Friday, August 11, 2006
Don't toy with feelings...
For national day celebrations at school, we tried to make it more meaningful by havng another mini Service Learning Day. I remained in school, where the Minds children came to play. The others proceeded to become karang guni men/women or went to Toa Payoh to entertain the old folks. Anyway, I just wanna relate an incident.
The Arts classes were all performing for the Minds children, so they were seated in front, facing the entire cohort of Minds children and their student mentors. There was this cheeky fella (from my class) who blew a kiss to this Malay girl. She reciprocated and blew another kiss back to him!! But what was astounding was, she fell in love with him! She was all girly (imagine the fluttering of eyelashes) and started writing "I love you" and drawing hearts in the air! And then she resorted to kissing him, instead of blowing kisses.
My boy was so freaked out! And his classmates, including myself and a fellow teacher, were really amused. But inside of me, I felt really uneasy. I didn't think it was right, but there was nothing else we could have done. And he was only being cheeky, without evil intentions. Things worsened when he went to hide behind the whiteboard, because we thought that if we distracted her, she would get over it soon. However, she got upset and started tearing. She whipped up a tissue from her back as the tears swelled up in her eyes. Then she buried her face in her hands and lowered her head into her legs, looking reallty pitiful.
I couldn't take it anymore. I went over to sit beside her. The objectve being to distract her, make friends and cheer her up. I succeeded to some extent. But she cried not too long after... (no fault of mine!!) She was scared by the loud blast of the music.
Learning points:
1) Always be true in our feelings, and to be sincere to others. Never toy with others' feelings.
2) Be considerate and thoughtful, and be sensitive to others' needs and wants.
3) Minds' children really have mentality of a child. They are innocent and in their own uncorrupted world. In fact, thank God for that because they are blissful in that sense.
4) When dealing with the less fortunate, we should be more enthusiastic and forthcoming in out gestures, actions and words. They appreciate it.
I am still a firm supporter of Service Learning, but only if the kids bother to put in effort and initiative.
The Arts classes were all performing for the Minds children, so they were seated in front, facing the entire cohort of Minds children and their student mentors. There was this cheeky fella (from my class) who blew a kiss to this Malay girl. She reciprocated and blew another kiss back to him!! But what was astounding was, she fell in love with him! She was all girly (imagine the fluttering of eyelashes) and started writing "I love you" and drawing hearts in the air! And then she resorted to kissing him, instead of blowing kisses.
My boy was so freaked out! And his classmates, including myself and a fellow teacher, were really amused. But inside of me, I felt really uneasy. I didn't think it was right, but there was nothing else we could have done. And he was only being cheeky, without evil intentions. Things worsened when he went to hide behind the whiteboard, because we thought that if we distracted her, she would get over it soon. However, she got upset and started tearing. She whipped up a tissue from her back as the tears swelled up in her eyes. Then she buried her face in her hands and lowered her head into her legs, looking reallty pitiful.
I couldn't take it anymore. I went over to sit beside her. The objectve being to distract her, make friends and cheer her up. I succeeded to some extent. But she cried not too long after... (no fault of mine!!) She was scared by the loud blast of the music.
Learning points:
1) Always be true in our feelings, and to be sincere to others. Never toy with others' feelings.
2) Be considerate and thoughtful, and be sensitive to others' needs and wants.
3) Minds' children really have mentality of a child. They are innocent and in their own uncorrupted world. In fact, thank God for that because they are blissful in that sense.
4) When dealing with the less fortunate, we should be more enthusiastic and forthcoming in out gestures, actions and words. They appreciate it.
I am still a firm supporter of Service Learning, but only if the kids bother to put in effort and initiative.
# posted by Banana Saviour @ 8:08 AM 
