Training Students

Posing with some of the Happy and Fun Students

I was among 10 other trainers from a training company which we are associates, training the students in a girls school of Secondary 4 and 5 teaching them study skills for 2 and half days recently. It was fun and at the same time gruelling for me. It was not easy to engage the students for long period at a stretch. The class of girls I had numbered 38. Many of them are interested with some occasionally distracting the class by talking to each other. Overall girls tend to behave better than boys. That is my observation in my experience also with several other schools I have trained.

In this particular school the behaviour of the teaching staff, mostly ladies and the students behave indifferently to each other. I observe that the students do not pay respect to the teachers nor acknowlege them. We who are visitors are also treated likewise. The teachers and students treat us as strangers. Indeed we are strangers because we are visitors. The security guard has more respect for us strangers. His EQ is higher than the educators and educated of the school.

This is the sad state of affair in some schools in Singapore. These same girls will go out into society and treat people around them with indifference, because they are not taught the importance of good manners. One girl removed her shoes and sat cross-legged, while I was teaching and in the presence of a teacher observing the class. The teacher was not bothered about such a display of rudeness by the student. I had to ask the student to put down her legs and wear her shoes. It will not be easy to teach them decorum and manners after they leave school.