Friday, December 30, 2005
An Open Letter to Lit Class 2000 - 2001Finally found this letter after so many years. The last time I found this letter, I didn't have a blog and I left it among a stack of papers. Only to find it today. This was letter by my secondary school literature teacher, Jason Lim Choon Kiat. I am typing it here in case I lose the letter in future. This is the content (it is long):
"Today marks a new beginning in the story of your life. It seems like only yesterday that you were a silent fearful kid I first saw in class. today, I see the confident and assured young adults you have become, and it fills me with a tremendous sense of pride. Regardless of what your results are today, I hope you keep a sense of perspective. I would be lying if I said I didn't hope you would at least repeat or better your prelim results. I really wish that all of you did as well as possible. Not because results are important, but because I know what you are capable of. I wanted you to do well because I wanted Cambridge to vindicate the faith I have in you. But even if you did not do as well as you hoped, it does not change how I feel. I have taught you for 2 years - some even longer - and I like to think that after all this time, I would know more about, know how much ability you have, and how much potential, than a faceless person who only knows you through 5 questions. Perhaps you are reading this now with a spirit of exultation, having done better than you thought you would - if you did I rejoice with you. Or maybe you are reading this through tears - if this is the case I hope you don't lose heart but instead learn from the experience. In bother instances, I hope you realise that it is after all, just a piece of paper that cannot measure your true worth as a person. Sometimes it struck me that you did not believe how much ability you had, or how good you can be. At other times, I wondered if I should have been stricter and demanded more out of you - so that you realise your potential. It has been hard for me to convince you of what I do know - that as a class you had the ability to shock people in this subject. But no matter what your results are today, i want you to know that I'm not disappointed inyou in any way. As your teacher I have to take responsibility for how you do and what you havedone or did not do. given the fact that I missed so many lessons due to my surgery/other duties, i do ask myself if there was more I could have done. Maybe I was too lenient with some of you, making you overconfident for the exam. Or perhaps I chose a text too far removed from your experience that it shook your confidence. but through it all, i hope that you realise that I just wanted to make sure that you had the best possible education and that you had the best chanceto excel. I will be the first to accept responsibility if you did not achieve what you could. That you chose to do Literature is already a triumph in itself. You dared when others wavered. You persevered despite competing demands on your time. And you've learned (I hope) from the experience. Perhaps you will go on and continue to do Literature. Perhaps you won;t. Itdoesn't matter. "A mind once stretched never truly regains its original proportions." I trust that you have been enriched by the study of the subject, and the experience have made you more aware, more open-minded, made you a more critical and creative thinker and have cultivated in you a more sensitive soul. if it does I would consider your experience of Literature a success - for more than being skills that you can carry with you, these are qualities that make you mor humane, more human. As you close this chapter of your life, I hope it fills you with many happy memories - even as I take this opportunity to wish you all the best for the future. Maybe in the future our paths will cross again. Maybe. But even if it doesn't it will never alter the fact that somewhere along the sands of time our stories merged, and it has been a privilege to have you write a chapter in the book of my life. You were my Literature class, and you were my children. Now that you are grown and I send you on to the next stage of your journey, I want you to know, that I am so proud of each and every one of you. Jason 28th Feb 2002"Ha.. After re-reading and typing this letter, I feel flooded with so many memories of the past. I miss the Literature lessons,
miss Mano's crap during Math lessons,
miss the people back then,
miss all the crap that happened,
miss all the jokes that were told,
miss our innocence,
Heck! I even miss the times whereby I got tongue-tied whenever I was around Wendy.
These are a part of my history and be it good or bad, will forever be a part of me.
This may sound cheesy, I also miss Jason Lim. (Obviously! Why else did I go through the trouble to typing the whole letter out?) I must take leave or sth to go back to SCSS.
The Origin. 12/30/2005 09:55:00 pm
