Tears of my niece

Two Saturdays back, i bought my niece and nephew for a movie treat - Despicable Me.


Along our 20 minutes car ride, my niece burst into tears as she told me how hurt she was by her dad, my brother, in one of their family outing. She sobbed bitterly as she narrated how my hot-fused brother pinched her when she failed to cross the road properly together.


My heart ached for her as I listened. I offered her tissue papers from my front seat as she aired out her pain and sorrow. i knew she needed a listening ear.


We laughed a lot in the movie. Her countenance changed thereafter. I believe it was the right time to bring them out. I can't change my brother's way of handling his kids. I just hope that by simply offering my niece my time and attention, it will make her growing-up journey more bearable.

The Boy's "Armpit" Pop

I've been teaching this particular group of 10-yrs-old boys for almost half year. They are always very loud and rowdy in class. For the past few lessons, they often did this silly antics one after another - that's to cup their left hand under their right armpit and flapped hard to produce a loud pop sound. I called that their "armpit" jokes.

 

It was silly and they often had a (not a but many) good laugh out of it. I gave them several warnings to stop that in my lesson as they were very distracting and disrupting. But my chiding fell onto deaf ears.

 

Finally two weeks ago, I sternly issued my last warning. I told them whoever did that would have to hold onto an object under their armpits till the end of the lesson. It sounded funny to them initially but, my acting was good, I delivered my verbal threat with the "I-mean-it" look.

 

Moments later, I heard a pop behind me followed by several low "All..".  I knew who did it. Without hesitation, I took out my sturdy personal hole-puncher and ordered him to hold it under his armpit till the class ended. There were some tension in the air. I held onto my stern-looking facial muscles. Everybody knew that boy had crossed the boundary I'd set earlier. Visibly embarrassed, he softly said he wouldn't do it again. And I let him off the hook after a long hard stare.

 

Their armpit jokes had ceased since then. Boys would always come out with some silly antics, we have to match them by being creative with something equally silly to deal with them. Come to think about it... that episode was really very funny :)

About a boy called Xiao Long

During my second year stay in the student care centre, Xiao Long (name of student has been changed to protect the child) was one of the 30-boy-dominating-P2 under my charge. Xiao Long parents are from Xiwan, a small township in Johore, Malaysia. They are blue-collar workers and rented a room with a relative nearby the school. Xiao Long is their only child.



Xiao Long academic performance was below average and had been put in the last 2 classes throughout his stay in primary school. Scoring single digit grade was a norm and the family could not afford any private tuition for him. Even his stay in the centre was on grant as there was no adult at home to supervise the kid during the day.


Perhaps Xiao Long came from a rather layback or different environment, he had problem mixing with the local kids. He craved for attention but often unwittingly made a laughing stock out of himself. He was always at odd with his peers and also the other students in the center.


Being a teacher, Xiao Long was not a like-able candidate to work with. So he was academically weak I thought naively. There must be still something in him that I could still help. But I was in for much disappointment. Xiao Long often maintained that he was right and refused to be corrected - not just study-wise but also in his behavior. Each time after I corrected him, he would remorse momentarily and then went back to his old ways.


Sometimes Xiao Long would tell his doting dad partial truth about incidents happened to him in the centre, and got his dad livid to confront me or even my boss. And each time after learning the truth from us, he would become embarrassed and left the centre.




Like the son, Xiao Long’s dad also lacked the ability to learn from past mistake and kept coming back to us. Instead of learning how to find out the truth from his son, he would often become upset about us and complained that we mistreated his son. It was indeed a frustrating experience to work with both the father and son for the past few years.


Later, I learnt that Xiao Long’s mum separated from the dad. And the boy has been living with his dad without much contact with his mother.


It has been almost two years since I last saw Xiao Long. He is now a 14 yr-old youth studying in secondary school and I’d lost touch with him. Just a month ago, in June, I received a surprise phone-call from him. He told me how he was doing in secondary school, how he got my number and that he would like to visit me.

I find this very ironical. Here is a boy whom I’d written off as “un-teachable” after years of attempt. I scolded him a lot more than others and yet he bothers to look out for me and contact me. I must have done something right after all.

I was touched by the work in Shelter Don Bonco

Last Thursday 1/7/2010 evening was a rare one whereby I do not have any tuition. One of my students had postponed the lesson to celebrate her mum’s birthday. With not much to do, I turned into a crouch-potato. I came upon this interesting Channel 8 program “Star for a Cause” whereby a local celebrities couple Darren and Evelyn did a video-journal on their volunteering experience in a youth shelter named Shelter Don Bonsco in Mumbai, India.


All of the kids there are boys from 8 to 17 years old. They were either formerly sold to factories as workers or members of the beggar syndicates. They used to roam on the streets to steal, beg or involve in drug dealings.

A lovely lady Gracie regularly combs through the street to bring some of these lost street kids to the shelter, to house them and help them re-adjust back into the society. Besides providing basic education, they also give them skill training such as computer, candle-making etc.

However, some of these kids are so used to the carefree life on the street that they could not adjust well to the regimen in the home and ran away. Hence, only a handful of them find purpose in the home stay and benefit from there.

There are many areas in the program that touch me deeply. Firstly, the persistence spirit of Gracie who does not give up those boys who ran away and keeps looking out for them on the street. She could have easily gotten a better paying job but she has been staying with the shelter for 20 years. I really admire the compassion that she has for the youth in Mumbai. If only many of us bother so much like her, then our world will be such a better place.

Secondly, the magnanimous spirit of the volunteers there. One of them has amply said that we could give these kids money and other material things. But nothing beats it by spending time with them and empowering these kids with education.

A national hockey coach was one of the volunteers too. He regularly trains the boys in the game and also generously provides them free hockey uniforms and gears. He is very rich but he is one of the rare gems who bother to “roll up his sleeves” to help these street kids instead of merely issuing checks.

Lastly, another volunteer wisely wrapped up the reason behind all these … an idling mind is a devil playground, so by constantly keeping these kids occupy with meaningful things, they will not have the time to do much foolish things.

To find out more about Shelter Don Bosco, go to http://www.shelterdonbonsco.org/

Other charity projects embark by Star for a Cause, go to www.xinmsn.com/starsforacause

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