End of Standard 1

Today is the last day of school for this year for my son. I must say that time has surely flown and when I look back at my son's struggles being an "ang moh" in a Chinese School, I am quite proud of his achievements.

When my son first went to school, he had almost zero knowledge of chinese. Well, he did go to kindy that had some chinese teachings, but nothing prepped my son for the amazing regimented teachings of a Chinese school.

- firstly, my son's school bag, wah lao eh... it was even heavier than a Kebangsaan school's Form 3 kid! I know because I compared! And the Chinese school fellas made it compulsory to bring the exercise books of all subjects every day! Jialat!
- tons of homework! My son arrives back from school between 7-730pm (afternoon school). After makan and a shower, he starts his homework the earliest also 830pm. Some times he goes on till about midnight! Yes.. it is that much!

- the standard! I've told you before in earlier posts abt how tough the exercises are. Like for spelling, I used to get "bola", "ball", "boy" in my Primary 1, my son gets full sentences mid way to his standard 1 (eg. "Look, there is a toy in the window" is kinda like the simplest sentence he got mid way.) And his maths... other schools get RM1 - RM0.20 = ?. He gets "RM1 - RM0.20 = X number of 20 cent coins?"

- crazed teachers! I never told you guys before.. he got this Bahasa Malaysia teacher who threatened my son with scissors before... because my son wasn't paying attention! She took the scissors, put it around his ears and said "since u were not listening, I might as well cut away your ears!"

I asked my son why he didn't run away.

He said his classmate who tried to run away, the teacher chased him and banged the boy against the blackboard like Batista doing a Power Bomb! Brutal!

Sigh.. he has indeed gone far. And I'm proud my son never complaints about his teachers. In fact, he still looks forward to school and the beatings.. which makes me love him even more.

I wish him all the best in Standard Two next year!