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| Ai Ling
(left) and Diane win the hearts and
minds of their students. |
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Thian
Ai Ling reaches her office at 6.30 am on weekdays
and does not leave till 6 pm. She also works half-days
on Saturdays. She has been with the same organisation
for over five years — and she simply loves her job.
Ai Ling is Head of the Humanities Department at Crescent Girls’ School.
Diane Goh from Radin Mas Primary School also works long hours. Before she became
Head of the Mathematics Department, she even spent her weekends with her students
on outings and often invited them over to her place.
Since their promotion, Ai Ling and Diane have been given a lighter teaching load,
but they have taken on more responsibilities. Besides overseeing their department’s
programmes, they have to coach and look into the training and development of
the teachers under their charge.
As key members of various organisational committees, they are involved in strategic
planning for the school. There are also many administrative duties, not to mention
student projects and school-wide programmes.
To top it off, they are involved in committees that steer their schools towards
attaining professional standards like the Singapore Quality Class and the People
Developer Standard.
Said Ai Ling, “Besides knowing our craft very well, that is how to maximise
the potential of our students and to prepare them for the future, we have to
enable our schools to become professional bodies by charting new paths and benchmarking
our schools against private organisations.”
Many exciting challenges
“There are so many things that require our attention. It can be a struggle
balancing
our multiple roles,” said Diane.
Added Ai Ling, “Another challenge is working well with groups of people
of different ages — our students, their parents, other teachers and vendors.”
Adopting new technologies can also be a rigorous learning experience. For example,
when Diane’s principal proposed doing a collaborative IT project, Diane
took on the task although she had practically zero IT knowledge and a very tight
deadline. She had to source for an overseas school to work with, and form a team
of primary students to come up with a project idea and then develop a website — all
within three months. This took place in 1998, when advanced technologies were
not common in schools.
After much hard work, Diane and her team developed a virtual zoo with students
in Hawaii. And during her school’s IT Open House, guest of honour Education
Minister Teo Chee Hean was most impressed to witness a live teleconferencing
session.
Ai Ling has also spearheaded many IT projects, one of which was a collaboration
with the Singapore School for the Deaf (SSD) to concep-tualise and produce the
first original sign-language storybook for the SSD students. The storybook has
also been made available on the Internet so that more people can enjoy it.
Making a difference
At the end of the day, teaching is really all about touching lives. To both Diane
and Ai Ling, it means giving their time, attention and even their handphone numbers
to their students. And they have found that their greatest rewards are intangible
ones.
Said Ai Ling, “When my first batch of students entered university, I was
very, very excited and happy for them. They graduated this year and many of them
received first class honours. I’m now looking forward to attending one
of their weddings.”
It warms her heart when her former students visit her every Chinese New Year
and Teachers’ Day, and call and send SMS just to stay in touch.
Diane’s care for her students has also left a deep impact. One year, her
class appealed for her to remain as their form teacher for a third year. And
when they had completed their PSLE and received their results, 34 out of 40 of
them received A*s for mathematics.
“That was one big moment for me. I thought ‘Wow! I’m in the
right
job!’” she said.
Both winners of the Outstanding Youth in Education Award, Diane and Ai Ling hope
to inspire many more young lives in the years to come. |
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| Past
Columns |
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“Some
people think a teacher’s role
is to teach and mark, that’s
all. That was in the past. The teacher’s
role has since evolved....”
Thian
Ai Ling
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