November 14, 2006

Deja Vu

I was so close to finishing this blog entry earlier this evening. *shakes head... Here goes... again...

This morning, I was conscientiously marking a stack of worksheets that I collected from my P3 class. Marking, while I was babysitting a P6 class. The pupils in this class have rather conveniently neglected my presense in their classroom ever since they fulfilled their obligation to sit for the PSLE. Not that I minded. I'm happy to just do my work from other classes while they run around the class, play silly games, do childish stuff and make noise. Honestly? I dread going to the class lah. But I just have to.

Then, I heard a shout. This boy was shouting to one of his (equally loud-mouth and childish) friend. "Hey! Bangla leh!" I suppose he was pointing at the object of his attention.

And, the next thing I heard was said in a tone so condescending that I didn't think I would ever have managed it when I was 12 years old. *But, really, during my time, pupils were taught the value of Respect.* This friend responded by shouting, "Wah lau... Bangla...!"

And me? I was just speechless. I looked up from my marking and looked out. An Indian worker just walked past the corridor outside the classroom. He's probably here to fix some fixtures or ceilings that one of these racist monkeys spoilt.

What did I do then? Nothing. Too many thoughts were running in my mind then. I just stared at them, horrified. Does this only happen to schools that are mono-race, i.e. the only mother tongue taught is Chinese?

MOE thinks that by celebrating Racial Harmony Day every year, pupils will learn to appreciate differences. Man, I think that's sooo wishful thinking! Appreciation can't be expected when there's not even respect.

Yesterday, I was teaching Civics n Moral Ed. I HATE teaching CME! Anyway, the lesson objective was to teach awareness of racial differences and respect for these differences. Because of some really lame reason, I was only left with 30 mins to finish teaching.

At this point in time, I would like to explain that here, 'teaching' typically means going through the textbook and then, asking questions (if the pupils can answer) and then, dishing out workbook activity for them to complete. And, usually, that will require at least, 40 mins. And most teachers, for the sake of easier marking (it's CME, nobody really marks CME activity ok...), will ask for answers but still give a standard answer for the pupils to just copy onto their workbook.

Anyway, I was supposed to raise awareness about how our friends of the Islamic faith do not eat pork and our friends of the Hindu faith do not eat beef. And hence, how we should be sensitive to this and be respectful towards them when we dine with them.

So, I went through the rites of the lesson. And when asked what they should do when they dine with a friend of Islamic faith, there was hardly any answer. After awhile, I saw a little hand raised and a girl answered meekly, "don't eat pork." Ok, not wrong. So, I commented that was a possible answer.

These few boys seated in the front rows (such audacity!) started whispering among themselves. Things like, "Don't care about them", "Ask them to eat pork also", "They eat what they want, we eat what we want, why must care about them?" Then, they started giggling. Smart alecks!

What did I do then? I pinpointed a couple of them and got them to stand up and repeat what they were whispering. And I scolded them for not being sensitive and being so self-centred.

By now, I have less than 10 mins left to complete the lesson.

It's very, very horrifying. At least, to me. When you see these children behaving in such a self-centred and ethnocentric way. And they think it's funny! And we are supposed to count on them as the next pillars of our nation? I mean, what happened to them? Who failed them?

Children are children. They are impressionable and they are supposed to be moulded by education (i.e. MOE) into better persons. So, what went wrong? The parents? The system? The teachers? The environment? The dominant politcal environment and belief?

It's been a very disillusioning ride so far.

Posted by 杏 cy （Jancy） at 22:49