Teachers: From Ng U-Lynn to Rohaishah Hamid

I guess this must be Rohaishah's teacher. If I had missed by a mile someone might leave me a comment to let me know as had often happened.

And this is Rohaishah, Ms Ng U-Lynn former pupil. Ms Ng kinda of helped MOE recruit a special teacher. She is now teaching at Pierce Secondary School.

I remember when my daughter was in the MOE system. She was fortunate to meet a couple of really special teachers but many forgettable and a few difficult ones. As a result, she told me she would never want to be a teacher. I told myself this even from Primary One this is not good. Each time MOE sent her an invitation to consider teaching when she was in JC she handed the material or letter to me just for my info and then to the bin. As an articulate straight As student I didn't think she would have problem getting a teaching scholarship.

One of the special teachers has been a finalist for the President's award for teachers like forever until ST did a story of her. The other one got his PAT award quite easily but she wasn't close to him like the one from primary school. In both instances I had initiated the process for their nomination. Sure others probably had nominated them as well but I sold the stories for them to get to the finals and better. However this did not do anything to make my daughter more open minded about being a teacher.

When the kids are young, the parents know and could anticipate them if you spend enough time with them. One day they will pass that threshold when we cannot predict what they would do. At that point they would have discovered their inner self and become truly self directed individuals. My bet is that at that time this child would look back and said, "I could have been an excellent teacher". But life is also about getting the time and place right for things to happen. For her both time and place were wrong.

So I am happy for Ng U-Lynn and Rohaishah. Their work is very meaningful. I hope the rank of bean counting teachers will fall over time and looking at the young teachers, I am optimistic. Finally one of the best documentary I have seen on TV this year is, "Don't call us beaten"

Rohaishah's Story