A Primary 1 girl wrote me a question on her little white board (every student owns a mini whiteboard, which the teacher uses periodically to get an immediate visual response from the class), “Why do you come to school?”
That was quite a provoking question, I thought. It got me thinking. I was not sure whether she was trying to challenge me, was unsure of my role/purpose in her class (I am co-teaching by the way, but her form teacher still does not quite incorporate me into the actual teaching – old habits die hard, I guess) or was truly questioning me on my reasons for taking up teaching.
My class (or rather, one of my four classes) was made to write/draw a wish list for the coming year. One highly distracted girl submitted a comic strip featuring a girl with a speech bubble going “grrhoor”. When asked what that unpronounceable word was, she made a sucking snorting/snoring sound. She wrote below the comic strip, “I wish I can grrhoor everyday.” Total nonsense, even if taken in the most creative sense. However, after I told her to do up something proper, she changed the sentence to, “I wish my parents were bake (back) together again.”
Another girl, Pearl, wrote, “I wish my P.E. teacher, Mr. Quek, will be my boyfriend.” (By the way, this Mr. Quek is really quite good-looking. He really fits the bill of tall, dark and handsome – the mould of an Outward Bound School instructor.)
Totally amused and curious at the same time, I asked her what does it mean to have a boyfriend. She whispered, “Sleep with him lor.”
For a moment I was taken aback, until I remembered that she, as an 8-year-old, probably only understood that statement in its literal sense (i.e. physically sleeping in his arms or next to him).
In her wish list, she also wrote, “I wish all my close friends in class are my brothers and sisters so we can sleep together.”
I inferred that she must be a very lonely child without the physical affection and assurances that a girl at her age longs for, but does not understand.
Later, she told me in a benign manner that her grandma was half-paralysed and her aunty has to take care of her grandma now. That meant that Pearl had to return to the care of her mother (which apparently was not the common practice). She continued child-likely, “I don’t like living in my Mummy’s house. I always get scolded.”
The specific phrase “Mummy’s house” caught my attention and I further inquired in an effortful manner to be as casual as she was with me, “So where’s your father?”
“Oh, he go back to Tampines to sleep lah,” she replied very matter-of-factly.
I am unsure whether it is more due to the family culture of affluent Katongers or the general increasing trend of broken families that has resulted in the apparently unusually huge proportion of children in my classes who come from such homes.
I feel so awful for these children who suffer without knowing it, knowing why or knowing whom to blame. I can tell they lack the warm and cushiony human love at home, but I don’t think they know it themselves. Perhaps I am overreacting.
I wish I could mother these children and give them all the attention and love that every child deserves. I’ll give Pearl all the physical affection she needs and ice-cream girl Maya (who, after being treated to ice-cream for Children’s Day, ravenously used her hands to wipe the ice-cream tub cover clean and licked her fingers and palms clean, gleefully oblivious to her classmates laughing at her, because she was so engrossed in the luxury she could not afford).
That was quite a provoking question, I thought. It got me thinking. I was not sure whether she was trying to challenge me, was unsure of my role/purpose in her class (I am co-teaching by the way, but her form teacher still does not quite incorporate me into the actual teaching – old habits die hard, I guess) or was truly questioning me on my reasons for taking up teaching.
My class (or rather, one of my four classes) was made to write/draw a wish list for the coming year. One highly distracted girl submitted a comic strip featuring a girl with a speech bubble going “grrhoor”. When asked what that unpronounceable word was, she made a sucking snorting/snoring sound. She wrote below the comic strip, “I wish I can grrhoor everyday.” Total nonsense, even if taken in the most creative sense. However, after I told her to do up something proper, she changed the sentence to, “I wish my parents were bake (back) together again.”
Another girl, Pearl, wrote, “I wish my P.E. teacher, Mr. Quek, will be my boyfriend.” (By the way, this Mr. Quek is really quite good-looking. He really fits the bill of tall, dark and handsome – the mould of an Outward Bound School instructor.)
Totally amused and curious at the same time, I asked her what does it mean to have a boyfriend. She whispered, “Sleep with him lor.”
For a moment I was taken aback, until I remembered that she, as an 8-year-old, probably only understood that statement in its literal sense (i.e. physically sleeping in his arms or next to him).
In her wish list, she also wrote, “I wish all my close friends in class are my brothers and sisters so we can sleep together.”
I inferred that she must be a very lonely child without the physical affection and assurances that a girl at her age longs for, but does not understand.
Later, she told me in a benign manner that her grandma was half-paralysed and her aunty has to take care of her grandma now. That meant that Pearl had to return to the care of her mother (which apparently was not the common practice). She continued child-likely, “I don’t like living in my Mummy’s house. I always get scolded.”
The specific phrase “Mummy’s house” caught my attention and I further inquired in an effortful manner to be as casual as she was with me, “So where’s your father?”
“Oh, he go back to Tampines to sleep lah,” she replied very matter-of-factly.
I am unsure whether it is more due to the family culture of affluent Katongers or the general increasing trend of broken families that has resulted in the apparently unusually huge proportion of children in my classes who come from such homes.
I feel so awful for these children who suffer without knowing it, knowing why or knowing whom to blame. I can tell they lack the warm and cushiony human love at home, but I don’t think they know it themselves. Perhaps I am overreacting.
If these children do not know their suffering, are they suffering?I guess this question has a vague similarity to the philosophical “If a tree fell, but nobody saw or heard it, did the tree fall?”
I wish I could mother these children and give them all the attention and love that every child deserves. I’ll give Pearl all the physical affection she needs and ice-cream girl Maya (who, after being treated to ice-cream for Children’s Day, ravenously used her hands to wipe the ice-cream tub cover clean and licked her fingers and palms clean, gleefully oblivious to her classmates laughing at her, because she was so engrossed in the luxury she could not afford).
Anyway, the answer to the thought-provoking "Why do you come to school?" question came from the questioner herself, "Because school doesn't come to you."
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