Assumption Pathway School - Reflections

(An article I wrote for the upcoming HS newsletter, which will be summarized to fit the 200 word limit... here's the article in all its glory. Haha..)

Many of us in Singapore take education for granted, assuming that our children like us, would go through kindergarten, primary school and up till secondary school at least. What happens when a child’s grades do not qualify him/her to get into a secondary school even after several tries?

Healthserve has recently finished conducting a course of 10 weeks that teaches basic life-skills to students in Assumption Pathway School (APS). APS is vocational school that takes in students that have not gotten placements in the secondary schools and trains them in practical skills such as hair-dressing and pastry making, skills that will hopefully prove useful in providing future employment. The team goes there twice a week, each session employing a group of five or more volunteers led by Fong Lin, an active volunteer and certified life-skills trainer, to a class of approximately thirty students. The volunteer to student ratio is deliberately kept high to complement the curriculum that seeks to instill positive mindsets and values through good role-modelling and mentorship.

Initially I was a little weary about helping out in such a school, getting an impression from the teachers themselves about how the students can be such ruffians, streetwise and merciless to those who are weak or gullible. However, within the first few sessions I found them to be like any other group of young people, forthcoming and lively – as prone to breaking out in laughter as to flaring up in temper over slight teasing. Behind the come-what-may attitude many of them adopt, they are simply young people trying to deal with their circumstances the best way they know how. Issues like broken homes, dysfunctional families, autistic disorders and poverty are just some of the range of problems these youths face on a daily basis. Hearing such dramatic/unimaginable stories being told and brushed off by students as a fact of life can be disconcerting, and a sense of hopelessness sometimes follows as I am faced with the littleness of what I can do to help.

Nonetheless, the response of the students has been very encouraging. Relatively attentive and participative in the weekly lessons, their readiness to engage in relationships with the volunteers and even organized a celebration for all the volunteers at the end of the term. At the celebration, all of them mustered their culinary and hospitality skills to serve us a delicious treat of spaghetti and pastry desserts. Seeing their enthusiasm in setting up the celebration for us helped me see that even through something as small as offering an empathetic ear, those few minutes of listening will go the distance. As a clichéd but true saying goes “people don’t care how much you know, till they know how much you care”.

Looking forward, the principal of the school – Mr Wee Tat Chuen, has agreed to let us continue running this course till the end of the year with this same group of students. Hopefully, the relationships that have been fostered will continue to grow and make a lasting impact.