Saturday, March 8, 2008
after reading
mooty's blog post, i kind of wanted to say my piece too.
so ms kuang scolded our class for not including the three-people-who-sit-in-front-of-mooty, and for picking our friends to join our ERP group instead of those whom we shared our reading interests with. and my first reaction is like, what? i think what ms kuang and alot of teachers never realise is that, when we stick to the same group of people all the time, it's not because we are unwilling to work with everyone else and are "elitist", "exclusive" or whatever, but simply because we have better rapport and dynamics with these people, and thus would feel much more comfortable working with them, since past experiences have proven that we work effectively and harmoniously as a group. personally there are alot of people in this class I haven't worked with, whom no one can deny that I consider great friends as well.
i mean, who can blame us for trying to snatch up those people we are sure of working well with right? personally, whenever a teacher asks us to look for a group to work in I would immediately turn to people like mooty, theodore, lian etc. not only because they're my good friends, but because I know that I can work extremely well with these people. that doesn't mean that everyone else I don't turn to, I don't consider a good friend as well right?
and about the three in front. they are, no matter how you look at it, the most exclusive and rigid clique there is in the entire class. like mooty has said, they really do not make an effort to go out and look for groups, and rather turn to each other whenever any group task pops up. people might say that it's our fault that they have ended up like that, that they feel so discriminated by us that they don't feel attached to the class any more or something. i know. but then I think to myself, have i ever gone up to spencer or ryan or even beng's face and told them something like "I WILL NEVER WORK WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU SUCK" or something? of course not. and i'm pretty sure no one in class has actually done such a thing.
instead of blaming the majority all the time, people really have to look at the 3 of them and think whether it's really 4K's fault for discriminating against them, or their own fault for not wanting to integrate themselves into the class. for ryan and spencer, i have no idea how they ended up like that in the first place. no freaking idea. seriously.
of course we all know what happened between 4K and beng. but seriously, is it our fault? we're all objective people, and definitely have not treated beng like that without any rhyme or reason. personally my impression of him took a turn for the worse when he made his English Reading Blog post on the little boy who died cycling (can't remember his name), and said that it was "god opening his eyes and punishing inconsiderate cyclists". I mean, how can anyone with half a heart even bear to say something that horrible? and as time went by, as beng continued to miss things like class-gatherings just because he felt "anti-social", he naturally became more and more detached from the class, and 4K felt as if he was less and less a true member of our united class.
and it's not like we don't give a damn about him. when he got injured in a fight with ryan, we showed a hell lot of concern. people running all the way to the canteen to get him a hot drink, asking him every few minutes whether he was feeling better; we definitely didn't do it just because "the teacher told us to", but because a member of our class was in distress we naturally tried our best to help. a few weeks ago, when beng came back after suddenly crying after PE and not coming to school for the next few days, ms kek and 4K tried to apologise to him and ask him about what happened, but all he chose to do was dao us completely. if you're not even willing to say your piece and try to come to a resolution with the class, what can you even expect us to do about it? in fact. i think he's even bearing a grudge against us now, supremely evident from the way he showed off after getting top in class for the chinese paper.
truly, and most unfortunately, our class has already reached that stage with beng. honestly there's already nothing we can do at this stage, except try our best to integrate him back into the class. and yet, even if he gets through this 1 more year with this supposedly "evil" class of his, who's gonna help him when he goes out into the real world? If he already feels like that in 4K, which honestly has already been as accomodating as possible to him, how is he possibly gonna survive in that harsh and cruel world out there?
if anyone thinks we're in the least bit happy that someone in our class has gotten detached to such an unfortunate stage, that person must be some deluded fool. think of our situation too.
and if you think that we're not doing enough to remedy the situation, let me ask you:
what can we
possibly do?
