The other day, one of my friends was lamenting how strict the Chinese school that her daughter attend was. That got me thinking about my own time at SHS.
One of my most enduring memories of SHS was the good discipline its students had. Sure, there were still bad apples, but overall, the students were well behaved.
The La Salle brothers who used to govern the school played a big part in this. If you really think about it, Brother Albinus never really did cane a lot of people, but the threat of it was enough to make most people shudder and think twice about going against school rules.
This theory was proven true when, after Samuel Tan took over in 1987, discipline began to deteoriate rapidly.
There are advocates today of a non-violent way of disciplining students, and this group of people abhors the use of the cane. In fact, parents even confront teachers if their children get caned. During our time, if our parents ever got to know that Brother Albinus caned us, the assumption was that we have done something very wrong and we got another round of caning!
But I think a key difference about the way the La Salle brothers disciplined us was that they did it out of love, out of care and concern about our education and shaping us into persons of character. Discipline out of rage and hatred will only breed resentment or worse, hatred in return.
Ultimately, I believe for many of us the success that we have today is in no small part due to the discipline we gained when we were in SHS.
2 comments:
"Discipline out of rage and hatred will only breed resentment or worse, hatred in return."
Agreed.
I was below average when I was in Tung Hua Secondary in Form 1. The school itself was not bad, but the class that I was in, doesn't seem to promote competition.
But in Form 2 I transferred to Sacred Heart, due to house move from Abang Barieng to Oya Road Mile 6 1/2.
My mother adamantly told the Education officer that no way shall I be going to Rosli Dhoby, notorious at that time for being a hooligan school.
So off I went to Sacred Heart.
I sat next to Paul Ting, behind Pilo Mandau when I came into 2A3.
There and then I tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate Paul Ting's handwriting. The rest is (cliche as it may sound) history.
I credit Sacred Heart substantially for making what I am now, rightly or wrongly.
I remember after I got my SRP results, looking at the notice board, Abai walked past by. He asked me what I got, I showed him my name and results and blurted "8 units!" He mumbled "Not bad! Not bad!" and walked away.
How's the old man doing now hah?
Heex 2
I was the one who nearly had a fight with Mr. Samual when I was in Form Five.
Because of the incident - the Deputy Minister of Sarawak Education had to get involve ... after the incident, Mr. Samual refuse to let me study in form six and I have to wait for one month.
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