Give thanks

Dearest 4G,

term 3 is drawing to an end and Teacher's Day will then mark the end of term 3 come next Friday. I was surfing the net just now before getting down to doing the NJRC stuff and I decided to check out Mr Kwan's blog, since so many of you are playing the games he posted on the blog when I was not paying attention. -_-"'

It suddenly dawned on me that Mr Kwan has been a really nice teacher to you children. I can tell that he really cares for each and every one of you and though he is nice, I am really glad that you have not bullied him. (maybe you did, just that I don't know about it... -_-) Though the Malay and Tamil pupils do not have the privilege to be taught by him, I think you can tell he is a really nice teacher. I am sure your respective mother tongue teachers have shown you that level of care and concern too. Anyway, I think you should take the opportunity of Teacher's Day and give thanks to your teachers for all the love, care, concern, effort and time spent in guiding and teaching you. I am not talking about myself. But I feel that as your form teacher, I should take the opportunity to teach you to be appreciative of what others do for you and the people around you.

I once read this article about a professor who went to class with a few items. He took out an empty cup and left it on the table. He then asked his students if the cup was empty. They answered no, since air was inside. He took out some huge stones, and asked them if he could fill the cup with them, since it already contained air. They answered yes. He proceeded to add the huge stones into the cup. He asked his pupils if the cup is full now. They answered yes. He then took out some small pebbles and added them into the cup. He asked the pupils again if the cup was full. Again, they answered yes. Next, he took out a cup of sand and poured it in. Once again, he asked if the cup was full. And again, they said yes. He told them it was not. He then poured his cup of coffee into the cup.

The professor was trying to teach his pupils that sometimes, the big things in our lives make us think that we do not have time for other things. However, there are many other things that matter more in our lives. But because of the fact that they are smaller, we do not pay much attention to them and most of the time, we would live in regret for not giving it much attention. For example, you quarrelled with a friend over an important project. You think that the project is the most important thing in your life and because of that, you lose a good friend. The project may seemed important at that point in time, but when you lost that friend, it was a permanent loss. Which one do you think should have mattered more to you?

Pay more attention to the people around you and be appreciative of who they are and what they do for you. So take the opportunity and give thanks to the teachers who have taught you, whether is it this year or last year or the year before. Tell them that you know that they have given their all to you when teaching you and you appreciate it.

On a final note, I want to thank the 7 people (Peiyu, Jolynn, Huixin, WeiJuan, Joey, Wani and Yan Jun) for staying back to help out with my NJRC today. I really don't know what I would have done without the wonderful help all of you. Thank you very much. We shall have a good meal when the Entrepreneurship competition is over. And to the rest of you, thank you for the wonderful time in class. I really enjoyed teaching you. ^_^

I have given thanks. Now its your turn!


Ms Lye