Readers, Take time off to read this article, he took his time off by emailing a few of us about his own life story, he used to be an IT trainer for our school with partnership with Global Software Academy (GSA). He teaches us SUSE Linux and Server Administration.
During this few days, I will post up a few life stories to keep you motivated in life.
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Dear friends of Infocomm club,
This is J S writing again. This may be a long email, but please read. I though I can share an incident that happenned during my Sec sch days.
I never got a chance to get to know each one of you personally. I am sure every student has a story to share. So now I am taking the first step. I studied in Rosyth Primary School, scored 217 for my PSLE and moved on to Deyi Secondary School. If you aren’t aware, Deyi is just an ordinary neighborhood school, quite similar to AES. They assigned me to the top Express class, and over the next 4 years I consistently got to stay in the top class. I completed my O levels successfully. On the day that I went to collect my results, we students were told to wait in the hall. Then they flashed a slide in the OHP showing a list of top 5 students. The top student got 9 points. The remaining 4 students got 10 points, and I was one among them. That makes me the second best student of my cohort in my school doesnt it? Sure I was happy. But before you go on thinking that I am showing off, please continue to read the rest of this email too.
When I got promoted to Sec 3, I had a hard time learning A maths. I scored zero for the first 3 class tests. As you can imagine, that was really demoralizing. Especially, when other friends of mine scored much better; It made me feel really down. After my class teacher returned the test paper to each student, she asked me to come to the front to solve one of the test questions on the white board. Obviously, since I had scored zero, I still couldn’t solve it, and the teacher ended up embarassing me in front of the class. It was a really terrible moment, and while everyone left for recess break after the maths class, I stayed back in class.
Over the next few days, my father got me a maths tuition teacher. He was a really good teacher who knew how to motivate me. For the next class test, my score improved quite a bit, and for every subsequent maths test, (in both sec 3 and 4) I either scored full marks, or was at the top of the class. And in the end, I scored A1 for both A and E maths.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, where you are not doing well in a subject, first don’t blame yourself for it. It doesn’t help. My experience has been that a teacher can make a world of difference. And if you feel your teacher isn’t motivating you or guiding you enough, then talk to your close friends who are doing better in that subject. Ask to study along with them, after school perhaps. Many times, I not only stayed back with my close friend to do the maths 10-year series, I even came to school early to practice maths before the morning assembly starts. Studying with a friend can be fun and very encouraging. If it doesn’t help, then let your parents know that you need a tuition teacher. Actually, i have realized that it is not that students completely don’t understand a subject. It is just that they need a little more guidance to get started.
As you go from Sec 1 to Sec 4, it gets increasingly harder. Still it’s best to maintain a balanced lifestyle. Take time to enjoy life in meaningful ways, be it through CCAs, or other hobbies.
I hope this email motivated at least a few students.
Regards
J. S.
