Thank you and good-bye SKSH - "SKSH forever"

"SKSH forever"

The Proud Mums

Ashley with few of her good friends

The "cool boys" of SKSH

The words said it all

The Finale - "Sealed with a Kiss"

Saying goodbye...until we meet again!

Ashley embracing her good friend, Safia Razin

On 6th November 2012, Jennifer, Douglas and I attended Ashley’s farewell night at Sekolah Kebangsaan Seri Hartamas. It was a fun evening with good food and entertainment. The event was well attended by the Standard Six pupils (the event was for them as they will be leaving school soon), the Principal, teachers and parents. The Standard Six pupils put on a very good show with some individual singers, choir and dancing ala 1960s style. The theme of the night was “Retro Night”. Jennifer and I didn’t know what “Retro” was so we googled it and this is what it says, “old fashioned” style. Again, the definition was rather vague and we clicked “images” and then we got it! It means the bell bottom and colourful era. Initially, Jennifer wanted to wear “kebaya” but that may not fall into the category of “Retro” so we decided to wear something less formal.

The Standard Six pupils put on a splendid show. You could see that a lot of efforts were put into the performance. What amazed us were the camaraderie and the genuine friendship shown by the pupils to each other. If only the adults could behaved like that, the world would have been a peaceful one. For a short while there, even the parents were behaving like 12 years old - giggling, laughing and teasing each other.

The food was good with a lot of nice local flavour such as “satay ayam” (chicken satay), “soto ayam”, nasi tomato, fried fish fillet, “ice kacang” and “teh tarik”. The food was served ala “buffet style” and the lines were orderly.

The finale on that evening was an emotional and touching one. The Standard Six pupils were invited to the stage to deliver three (3) songs as a final tribute to the teachers, parents and friends. It started with “Ilhamku” (My inspiration), “To Sir with Love” and the last one was “Sealed with a Kiss”. I could observed from the songs that somehow the lyrics and the tune had an impact on the students’ emotions. “Ilhamku” was sang quite solemnly and then when it came to “To Sir with Love”, some of the students’ voices were already cracking and when the famous words “Though we gotta say goodbye for the summer.....” from “Sealed with the Kiss” was sung, tears were beginning to flow. What made it even more emotional was than when “Sealed with the Kiss” was sung, the students in an orderly manner moved and shook hands with each other. Some even embraced and let the tears flowed freely. Even some of the parents including Jennifer shed a few tears. After having spent six (6) wonderful years at Sekolah Kebangsaan Seri Hartamas, you can’t help but feel emotional. Jennifer, Ashley, Douglas and myself would like to say a big “thank you” to all the wonderful teachers and friends that we have met along the way. Whenever you are in Sydney, please look us up!

"Thinking out of the box" and the technique of restricting choices

In the earlier post, we talked about gauging a person’s level of self confidence. Here is another story about self confidence, “thinking out of the box” and restricting choices.

When I was in primary school (Sekolah Rendah La Salle Klang), I remembered there was a substitute teacher who came to the class and asked a rather strange question. She would randomly point to a student and asked “Are you a clever student or a stupid student?” I must say that those were the days where people were not so vocal about being political correct or concerned about students having rights. Most of the students answered “Stupid” and those included some of the cleverer ones. I think the students answered “Stupid” because they didn’t want to be seen boastful or being made fun of by their classmates. However, we had a few cocky troublemakers who confidently answered “Clever” which made the whole class roared in laughter. Then, the substitute teacher pointed to a quiet student sitting at one corner. The student quietly stood up and replied, “I am neither stupid nor clever. I am just average” The class went silent for a moment. After that as you can imagined, everyone started answering “I am average” when called upon to give an answer by the teacher.

You see, the quiet student was “thinking out of the box”. He did not fall for the teacher’s restricted choices - ie: either “you are clever or stupid”. The student rose above that and gave his own answer. Neither his teacher or his classmates expected that. The teacher’s technique is a common technique by NLPers. Basically, it is like a manipulative tool that constructively influence a person’s decision making. The theory is that most people prefer to follow rather than to lead. Just imagine if you ask your spouse, “What do you feel like having for lunch?”. Your spouse would most likely answer, “I don’t know. Why don’t you decide” or “I will eat whatever you eat” or the universal answer “Anything will do”. You see, this is not really an answer isn’t it? What the NLPers will do in such circumstances is that they will restrict that answer into what they want by asking, “Do you want to go for Western cuisine or Japanese?” Now the choices have been restricted, it is either Western food or Japanese food. When given such choices, most likely the person will chose one of the two and you don’t need to split hair to make a decision just for lunch!

Touching stories from school

Here are some touching stories which either been told to me or I have seen it first hand:-

Touching story from school #1

One day, Jennifer was in our children’s school canteen (Sekolah Kebangsaan Seri Hartamas) when she saw a young boy about 7 years old (Standard 1), queuing up to buy his food. He wanted a plate of rice with a piece of chicken and some curry gravy. All he had was just RM2.00. When the canteen operator handed him the food, he handed the RM2.00 to the canteen operator. The canteen operator shook his head and told him in a polite manner, it is RM2.50 for that plate of rice with a piece of chicken. The boy who was hungry enquired how much would the plate of rice cost without the chicken. The man replied it will be RM1.00. The boy requested the canteen operator to remove the chicken and he would just have the rice and gravy. While all of this was happening, there was a school teacher and parent observing the scene from behind. Both of them immediately told the canteen operator to leave that piece of chicken on the plate. The school teacher went even further to ask the boy not to hand the plate to the canteen operator. The other parent was seen reaching into his pocket wanting to pay for the boy’s food. However, for some reason, the canteen operator took the RM2.00 and the boy got to keep his plate of rice with chicken curry.

What I find really fascinating about this story was that the adults came together to help the boy. There was empathy all around. We have discussed about empathy in Mediation, well, the school teacher and the parent certainly emphatised with the boy. Contrast this story with the one I am going to relate below.

Touching story #2

I remembered when I was in primary school, we used to hold class party at the end of the school term. The teacher would ask the students to bring either a dish or drinks to class to be shared. I remembered there were a few students who did not bring any of the items to school. The teacher would make the students stand and formed a row in front of their friends in the classroom. Each student will then hold an empty plate in front of them as if they were beggars. Once all the food had been distributed, the remaining or extra food will be placed on the empty plates belonging to those students standing in front. The teacher felt that the students should be punished as they did not contribute any food or drinks to the class. What the teacher had neglected to do was to find out why the students did not contribute. If it was done on purpose, then I suppose I can agree about the so called “punishment” but you see, I didn’t know the full story until I heard from one of my classmates who got “punished” on that day.

This classmate of mine came from a rather poor family background. He knew that if he was to inform his mum about bringing food or drinks to class, it would be a heavy financial burden and effort on his mum. As it was, placing food every night on the dining table in the house was already a daunting task. Therefore, he decided to remain quiet and not to allow his mum to worry. This classmate had tears in his eyes when he told me this. In fact, he refused to eat any of the  food placed on his plate by the teacher. He had pride and he didn’t want to beg or being pitied.

That is why when we talked about Mediation, we always say that the Mediator must find the “underlying reason” why did the people act the way they did. There must be a reason for it. As the Mediator, it is our job to find out that “underlying reason” and not make assumptions. If we look at the above story, the matter could be better handled if the teacher made the effort to find out the cause of not bringing food or drinks to be shared in class. Many disputes could be avoided if we only make the effort of finding out the "real cause" of the dispute rather than what we see in the surface.