Jointly reported by:
Ng Yan Wen 17188 Sr1ScF
Tan Ginny 17893 Sr1A
Lai Siang Ching 17802 Sr1ComC
On our Learning Activity Day of Saturday, 15 February 2020, all Senior One students were called into the school hall to experience a symbolic event in the light of their new identity as senior students. The event was hosted by Ms Tee Wan Chin, a teacher from the Counselling Department. She started off by addressing the conflicts in identity and challenges the newly deemed seniors must face, and requesting full cooperation from the students.
The Principal, Dr Chua Lee Lee was then invited to come onstage and addressed her concerns about modern day education. Madam Chua explained that teachers can no longer educate our youths using the same ways they were taught in the past, having to equip students with 21st century skills in light of the Industry 4.0 (Fourth Industrial Revolution). She emphasised to the audience the importance of the growth mindset and self-learning, and how it was the schools and educators of this era’s noble mission to encourage and foster these mentalities in students. She announced that the recent changes in the school’s curriculum, especially the school’s Saturday Learning Activity schedule, are efforts of the school in trying to address and accommodate needs to teach students these soft skills.
Up next, some Senior Two students’ materials regarding dreams and growth were being displayed, along with their words of advice to the Senior One students. One particular group of Senior Two students’ work was printed out on a card along with Madam Chua’s advice to the senior ones as well, and later distributed to the Senior One students.
In a bout of suspense, the following segment was displayed on the screen to be the ‘Distribution of the Growing up Gift’. The class teachers and class monitors of each class were called onstage to receive them for distribution later on. The mysterious gift would not be revealed right then, however.
Ms Tee told the Senior One students to write down the challenge of senior life they would most like to tackle first, and rate the difficulty of overcoming this challenge from 1 to 10. They were then told to take their rating number, multiply it by ten, and do a plank for that amount of seconds. This was to be symbolic of the effort and time these students needed to persevere to overcome their challenges and achieve their dreams.
With good efforts gathered in coordination and the cooperation from all parties involved, the Senior One students spread out as orderly as possible for everyone to have enough space to plank. Seconds passed, some students stopped, some students continued, and not many made it to 100 seconds. But the lesson they all had learned was just same. Ms Tee told everyone that this revelation was the true gift of growing up. We must try our best to hold will and courage in the fight for one’s dreams, in the face of adversity and physical hardship.
After this exercise, the big moment had finally arrived; The Growing up Ceremony. Students stood up straight to receive a badge of the school emblem. When they put on the badge on themselves, it symbolises the acceptance of their identity as a Kuen Cheng student. For the first time, they would be wearing the school’s emblem of their own accord.
As the event came to a close, students gathered around for group photos. The event ended with Ms Tee wishing the Senior One students a colourful senior high life, and that everyone lives their own life to the fullest as a Kuen Cheng student with utmost dignity.
Shortly afterwards, an interview was carried out in between Ms Tee and effort to elicit feedback and opinions on how the event had been conducted. Upon, a student from Sr1B said she felt the event was touching, and the interactive exercise really helped add to it. However, she felt that other students might not reach the same conclusion, as they might not make the connection between this exercise and their fight for their dreams in the long run. Another student from Sr1A felt that while she understood Principal’s message in the end, she felt there should be more time be given to elaborate further on the future development of education. She has also felt that the points about people who will benefit more from reading as compared to those like to only watch TV or movies have yet to be proven, as reading is not the only medium from which general knowledge can be gained.
From the interview with Ms Tee, she said she was happy to be with the students and she hoped that the students can enjoy their life during their teenage years, but they needed discipline to achieve that. And, hopefully an event as such has been able to bring forward new thoughts to the students. She sincerely wished that the interactive event would do more good than a passive talk. Ms Tee further hopes that the Senior One students can grow faster as they learn.
