bigger kid choked me; I was stunted and did not know what to do. Luckily, I sat beside a regular fighter from the same primary school. He was puzzled why I did not react to the boy that was choking me, he probably saw my face turning red, and he started hitting this bigger boy's hand with his fist. The bigger boy released his hands and I went straight to the teacher to launch a complaint about him. I had another shock, he was just verbally warned. From then on, I realized I had to avoid these kids and kept myself out of trouble, because teacher’s responsibility was teaching and students' discipline was not their matters. Learning was very difficult. We seldom had discussion. However, there were a lot of test, especially English lessons, every lesson was a test, otherwise it was the reminiscence of his glorious day of rugby and swimming 20 laps. We learned to be very independent. We did our own research and gathering of information. For geography, we visited embassies to collect phamlets and literature about their countries. We swarmed the library to do research. We were acquainted with the cataloguing system of the libraries. Some even knew where to hide referrence book so that they can have the same book the next day when the libraries reopened. Classes only lasted half a day. We had the rest of the days doing our own games or hobbies. We had more time to ourselves, exploring things outside the classrooms. I was active, playing table tennis, badminton, and street soccer. I took up photography too at the age or 15, went on to win prizes in Photography Salon competition, gave photographic lessons to other students and I was in-charge of the Darkroom. For the digital age, the Darkroom may sound like an application, but it is not. The Darkroom, as the name implicates, is a room that is very dark which is used to process films and printing images on papers, which are coated with light sensitive chemicals. Having a lot of time to ourselves made us learned to organize our own time and extra-curriculum activities. We time ourselves when to mug hard for exam and when to play hard for our games. RI loves rugby. The whole school will throng the rugby field when RI meets the Saint. It was a challenge not only over Rugby but cheering. It was fun. We never worried too much over study, we planned, and we did our research. We developed ways of learning and understood how to answer exam question. One very important thing to remember in exam was to write my serial numbers legibly on the exam paper.
Those were the days. Now things had changed, there were more emails, sms, mobile calsl and world wide web than letter writing. So understanding the intricacies of email writing and leaving text in Social Networking site. A fundamentals of subject has to change.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahTKdEUAPk
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M_336pDWoM
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