Ten reasons why I enjoy teaching at NorthLight

Many years ago, I had to chaperone my form class of 15-year-old boys on a cultural immersion trip to Malacca. Collecting my students’ passports should have been a straightforward task, one that I ticked off my to-do list as I channeled my energy on other things. However, one boy faced exceptional circumstances. Raised by his grandmother, he had never met his father before. His mother was incarcerated. When he was in Primary 6, he allegedly gave up a sepak takraw trip organised by his school because his grandmother possessed neither the language skills nor the operational dexterity to navigate the system.

Time has thankfully dulled my memories, but this much I still remember. I made trips to multiple organisations - Changi Prison, Syariah Court, and Immigration and Checkpoints Authority - in a bid to get his passport made. I remember feeling a wave of hopelessness when I encountered yet another formidable wall and berated why life was so unfair for this innocent young man.

Still, I never gave up. My conviction was simple: I first went overseas when I was 15. He shouldn’t be denied of this milestone trip through no fault of his own. And because I persisted, all the obstacles miraculously disintegrated the week before the trip. I remember taking his grandmother and him to ICA on Saturday morning, merely days before the trip was scheduled to take place. I made it! The feeling of exhilaration - priceless.

This year’s Sports Day threw an unexpected curveball that I had to resolve within tight time constraints. Each Year 2 class had to send in a team of 5 boys and 5 girls for the interclass relay. Alas! Only 3 girls from my class turned up today.

To add insult to injury, two girls plainly refused to run the relay, citing injuries from the futsal competition held earlier. (And to their credit, they did slog their hearts out for futsal. We emerged champions.) I had only one female participant and four glaring vacancies.

I asked my obliging female student to stand up and leave the contestant area for the time being. I asked her to point out her friends from another class to me.

And then, I basically begged them to join the relay to support my boys. My resolve was resolute - I still remember the times in which I participated in relays in college or even in Japan. Heaven forbid that I make five athletic boys miss the chance of competing. So, I grovelled like my life depended on it.

I will never forget the feeling of exhilaration as my student’s friends reluctantly stood up one by one to follow her to the contestant area. I’m still in a daze at how apparently persuasive I was.

And since I never gave up, the team actually made it to the finals. They ran again and emerged third. It was worth casting my pride aside to plead with students I barely know because I created fond memories, not only for my boys, but also for myself.

All in all, ‘Never give up’ is the sustenance that keeps me hanging by a thread when things turn bleak and hope seems to be lost. It yields a triumphant sense of feeling alive when I convert destined defeats into miraculous successes.