Relax lah!

Kids nowadays seemed none too nervous about upcoming exams. My tuition kids are all taking it easy while the parents and me are the ones who are worried. Maybe their parents nagged at them too much so whatever I said, or however I threatened, the kids will give me a look, like "I've heard that before" or "You're repeating yourself" or "I'm just pretending to listen to you."

I have two tuition kids. One is taking her PSLE next week, and the other, a boy, is in primary four, with exams just 3 weeks away.

Compared to other tuition kids I had before, this 12-year-old girl is considered one of the better ones. She does all the work I gave her and is not shy to ask questions. However, when it comes to exams, I'm not sure if she's feeling the stress or what, she seems to have some kind of mental block. She will forget the answers to some of the most basic questions. It seems to get worse as the exam date gets closer.

She asked me during last evening's lesson, one week before her Science PSLE... "The Sun rises from the West, right?"

I didn't know if she was trying my patience or genuinely trying to give me a heart attack. The look I gave her must be of complete disbelief and utter horror, that she quickly tried to reassure me,"Ok, ok. Erm... I think not hor? The Sun doesn't rise from the West... er.... right?" But she still didn't sound very confident.

The 10-year-old chubby boy is the classic kind. He's the kid that best represents most of us when we were young... thinks the whole world is evil by forcing him to study and do homework all the time, while all he wants is to play Maple Story and his Pokemon cards, and watch TV.

He strongly feels that students should have the rights to choose when to study, when to have exams, what subjects to study, and also which questions to do in the test papers. He thinks that students should sleep as much, and as late as they want to before they get up and go to school. He also feels that students should not be given so much homework that they do not have time to play computer games and watch TV after they get home.

I arrived one afternoon for his lesson when he had just woke up from a nap. I gave him some time to wash up and then followed by some Math questions. He stared at the questions for a while, then looked at me.

"Can don't do Math? My brain very fizzy... cannot think properly."

Did you ever remember telling your tuition teacher that you didn't feel like doing anything he/she gave you?

He cannot remember which Science chapter his teacher stops at, what is the formula for volume... but he can recite to me the whole conversation between Fann Wong and the clerk (where Fann wants to borrow a fan) from the local movie, Just Follow Law (his favourite show), word for word...