A Teacher Who Touches Lives
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Learning science and maths is always a fun-filled adventure in Mrs Lee Kok Hong’s classes.
What do you do with a boy who “could not care less”? Who keeps failing his maths and science and makes mischief in class? Who skips school for days and whose folks have never attended a single parent-teacher meeting?
The easy way out would be to give up on him, but Mrs Lee Kok Hong was moved to give a little extra time and care to this boy. Learning that he came from a broken home, suffered from leg injuries and had no one to turn to, the Temasek Primary School teacher effectively became his godmother in school. She lent him a listening ear and guided him back to class, earning for her efforts a solemn promise that he would pass his Mathematics and Science at the PSLE.
Mrs Lee’s concern for this pupil’s education and emotional plight sums up her passion for her pupils and firm belief that “teaching is not just about providing book knowledge.” Her outlook is no doubt shared by the two other winners of the 2008 President’s Award for Teachers, who with Mrs Lee received the award from President S.R. Nathan on 1 September at the Istana.
Cookies and parachutes
Pupils in Mrs Lee’s class use Thinking Caps to show whether they understood her points.
“Lessons now need to be authentic, relevant and engaging,” Mrs Lee remarked, “so that pupils can apply and transfer knowledge in order to solve problems creatively.” Thus, her lessons seek to “make connections at different levels and to the real world too.”
From making and dropping parachutes from the second storey to measure falling speeds and averages, to baking cookies to show the concepts of ratios and proportions, her classes ring with laughter and excitement as pupils discover how maths and science principles make sense in real life.
And this new knowledge isn’t transmitted in a vacuum. “Learning experiences must include opportunities for collaboration among students,” Mrs Lee believes. “This will allow them to articulate their ideas, have empathy for others and be open to contradictory or conflicting views.”
By facilitating such sessions, she hopes to train “reflective learners who have the ability to identify the strength and intelligence of themselves and others.” In turn, she solicits her pupils’ feedback, asking them what are “the 3 new things I learnt, 2 things that I want to try, and 1 thing that I am not sure about” in order to discover “their strengths, concerns and aspirations.”
Sharing with pride
Making lemonade becomes a lesson in ratios in maths class.
Ever the professional, her fellow teachers are never far from Mrs Lee’s mind. “Teaching has helped me see the importance of working in collaboration with colleagues, appreciating and recognising their effort,” she reflects. With her personal motto of TEAM - Together Everyone Achieves More - she unreservedly shares successful ideas and teaching strategies with her peers. “I believe that the more I share I more I will learn,” she adds, noting that ultimately, this mutual openness will make a positive impact on students.
For as long as she could remember, she has “always wanted to be a teacher.” Recalling her youth, Mrs Lee recalls “playing teacher to my sister and my friends and imitating the way my teachers talk and teach in class.” For the little boy in her class, Mrs Lee may well make a similar impact on his future. She recounts that he had a lot of pride, and she had to coax him a lot before he would accept pocket money from her, even though his mother gave him nothing for recess. “Whenever the opportunity arose, he would return the money he ‘borrowed’,” she adds.
Mrs Lee also helped the boy pay the fee for the school’s graduation night, where he savoured his very first buffet meal. “Later, he admitted shyly that he had three rounds of helpings and had borrowed his step-brother’s shirt for the function.” She in turn was so moved by that she cried for days. But true to his promise, the boy made good her belief in him by working hard and scoring a C for both Mathematics and Science at PSLE, and proceeded to secondary school. For Mrs Lee, this result is the kind of reward that lasts a lifetime.