It is easy to allow anectodal cases to tar everything. It is not
true that children in general (over in Singapore) are spoiled or
over-protected.
I remembered one parent whom I called in over his son's grades. He
gave me a cane and told me in Mandarin, "Teacher, I give you the
cane and the authority. If he doesn't listen, I allow you to cane
him!" I had to give it back to him. I told him that I will cane my
own son but I do not cane my pupils. Somehow I got the feeling he
doesn't get what I mean, because he repeated the same line again.
Unfortunately, the child was still not studying.
Another pupil of mine was called up by me for not doing his silent
reading. I got him to stand in front of his class and do his silent
reading. The angry mother confronted me the next day for causing
'psychological damage' (she spoke in Mandarin) to her child. I told
her plainly that I had no reason to touch her son if he did nothing
wrong. Off she went to the principal. Thank God I had a supportive
principal. She simply told her, "Mdm, I can give you the hotline
for MOE and the e-mail address. Why don't you tell them that my
Discipline Master has disciplined your child?" Well...we did manage
to get to talk on calmer terms about her child, and from what I
knew, I was spoken of kindly by her when she's with the other
parents.
Yet another pupil of mine...well...he's incredible. He joins no
CCAs. He doesn't participate much in PE. He doesn't interact much
with his class. When he was in Primary 5, his mother refused to
allow him to attend the P5 camp, paid for by the school. When he
got a chance to go to an event much coveted by Primary 5 pupils -
the National Day Parade rehearsal - his mother wrote in to disallow
his attendance. When his form teacher spoke to him, he told her
what his mother said, "What if the terraces collapse? What will
happen to you? It's much safer at home!" The last I got a chance to
spoke to her (after he's gone to Secondary school), she told me in
worried tones how he has to stay behind in school for his band CCA
(CCA is compulsory in Secondary School). I have to assure her that
this is part of his growing up, and is good for him. I wondered how
much of his independence he has to reclaim as he goes into his
teenage years.
But for each of these cases, I can also come up with truly
independent pupils who did charity work, gave tuition to their
siblings, led a 'rebellion' against the class teacher (yikes! I had
to be called in to mediate) and so on. I can recall pupils who can
climb trees and wallow in mud pools. It just happens that the
extreme cases are the ones we remember most!
