‘Cher, stay at home boring leh’ — a teacher’s response to 3 common messages from students

While schools reopen on June 2, when Singapore exits the circuit breaker, only students from graduating cohorts will have daily classes on school premises.

All other students will alternate weekly between home-based learning and classes in school. This means the majority of students will still need to stay at home, which they have been doing since the circuit breaker started on April 7.

As a teacher and a general education officer, I have received many texts in recent weeks from students trying to adjust to staying at home.

Many of the messages articulate similar sentiments. Here are the three most common ones and my responses to these secondary school students.

1. “Cher [short form for teacher], for so long whole day whole night stay at home boring leh.”

Boredom is preferable to pain. Do you know what it’s like to be hooked up to a ventilator?

Boredom is a luxury. You will soon learn this during your National Service. And yes, there will still be National Service. If you can afford to be bored, you’re one of the lucky ones. Count your blessings.

Getting to stay at home is a precious opportunity, but not for gaming or updating your Instagram profile. There is nothing inherently wrong with Instagram or TikTok. Just don’t whittle your life away on them. Like how some of you spend hours on the video game Animal Crossing. Don’t think Cher doesn’t know.

Read. Read Singapore literature. Read until you run out of newspapers and magazines and books and food labels to read.

Read with the hunger and urgency of exiles. Because that’s what we all are. We have been exiled from our classrooms, but we can never be exiled from our learning.

Exercise. Practise mindfulness of breathing. Watch productions by Singapore theatre companies. Dance. Sing. Talk to your parents and siblings at home. Learn about your family history.

Practise your mother tongue. Sustain a real conversation. That means listening, which you probably have not practised for a while.

Interview your grandparents through Zoom or WhatsApp Video. That means teaching them how to use it if necessary.

Or better yet, write letters to them. Most of you have never posted a letter in your lives. Start now. Write by hand.

That will help train your penmanship, or handwriting. Based on the work I have last seen, you clearly, urgently, self-evidently, still need to practise.

2. “Cher, if till the end of the year still got virus means no more exams right? Yayyyy!!”

Health is more important than exams. That much is true.

But I sense a premature tone of jubilation in the way some of you ask that question. It suggests a lack of understanding about why we have exams.

They signify standards. They allow for assessment that aims to be fair. They reveal your strengths and your areas for improvement. Exams are bastions of our educational system.

Many of you recognise this. In fact, you might be anxious or worried about whether you’re prepared for your exams at the end of the year. To you, I will say this: Although exams matter, they are not life or death.

Your worth is not defined by your grades. No one can be 100 per cent prepared for every exam anyway. Just keep calm, do your best, and remember that your teachers are always here to help you.

I have come across a few other students, however, with a twisted view of what exams are about. They think it’s an occasion for comparison. They mock the high-scorers (“mugger-toad”) and jeer at the low-scorers (“stupid lah sia”).

I have caught them laughing at their classmates’ grades when the result slips are returned. I have confiscated nasty notes with insulting comments and caricatures. This is bullying — pure and simple.

To those few, I have this to say: If you persist with such behaviour when term starts, you have a choice.

You can undergo counselling and mend your ways. Or — if you refuse counselling — even if I must don a mask and face shield and hazmat suit, I will sit with you after school. And you, similarly masked, will attempt mock exam papers twice as difficult as those given to the rest.

“This is awful!”, you will complain. “Yes,” I will reply gently. “As awful as you made others feel.”

3. “Cher, what if we can’t get into XX JC or YY Poly? Then how?”

In the old world, you would work hard just so that you can get into XX Junior College (JC) or YY Polytechnic (Poly).

Your aim is to eventually get a good job, buy a car and go for holidays or cruises.

Or maybe you just want to hang out with your friends at the coffee shop. Or queue for bubble tea.

That world is no more.

In this new world, the school that you’ve worked so hard to get into might not even be open. The job that you’re struggling so hard to prepare for might no longer exist.

Countries can shut their borders at will. Flights and cruises can be cancelled at any time. Your favourite bubble tea shop is perpetually vulnerable.

Getting into XX JC or YY Poly may offer you a good head-start in life. But to succeed in this new world, you need much more than that.

You need to be comfortable with change. To gain knowledge and skills on your own and apply them to new situations.

You need to be more creative than a computer, because a machine will always be able to process data much faster and better than you.

But only you — unlike a machine — have the human capacity to feel for others, empathise with them, and understand how machines can be used for the greater good.

XX JC or YY Poly can give you a paper qualification. But they can no longer guarantee you that fancy overseas trip, that prestigious internship, those rich networking experiences that educational institutions of their calibre used to boast about.

You should still apply to enter XX JC or YY Poly if you wish to. They are respectable institutions of learning, and they can still offer you valuable opportunities.

But don’t burden yourself with the unrealistic expectation that they will set you up for life. There really are multiple paths to success. It’s not just a tagline.

Whether you choose this JC or that Poly or any other route, you will still need to keep learning and re-learning. You will also need to collaborate with others to solve problems that often defy understanding, and to adapt quickly to new ways of doing things.

All this takes time and effort. But just press on one step at a time. It’s like how schools will reopen gradually.

Not everyone will go back to school all at once. Even schools need time to adjust to a new world. If you can adjust too, you have no reason to fear, and every reason to hope.

That’s worth all your hard work.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ow Yeong Wai Kit is a teacher who has taught English and Literature for five years at a secondary school. In 2019, he was a recipient of the Outstanding Youth in Education Award by the Ministry of Education.