Take 5: 4 October 2017 by Mrs Pang Yen Ping

Good morning Mdm Tan, Mr Lee, Mr Chung, fellow colleagues and all Gessians.

For the month of October, the school value in focus is still Respect. Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. Respect is also about giving due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others.

And for the month of October, the Habit of Mind in focus is Finding Humour. It is said that we can increase our brain power three to fivefold simply by laughing and having fun while working on a problem or confronting a challenge. Humour is a human form of playfulness. It has been found to liberate creativity and provoke higher-order thinking skills such as anticipating, finding novel relationships, visual imaging, and making analogies. People who engage in the mystery of humour have the ability to perceive situations from an original and often interesting vantage point. They tend to initiate humour more often, to place greater value on having a sense of humour, to appreciate and understand others’ humour, and to be verbally playful when interacting with others. Unfortunately, some students find humour in the wrong places — human differences, ineptitude, injurious behaviour, vulgarity, violence, and profanity. They employ laughter to humiliate others and they destroy the environment in the name of fun. Here in Gan Eng Seng School, we want Gessians to acquire the habit of finding humour in a positive sense so that you can distinguish between those situations of human frailty that require compassion and those that truly are funny. We also want Gessians to learn to respect others, respect themselves and respect their environment.

Hence for the month of October, we are going to deliver our Take 5 and High 5 in a novel, fun way to bring you this message through a series of 6 short ‘Respect’ stories. I, Mrs Tay, will start off with the first story today and my colleagues will be continuing with the story series over the next 3 weeks.

So here’s my story…

A surgeon entered the hospital in a hurry after being called in for an urgent operation. He had hurried to the hospital as soon as he received the call, changed into his operating gown and went directly to the operating theatre where he found the boy’s father pacing near the entrance waiting for his arrival.

On seeing him, the father yelled, “Why did you take so long to come? Don’t you know that my son’s life is in danger? Don’t you have any sense of responsibility?”

The doctor smiled and said, “I am sorry. I wasn’t in the hospital and I came as fast as I could after receiving the call and now, I wish you would calm down so that I can do my work”.

“Calm down?! What if your son was in this operating theatre right now? Would you calm down? If your own son dies while waiting for the surgeon to arrive, what will you do?” screamed the father angrily.

The doctor smiled again and replied, “We will do our best. Please calm down and wait for further updates”.

“Giving advice when you’re not concerned is so easy…” murmured the angry father.

The surgery took some hours after which the doctor emerged and announced to the anxious father, “Your son’s operation is a success!”

Without waiting for the father’s reply, he carried on his way running while saying, “If you have any questions, please ask the nurse”.

“Why is he so arrogant? He couldn’t wait some minutes so that I can ask him about my son’s condition.” commented the father to the nurse.

The nurse answered, “His son died yesterday in a road accident. He was at the burial when we called him in for your son’s surgery. And now that he has saved your son’s life, he left running to finish his son’s burial.”

I hope that you found this story meaningful. The moral of this story is simple: Never judge anyone because you never know how their life is and what they’re going through. Always respect others if you want others to respect you.

Before I end my Take 5, here are 2 questions I would like you to take note of so you can reflect on them over the next few days. The first question is, “Can you recall a time when you misjudged someone?” and the second question is, “What did you learn about yourself from that incident?”

Stay tuned for Friday’s story and all the best for your final term exams. Thank you.