Teacher’s Words

If this thing can happen to my son, it can happen to anybody’s son and daughter as well. Have you heard of students who just collapsed in the school and died after having their PE lessons or something like that? Have you heard of NS men who collapsed and died after having their routines exercise?

Do we want to take such kind of risk? Do we want to WAIT for such things to happen then TAKE MEASURES? Do we want to TREASURE what we have and SAVE lives rather than to RISK losing lives?

This may sound ‘too serious’, but it involves lives, and it involves my precious son. Yes, my son is precious! Tell me, whose sons or daughters are not precious in their parents’ eyes?

This teacher, you were Ms before, but now you are Mrs. Perhaps you do not have any kids yet. But one day, you are going to have your own kids. Do you want your children to be treated in such manner one day….

This teacher, Mrs M (I am very nice not to mention your real name) SMS me on Wednesday at about 5 pm. She told me that my son ‘did not attend Band today’. Her exact message was : Hi, this is mrs m here. Ricsson’s band teacher. This sms is to inform you that he did Not attend band today.

On my part, I already know. What am I supposed to do with this message? Do I need to response? Did she want me to reply her? I pondered for a while and finally decided to give her a response and to see if I can find out on what exactly is going on in the Concert Band (which Ricsson does not seem to be getting enthusiastic about it).

It’s about 45 minutes later then I got a reply back from this teacher. Obviously she had sent out mass sms earlier on, and he was not able to trace who had replied her (which parent I was) — note that I could be wrong, but this is not as important. She sent me back sms to reply me to send Ricsson to the doctor : “Oh dear, pls bring him to e doc. Is he Stil Gg for e competition?” Before I could reply, she rang me up on my handphone.

This teacher speaks like a machine gun. She really speaks so fast, extremely fast. I wonder how she passed her oral examinations. I even asked her to speak slower. I told her that I could not catch what she said since she was talking so fast. Anyway, I told her exactly what my son had told me and I wanted to know what exactly goes on in the Concert Band training.

I asked her,”How many teachers are in charge of Concert Band?” She told me “three”. I told her that no teachers were around on that day (last Friday) when my son fell sick. She said,”always got teacher around…” She also said,”what marching, you think MILITARY TRAINING HAR?” She thought that Ricsson and me got communication breakdown. She added,”Band where got marching one? Our training is in air-con room….” She wanted me to find out from my son again. She was not happy, as though my son had maligned them. I asked her again,”Training ALWAYS in air-con room?” I stressed on the word “Always”. I told her that on “last Friday”, my son’s face was all red! She said,”You think teachers tell lies har?” (this might not be the exact words she said, but the meaning is there. The word ‘tell lies’ confirm comes out from her mouth. “Teacher or teachers” I don’t know. But she was very rude. As a teacher, she was not even being patient to her ‘customer’, the parents of the school, and even to me, parent of her student.

Then I asked her about the training and what exactly the children learn during the class or lesson time. She told me that there is a PROFESSIONAL instructor around to teach the class. She stressed on PROFESSIONAL, I think to tell me that the children are under good guidance I supposed… But that does not bother me, not my ultimate concern. Then we touched on the practice time, which she stressed on attendance. She told me that students get to go Disney Land if their performance are good. She seemed to place extra emphasize on this. I heard her saying this at least twice… Perhaps she viewed this as incentives to motivate students… But sad to say, it does not work for me (as in given the same scenario for me, just like the time when I was working in the insurance industry) nor my son….

I explained to her how my son was so excited about the Clarinet… and then now he seemed to quiet about it. She told me that they are learning. There is professional instructor to teach them… She said they had started playing the instruments. But my son had told me different things… How reliable are the words of this teacher? How responsible is this teacher? What should teachers do?

(to be continued)
School Concern
Admiralty Secondary School
More photographs, More information
School Crest, School Values
Listening To Words
Case Study

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