Road Not Taken - Personal Response

    I personally feel that this poem is quite difficult to understand and is confusing, and people will have misconceptions as they read the poem. I think that the poem is more about the choice in life, which way we should choose the right path in life. Some paths are different from others, for example, the path the poet took was less travelled by then the one he did not take, but it will take some time to understand whether one had chose the correct choice. Also, it is mostly unable to be redone, as the poet had said that he doubted that he will ever come back to the same place.  

Making someone happy - Recount

    "Weihan, go and study. Stop playing computer games." My father's voice erupted my train of thoughts. I looked up from the computer screen and saw my father looming above me.

    "One more level! Please, Dad!" I cried. I was so close to leveling up! 

    "No!" My father's voice was firm. It was definitely important to get a good result for my PSLE examinations, but I was unwilling to leave my computer and start studying. Having no choice but to return to my room to study, I switched off the computer and left, dejected. 

     In my room, I stared blankly at all the books for the subjects. Where should I start from? It was so hard to choose which subject I should start from. I couldn't concentrate, still thinking about my computer game. Just then, I heard my parents arguing. "You can't just make him study. He will not be able to concentrate. Let him have some break and games for some time!" My mother was saying. 

     "No. I am doing it for him. And if he is tired he can rest for a while! I didn't have computers in the past when I am studying." My father was as usual, firm and determined.  

     "Alright, for my parents and for myself, time to study!" After listening to my parents, I decided that I will need a better education in Secondary school. It will surely lead to having better opportunities in the future, and thus being filial to my parents by making their life better. Examinations were more important than computer games anyway.

     Thus, I started to study. Days after days, I read through all my books and remember every formula for maths. Completely different from my classmates, who continued to play computer games and discussing about computer games. Many did not study at all, and I had to avoid the temptation of getting addicted to playing computer games again. 

     Finally, my hard work paid off. I was confident in all the examinations, and I was able to answer almost all the questions. Compared to many of my classmates, I would say that I did well. At the day of the result-announcing, I was surprised to see my name on the above 250 T-score. Wow! I was able to get above 250! I was excited. I rushed home and showed my results to my father. He was very happy. But, more importantly, I can have a better education and can make my parents even more happy in the future if I work hard! The sacrifice of computer games really paid off. It even made my father happy, but it will be more important for me than my father.

Character development or academic excellence

     Education is very important in our life. In schools, the two main part of education are character development and academic excellence. In Hwa Chong, academic excellence will be including our daily subjects, such as Language Arts, Maths, Science and Chinese. On the other hand, character development might refer to Arts, and other lessons that build our character. Currently, there is an emphasis on academic excellence. However, I have to agree that schools should be placed more emphasis on character development than academic excellence. Firstly, it will affect our relationship with others. Secondly, we will be healthier. However, without academic excellence, our life will be harsher. 

     Firstly, character development is important as it affects how well we can communicate, and more importantly, have a good relationship with others. We have AAT lessons, they help to improve our thinking. With the help of the AAT tools such as the Habits of Mind and the use of Socratic Questioning, we will be able to understand ourselves, and understand others better. This allows us to communicate with others. For example, Steve Jobs was the former Chief Executive Officer of the Apple company. He was able to understand the customers, know what they want. He was also able to communicate well with people, thus able to promote his products. He did not succeed in his studies, showing that academic excellence is not as important as character development. This also showed that it is important to be able to communicate well, and by having more emphasis on character development, it will be easier to succeed in the future.

      Secondly, character development will improve our health. Singapore is a fast-paced country, everyday we are rushed and stressed, thus leading us to be ill easily. Character development will be important. PE, Music and Art, they develop our character. Sports can keep us more healthy, as we need to exercise for a period of time per week. Music and art, if we can appreciate them after lessons, we will be able to relax ourselves, being less stressed. Illness is mostly because of our mind, if we are in a better state, we will be less likely to fall ill. Thus, character development will improve our health and more emphasis should be placed on it.

      However, we need some academic excellence so that we can achieve things. Teachers need to have knowledge to teach, we will need some maths in the future, be it being checking for errors in receipts, or being a scientist. It is important to have academic excellence so that we can achieve better results. 

      Even though academic excellence is important, there are many examples of people who did not have academic excellence, but was able to achieve great results. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and even Albert Einstein, they did not complete their education but that did not stop them from succeeding. It is more important to have a    resilient heart, to never give up and give in to failure. IQ can get us a job. But it is necessary to have EQ to get a promotion. We might need academic excellence to make a step forward, but it is even more important to have character development to take more steps forward. We might not have the step forward for academic excellence, but we will need character development to pull us through. Thus, schools should place more emphasis on character development than academic excellence.

The Ideal School - Expository Writing

    An ideal school, one that will be the perfect for developing us students, the one which we will be most comfortable in studying in and one that allow us to explore and find out our weaknesses and strengths. Who will not want to study in such a school? To me, an ideal school will need to have good teachers, peers who are good influence and have facilities for learning in perfect condition.

     Firstly, for students to learn, we need to have teachers that teach us. Teachers should be friendly, should be willing to pass the knowledge to us, and should be able to engage us into the lessons by making them more interesting. Nikos Kazantzakis, a Greek writer and philosopher of the 20th century, said, "Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own." This showed that teachers also need to be able to help us students study well and be a use for the society. Thus, teachers are important in our life as they play an important role in teaching us.

     Secondly, we need to have ideal peers. There is a Chinese saying that "进朱者赤，进墨者黑”, which means that good friends have good influence and bad friends have bad influence. Nobody will want to have friends that are bad influence. Most students stray for the rightful road because of friends with bad influence, they might convince us to smoke, drink alcohol and even take drugs! This will cause a dent in our life, our life will change because of our friends. We should make a good choice and choose the right friend. Thus, friends and classmates will make a different, and in an ideal school, they will be as important as our teachers.

      Thirdly, an ideal school should have excellent facilities. An ideal school will definitely not have just 4 classrooms for 5,000 students! Also, other facilities might include the lighting, the ventilation and other support facilities such as rooms for science experiments and rooms for computer lessons.  Also, technology can be added to allow the school to have better facilities, just like the Future School @ HCI, where we use computers to help in our learning. This helps in the future, since the technology in the world is getting better, we will need to use technology in the future. Therefore, facilities can make a difference in our life and an ideal school will need to have excellent facilities, which should be in good working condition for us to use.

      In conclusion, an ideal school will need to be a place where we can not only study well, but also a place where we can make good friends that can affect our future. Although having excellent facilities might not be as important as good friends or good teachers, it can affect as in the future. Therefore, an ideal school should have good teachers and friends, as well as good facilities.