When I was asked to take over the teaching of Normal Technical students for a short period of time, I cringed and hesitated for I knew that deep down inside me that I would not be able to effectively communicate with them and all the more teach them.
I sometimes end up giving up trying to teach them half-way during my lesson for these students simply just do not understand the basic fundamentals of learning - the willing to want to learn.
Tossed from one extreme end to another end of the education bandwagon, these students have in many instances been shunned one side and sidelined. In our pragmatic Singapore society, it is simply the notion of survival of the fittest that children are being brought up in. Normal Technical students, because of their perceived inferiority when compared with the majority of Singaporeans, are therefore better off on their own, living their own lives and better still if they do not leech on the system that elitist have so painstakingly protected throughout time.
Yet, are they such an abhorrent bunch of students that schools should just simply displace them and finally dispose them? Is there really no glimmer of hope in them?
Out of the eight periods of lessons I had with them last week, I can honestly say that only 1 of it was a complete disaster. It became a verbal quarrel and shouting match, something which I honestly feel that is redundant. Yet, deep down, in spite of the disruptive learning environment that they have chosen for themselves, I find that I can still tell myself with hushed confidence that these bunch of students are actually 'teachable'.
Normal Technical students cannot be taught in a sit-down, listen to teacher approach. They are rowdy, disruptive and sometimes a nuisance because of their short attention span, of their ignorance, of their assumed intelligence, of their desire to want to make a statement, of their lack of acknowledgement and recognition of their achievements, of their lack of hope. These students need to be in an environment where they are in the very first place not discriminated by not only the students but also the teachers, they need to be housed in an institution where practical-based learning is its key thrust and focus of its teaching philosophy. The Northlight School, is therefore a laudable initiative that I personally think will reap its bountiful harvest in time to come.
The only thing that's left to do, which is unfortunately a sad reality, is to change people's perception on these students.
