Recently, my son, Howie, graduated from secondary school. It made me reflect on how much my little baby boy has grown so much. This week’s blog post is dedicated to him. At an opportune time, I will share this with him and give him a nice surprise.
“““““““““` message to my son “““““““““
Dear Howie,
Seeing you evolve from a shy, plump cute little boy into a teenager who is well loved by his teachers and friends, is very heartwarming.
Your life long learning journey began from kindergarten to primary school, and most recently, secondary school. As you prepare for your ‘O’ levels, I want you to keep on doing your best and stick to the mantra of 1% better.
Here are the top 10 things I feel you have done well over last 4 years at SST:
- You have learnt to be independent, yet collaborate well with others.
- You have learnt how to be resource and look for help / resources.
- You have learnt to respect deadlines and deliverables; how to manage other people’s expectations and motivate your project mates to cross the final hurdle.
- You have learnt what it’s like be in a leader role through working with other Student Councilors and Guitar Club EXCO.
- You have learnt what is failure and how to bounce back fast and emerge stronger.
- You have learnt how much effort it takes to master a skill; literally hundreds of hours of practice just to perform a musical piece that is a few minutes long.
- You have learnt to be empathetic and grateful; always ready to help others when opportunity presents itself.
- You have learnt how to use digital technologies to help you learn better; I always delight seeing you help me and your mother with IT related troubleshooting, be it the printer / mobile phone / video-editing, etc. Yes, you are more digital literate than I ever was at your age!
- You have learnt that school is much more than just studying subjects for a grade; and got yourself involved with many other facets of school.
- You have begun to learn how to learn online. Just a padawan at this point in time, but I will sign you up for a future LTLO instalment after your O level exams are over.
Your journey ahead will be filled with ups and downs, just like a roller coaster. So long as you continue the path towards lifelong learning, you will pick up useful new skills never go off-track and continue to chug along fine… Enjoy the ride!
Benedict Chia
01 Oct 2022
