Keeping Afloat After the Sinking

The Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on the tragic night of April 14, 1912, and sunk two and a half hours later. 100 years later, I was at Belfast, at the Harland & Wolff shipyard where the Titanic was built. In my hands were copies of the St Louis Post-Dispatch which bore the screaming headlines ‘1302 lives lost when ‘Titanic’ sank; 868 saved, the Russian East-Asiatic Radio telegram (M16307) that read ‘Women and children in boats cannot last much longer’, the music score of the hymn ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ allegedly the last tune played by the ship’s band and even the menu of the luncheon served on that day.

No one could be at the site of a historic disaster and remain unmoved.

On board the Titanic was also a broad spectrum of passengers ranging from millionaires to seekers of fortune in the New World. Each passenger had his own agenda whether he was in a first class room with a marble toilet or a third class open berth sharing toilets made of iron. But then again, irrespective of their status or their private agendas, they were subjected to ‘another agenda’ beyond their control, mainly the gift of life or the end of it. The Titanic had gone down in history as the ship that was unsinkable or ‘designed to be unsinkable’. This reminds me of the frailty of men and Murphy’s law that "anything that can go wrong will go wrong". How many times have we witnessed our well-planned schedule go completely berserk because of an unforeseen circumstance? We all have our good days and our bad days. If we see ourselves in the bigger picture of things, we would save ourselves the agony of mulling around in our own despair when things do not go according to the way we hope or plan. For most professional or personal matters, I like to work within time frames and deadlines. It gives a sense of urgency to knuckle down and tackle a problem head on so as to achieve the desired results. It helps us put up with a less than desirable situation if we know that the ending of it is within realistic time. The Titanic also had survivors who lived on to tell their tales, Margaret (Molly) Brown, an American with Irish ancestry being one of them. Her survival gave her an international platform to talk about political and social issues like miners’ rights, women’s rights and the development of the juvenile court system. Because she was given a second chance in life, she went on to make the most of it. It has been said that she achieved more in life after her brush with death than before it. A second chance in life helps us remember that each day of living is a gift. Then we will be more careful how we choose to live it and how we choose to treat others. We love routine and the familiar, nothing wrong with that. But sometimes making the effort to step out of our comfort zone will bring us to a different kind of experience. It is easier to have tea with your buddies than to arrange to have tea with someone new. It is easier to give up hoping to make friends than to try and try again. It is easier to buy things for yourself than to think of buying or making something for another person even though there is no special occasion. It is easier to look down at the pavement when you walk down the street than to look up and greet another passer-by We could be many things if we make the concerted effort to step out of our familiar selves once in a while. We could be that Stradivarius violin that had been kept hidden all this time. Unless it is played, no one can know its potential. Nothing makes me happier then when someone comes up to tell me that I have brightened her day or that I have stood beside her when she was broken. No one would ever wish for a disaster to happen and yet when it does it shakes us up to re-examine our lives, our relationship with others and our concept of time. Ironically death has the uncanny power to jolt us to the reality of how precious life is. Many times we put off topping up the petrol tank in our cars and then become anxious when the red light comes on and we worry whether the car will stall. The people we live with or we mix with do not come with bright red warning lights, but they do give us signals when they are running low. Many times, we fail to pick up these signals until it is too late.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/keeping-afloat-after-the-sinking-1.85769

Teachers' Day: Teachers do not know everything

LEARNING Mandarin is the trend in Ireland these days. This is a spin-off from a recent visit by Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping and his delegation of 150 business leaders and government officials to Ireland to foster trade between the two countries. As I sat at the back of a classroom watching a teacher from Shanghai teaching Mandarin to a group of Irish, I saw that she had to contend with students whose ages ranged from 5 to 40 within a class. She also had to deal with the Irish-Chinese who spoke some Mandarin, and Irish-Africans and Irish-Hispanics who had no knowledge of the language. There was even a child bawling his eyes out because of first-day blues. Yet, the teacher encouraged her students and conducted the class with great patience and I was greatly impressed. Unfortunately, for every effective teacher there are many others who chose teaching for reasons other than the passion for teaching. Sometimes, teachers forget that students are people too. Harsh words and labels can crush a child’s self-esteem. It is said that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”. This is absolutely not true judging from my memories of how some teachers spoke to us when we were young.

I had a primary school teacher who never quite liked me. She asked me to go to the office to bring back a map of Asia to the classroom. As all the maps were rolled up and stacked at one corner of the office, I took some time to find the right one and bring it back to class, only to be snarled at. She said: “What took you so long? Did you go to China?”

Even Physical Education time had its blues. I was into netball and because of my height, I was the shooter. It was my first try at the game, so I had trouble shooting the ball into the hoop. All I could hear in the background was a teacher yelling “Butterfingers! Butterfingers!” When my friends forgot to bring their shorts, the teacher made them run in their knickers. The richer children who had nice, store-bought terry towelling panties did not have much of a problem compared to those who wore home-made floral, polka-dotted or striped cotton panties that were big and secured at the waist with elastic bands. That stigma can haunt a child for her entire school life. Callous words still abound. Personality clashes between teachers and students exist. Worse still, there are teachers who practise favouritism. I can still remember one female Form Six teacher who always singled out a dashing student in Literature class. The rest of us felt that we never existed in her class. At the other extreme, the Economics teacher never spoke to a brilliant student because he challenged her on an issue once. She excluded him from all her discussions and we could feel the tension for the 1½ years during class. I have friends who left school early because of bad experiences with teachers. A teacher, who is sensitive to a child’s need and presence, is an encouragement to a young spirit. Conversely, a teacher, who continually puts a child down, limits his advancement. Children learn to be part of the adult world through experiences. A quiet teacher may find a vocal student a threat. A conservative teacher is uncomfortable with a student who is creative in expressing herself. We need teachers, who not only accept themselves first, but also accept differences in others. There is a link between the inner development and self-understanding of the teacher and what education is all about. It takes professional courage, commitment, interest and the humility to acknowledge that teachers do not know everything. Happy Teachers’ Day!

Read more: TEACHERS’ DAY: ‘Teachers do not know everything’ - Learning Curve - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/channels/learning-curve/teachers-day-teachers-do-not-know-everything-1.83388#ixzz1vMHBLJ7B

DRAWING THE LINE ON GOOD PARENTING

WHEN we first bought a chinchilla for a pet, we fussed over her and gave her an interesting diet of grains packaged under the name of Charlie Chinchilla. Now, this particular type of chinchilla food came in an assortment of colours -- red, orange, green and brown -- all mixed together. So, she feasted happily on the grains, but we noticed that she was leaving out the brown ones. We suspected that the brown ones took longer to chew and being smart and picky, she chose all the other colours. As types of pet food go, some suppliers will stop importing some brands. So, when we discovered that Charlie Chinchilla was no longer available at our local store, we had to buy a different brand. Just like babies being weaned off a certain brand of milk for another, we had to do the same for the chinchilla. This is called "challenging" where we mix pet food from the familiar brand with the new brand, and slowly decrease the portion of food from the familiar brand and concurrently increase the portion of the new pet food brand. To make the situation more difficult, we discovered that the new brand had only the brown grains that the chinchilla rejected. We watched anxiously as we saw, how true to her nature, the chinchilla would unearth the coloured grains even when we buried them beneath the brown grains. I was starting to get worried. What if she rejected the new brand altogether and died of starvation? I would carry that guilt with me all the way to my grave. Then Audrey, my 18-year-old said: "Don't worry mum. If she is hungry she will eat." On the first day, when the coloured grains ran out, the chinchilla took a look at the brown stuff and scampered away. On the second day, she even climbed over the food bowl to pee over the brown grains. Then she rolled up into a ball, went to the corner of her cage to sulk. She was making a statement indeed. Was I worried? Yes. I was already wrecking my brain on whether I should take a two-hour drive to another pet store. I had heard that they stock up Charlie Chinchilla pet food over there. On the third day of the hunger strike, a miracle happened. I saw the chinchilla take the brown grains into her padded paws and slowly, but surely, began to stuff them hungrily into her little mouth. This reminds me so much about how we bring up our children. Most modern day parents tend to spoil their children rotten, giving in to their whims and fancies. We see children throwing tantrums at supermarkets, students challenging teachers, children shouting at their parents, children challenging teachers, parents blindly defending their children and the list goes on. There is a proverb that says "Train up a child the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it". How true. I have seen how boundaries help mould a child's character and how discipline, that goes hand in hand with love, produces responsible and stable adults.

Professor Amy Chua's method of discipline in her controversial book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother speaks about how we should imbue our children with living skills rather than molly coddling them in the name of love. I have read the book and seen in talk shows over the television how Irish parents fight over her methods. For those who argue incessantly that the child should be worshipped and put on a pedestal, I would like to hear their views again in 30 years' time when that child becomes a man. Although I do not totally agree with Professor Chua's methods, I agree with the underlying principle that a parent's dedication to train a child right and to prepare him to embrace his future independently will not go unrewarded. As parents, it is not easy to do the "right" thing when others are simply pleasing their children for fear of retaliation or of losing them. The strict but loving parent, who teaches basic values and manners, who chooses to draw the demarcation line of who is the parent and who is the child, is sadly labelled as the ogre of today. With Mothers Day coming up, I am reminded of my strict and loving parents who taught me the meaning of building relationships, independence, self worth, perseverance and tenacity, and I have passed on the legacy to the next generation. I can never thank them enough. Read more: Drawing the line on good parenting - Politics - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/nation/politics/drawing-the-line-on-good-parenting-1.81055#ixzz1u5JGXDsh