Today, the announcement was formally made. HE's leaving... There was some sort of celebration and students were made to sit in a formation spelling out the words "THANK YOU". It was kinda cool to see that. Tributes were paid from several teachers and students, thanking him for his contribution to the school. And as the video presentation was played, to my surprise, quite a number of teachers and students started to weep. Ok, maybe i'm not surprised with students weeping. They do that ALL the time. Like faucets, they are. But yah, i was very surprised when the HOD sitting next to me started sobbing noticeably. And that made me wonder. Do these ppl REALLY like him? Or is it just a thing of the moment? I wondered too, if i was just plain hard-hearted. I mean, he went around shaking hands and hugging the teachers and his eyes were obviously wet. And while many gave him hugs (some had no choice), i was content to proffer a firm handshake which said that was all i was gonna offer. I really believe i dun have a soft spot for him at all! Am i really hard-hearted?? I really dun feel anything leh...

Today was wrought with crying. I met a parent of a student yesterday. Basically, i din think this student was problematic, so i did not make it mandatory to meet this parent. This mother, however, seemed to think that she was at her wit's end with this younger child of hers. She said she didn't understand why her 2 sons are so different, and why my student (Y) couldn't be more motivated. Like his brother. I didn't understand what the problem was actually. Cos i felt he was fine in class leh. Somehow i had an idea of what Y might be suffering from at home. Dunno how i got that idea. I tried to gently enquire from the mom if she often compared the 2 boys at home. As expected, she was defensive and did not feel that was the problem. Today, i decided to sound him out to see if my little theory was correct.

I called him out while i was in class. Everyone was busy doing their own thing, so in spite of being in front of the entire class, we ironically managed to have a private moment. I mentioned that i talked to his mom and i asked him if he was often compared with his brother. Said a lot of other stuff as well and to my horror, he started to cry. Mind you, he's no mummy's boy, so i was rather shocked that it happened. I guess so i hit the nail on the head with my little theory. My heart really went out to him. I know how it feels when you're always being compared to people you could never match up to. So i told him how responsible he was, and assured him that it doesn't matter if he wasn't as good in his studies because i was sure he has his own strengths. Told him too, to communicate with his mum, let her know that it hurts when being compared with another person. So off he went, after our little session, wiping his tears away and trying to hide the embarrassing fact that he cried from his classmates. 30 min later, he was back to his cheerful and playful self. That's the good thing about kids. They're really more resilient than we give them credit for sometimes. Meeting with parents and having one-to-one sessions with my kids always gives me plenty to ponder about afterwards. And i remember once again, why i didn't end up teaching in the more prestigious schools. Guess i like the neighbourhood schools for its problematic students.