Found! My school report books...

I was mistaken, as -- apparently -- were many others. Teachers' Day here in Singapore is on Sept 7. We all thought it was on Saturday, Sept 1, since the schools marked it on Friday, Aug 31. There was a story in today's ST (Sept 3) on Teachers' Day:

  
Today's blog entry is on something more exciting: I found my three (primary, secondary and pre-university) school report books!

  
I was motivated to look for them after I read Toh Yong Chuan's article (put up in my blog entry yesterday), in which he said: "...I pointed to the Primary 6 page in my report book where she [his form teacher, Mrs Sim Mun Hoon] had written, 'Play less and concentrate more on your school work. Try harder in the PSLE.' "

------------------------------------------------------

I had a chequered primary school record, a dismal secondary school record, and a so-so Pre-U record. It was only in university that I -- obviously a very, very late bloomer who would have ended up as a food court cleaner or a condo security guard if today's hot-housing educational system had been in place in my time -- well, bloomed.

I secured a Second Class Upper honours degree and, much later -- after working as a journalist and getting married and having two children -- decided to pursue a Masters, for which I snagged a MacArthur Foundation Scholarship. I am very grateful to my mentor, Dr Lau Teik Soon, for pushing me to "go for it as a full-time (ie, no pay) mature student" when I was dithering over doing a part-time Masters programme, so that I could still support my family.

Thereafter, I got my PhD, this time on a government sponsorship. But my school records showed little indications that I would have come thus far. Remember Yong Chuan's "playfullness"? Here's what my Primary 1 form teacher said of me for the first term:

    
As I said, my record was chequered. Here's my Primary 2 grades (so far so good)...

Even bettter, in Primary 3, I was described as "very intelligent"!...

But, as they say, pride goes before a fall (same year, ie Primary 3). Only 19 marks for Chinese in term 2 and,yes, a single-digit 5 in the final term (that mark must have been for writing my name in Chinese on the script)!...

Amazingly, I was still ranked 3rd in class (term 2) and second (term 3), hence the still glowing teacher's remarks.

In Primary 5, I came in first in class in terms 1 and 2, and second in term 3 (second overall too). Such lofty positions never happened again.

That was the apex! I continued to excel in English in Primary 6 but was unexceptional in the other subjects and, after the PSLE, went on to Gan Eng Seng School which in the 1960s was in a gangster-infested area (Anson Road/Tras Street).

My grades (except for English and Literature) were poor in secondary school and I repeated Sec 4. There were just too many distractions, especially in  Sec 1 and Sec 2, when I was still living in my idyllic island of Pulau Bukom... riding my bicycle after I got back from the sea-ferry trip, building up my Airfix model aircraft collection and progressing to line-control flying models, swimming in the 50-m pool near my house, and of course, allowing the teenaged stirrings of an interest in the opposite sex to seize me. There were red marks aplenty in my report book and red marks aplenty on my bottom, but who cared then!

Pre-university was also a series of uninspiring teachers, except for Mr Thomas Khng, whom I paid tribute to yesterday. Still, I managed to get into university.

----------------------------------------------------

Postscript No 1: The Day It Rained On Our Parade 

The record (ie, as in my report book) shows that I was in Victoria School's 1968 National Day Parade contingent -- the day it poured cats and dogs on the parade (at the Padang) in which President Yusof Ishak stood proudly at attention as we marched past. How can anyone there forget that day?

Postscript No 2: It's not about the starting point but the finishing line, I guess.

Someone rather nasty had made this comparison between himself and me: "You have been a journalist before and you possess a doctorate. Nevertheless, I do not believe I am academically inferior to you (hmm, I had never ever insinuated that to him!).

"I remember you were embedded in School Certificate shambles at Gan Eng Seng (very, very true. But, as Bart Simpson famously said, "I'm an under-achiever and proud of it!") In contrast, not trying to boast but to reinforce the earlier point, I was Dux every year in Pearl's Hill School (feeder school to Raffles Institution -- have you heard of this school? -- and was 7th out of about 160 in vying for a place in Pre-U 1 or Lower 6."