dependents

On the train, I saw a boy walking around. His behavior was abnormal. He kept talking to himself, laughing to himself, walking to window panes and put his face to them (we are by the way still in the tunnel) and gazing out of them. I could not help but stare for a while at him, and then shrank back into my seat. I’m not mocking at him, looking down at his type of people, judging him. It’s just that I realize that maybe it’s just by a very small chance that I’m brought across the line, and I could have very well ended like him.

I started to wonder about his family, about his parents, trying to imagine their concerns, their worries which somehow would never end, if not increase. He will grow up, but how will he grow old? I guess sometimes we could really see the goodness in people when we just look at some parents. It takes courage and love to not abort the child during pregnancy, even more to raise him up, to teach his other siblings as well to love him.

It’s through looking at them I see my pathetic self. I doubt I’ll ever able to be like them. I rather escape, to take as little responsibilities for dependents as possible. The notion of ending up in their circumstance frightens me, and I know I rather want zero probability for that happening.

Yet I could not run away from the inevitable – aging. It’s not too while ago I help one old man carry a wooden board to his block from the refuse of a construction site. He is limping, relying on his crutch. He could not even articulate. I understood him by his gestures. As I walked to the destination, I think my mind is more preoccupied with the possibility of ending up like him than reaching the destination.

I’m not anyone great. I can’t think of what I would do if ever such a time comes. Maybe it’s better to take a step at a time, as I’ve always, and see what happens.

teachers

August 10, 2008

On the bus yesterday, I overheard a conversation between a teacher and a student. (I did not meant to eavesdrop, but a close proximity to them, along with that feeling of boredom, curiosity did not permit me to do otherwise.) Anyway, here we have a teacher genuinely concerned with her student, and hopeful that she’ll be able to a id her student in her studies and in her struggle to balance between academic work and CCA.

It brought me to remind myself that I am where I am probably because of my teachers, teachers who sought to make a difference, even though it means doing the same thing over and over again, only for perhaps that sense of satisfaction and that few expressions of gratitude at the end of the academic year, only to return to another cohort of strangers, to yet another group of pupils with the same apathy, and that doubt in your ability in their eyes. And yet for that girl, the teacher’s words and guidance could probably be what that keeps her going, not giving up, and if she succeeds in life, surely she would not forget her? In the same way, am I forgetting mine? Am I forgetting the past?

Today we still see parents’ anxiety to send their sons and daughters to top, renowned, established institutes, queuing up for days, making ‘donations’. I used to wonder why. Is the curriculum different in different schools? Is the caliber of teachers that different? Maybe, but probably not… It didn’t take me long to realize that school culture and the study environment is what that matters most, especially at the age when we all know peer pressure to be probably the strongest pushing and motivating power.

That said, I wonder if the streaming of students in primary school is nothing more that isolating a condemned bunch and letting them rot together rather that affecting others, rather than all that proclaimed euphemism of letting the slower ones learn at a more comfortable pace.

I cycle around with a group of friends. There was once we came across a toilet with lots of syringes. A friend remarked that they probably belong to the people who are doing drugs, and he’s probably right. It saddens me somehow to know that, especially when realizing that they actually belong to same group of lesser educated people. In my years as a student, I guess I mix around with the same kind/type of people too much to know that the other end of society is still as dark, as hopeless. We would like to call ourselves a developed nation, a country that can boasts of her wealth and standard of living, but maybe this standard of living ought to be only as good as that in lower end of society.

I believe it is education that can help eradicate poverty, and clear the minds of people of senseless and stupid behavior and actions. I believe that it’s in the neighborhood schools where teachers have more important parts to play, to mould the young into people who are able to make wiser decisions, to shine light and teach them not to despair.

On that bus, I think that teacher has taught two people.