Saturday, April 10, 2004

Parent Teacher Dialogue

Half way into the principal's introduction, I felt the urgent need to pee. Damn the 2 cups of ribena this morning and the large iced lemon tea that I had on the walk from the train station over to school! By the time I felt it polite to get up and leave the room, I was walking funny from waiting too long to pee. Urgh! My colleagues noticed and all laughed at me. With colleagues like that, who needs enemies!

Anyway, it turned out to be a non-event for me because the parents of my students did not come in search of me. I was actually relieved. Being the civics tutor of a class that does higher Chinese, I can imagine that most of the parents speak the language to a certain degree of fluency. Me, not so much! Thank goodness for my foresight at the beginning of the term to tell my students very unashamedly and with hair wrenching desperation that they were to, under no circumstance, speak Chinese in my presence. They, in turn, told their parents that their "ang-moh-fied" read anglofied civics tutor spoke no Chinese at all. That probably explains their non-presence. So, I stood in the corner and observed the extreme Singaporean-ness in them as they rushed for the tea that was provided and actually ate and used the same pair of chopsticks to pick up food from the trays. It was then that I made a mental note, not to eat anything off the tray. Thank goodness for the lack of appetite that I have been having the last few days. It was also somewhat unpleasant to see parents talk to teachers with their mouths full of cake. The sight of an open mouth filled with green cake is just a revolting sight. No wonder our students have no sense of social etiquette or grooming. They had no one to learn it from. *shakes head disapprovingly*

I had also to resist the urge of going up on stage to tell the string quartet to sit properly while playing for the audience. Such beautiful music from these girls who seemed unaware that their knees were not placed together. I suspect they thought that since they had shorts under their skirt, it was fine to sit any ol' how. *tsk tsk*

And the ironic thing is that some of these girls come from schools whose school mission is to " produce ladies with dignity and poise" Where's the dignity in sitting with one's legs splayed? Hmmm...

7 Feb 2004

Ondine tossed this thought in at 09:51

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