First Punishment

My girl is in Std 3 and so far she has not been hit by teacher before. Most of her teachers carry a rotan or ruler but most of the time it is only to threaten, she says. However, some naughty boys may be punished with the cane.

My boy is in Std 1. Yesterday, after school he showed me his arm. It was red. I had to ask 101 questions before I could find out why he was hit by teacher. Either because he did not know how to explain it to me in words or because he didn't quite understand what happened. I suspect it is both.

Finally, I was able to figure it out after questioning him. It was because of his Chinese Writing work. Now, usually exercise books will be handed out if you get the writing all correct. Those who make mistakes will have to go to teacher to collect the books. The boy made a mistake. He forgot to include a stroke in one of the Chinese Characters. So his book was not returned to him.

However, he did not realise that. He was still searching for his book when teacher called him to the front. "Why didn't you come to collect your book? You waiting to be called?" *Smack* Hit by ruler. She must have hit rather hard too because his arm was red till evening.

I asked him whether anyone else got hit. He said,  yes, one other boy because he made a lot of mistakes.

Well, that is his first punishment for something really minor I would say ie forgetting to collect the book back from teacher.

I really feel very bad for him. It is my fault for not preparing him well enough with his spoken Chinese Language. That is why he sometimes gets into situations like these... because he simply does not understand what is going on. He also has less friends because he can't interact with some of the other children who speaks Mandarin well.

So far he has not attended any Chinese tuition but I am wondering whether he needs it. It is still ok at Std 1 but what about later. Will he have trouble because his basic foundation is not good? I know his Math is very good but when I see how he does it, I know that he gets away by not reading the questions in Chinese. He merely picks up a few keywords and tries to do but he does not fully understand the questions in Chinese. I think he can get away with this in Std 1 but later on it will be hard for him.

I feel frustrated sometimes not being able to coach or guide the kids in Chinese. Sometimes I go like this....

"Ok.. so and so has 3 sets of don't know what book. His friend , don't know what name, never mind, don't worry about the name. When you compare him with his friend, he has 2 sets of this type of book less than his friend. How many books does his friend have?"

With a teacher like that, no wonder he ends up just picking keywords and not fully understanding the question. *Shakes head*