Yesterday, had a meeting with Amir's class teacher. Since Amir has only been in the school for a month and a half, I came to the meeting with no high expectation. So imagine my surprise when I was "presented" with wonderful news about my playful and very manja 9-year-old son. Amir is apparently clever, bright, outspoken and very popular too! "Quite an achievement for someone so new in class," she said. Oh boy oh boy! This is despite his limited fluency in the English language. His teacher said, even his English has improved a lot. That bit I had noticed at home when I hear him reading his books. His only weakness, said the teacher, is his inability to "write on the lines." ??? I really see nothing wrong in that as long as he is writing in straight line. But obviously, it is important to this school. Whatever....
But coming back to Amir. He is quite unique. Everytime I attended a parent-teacher meeting regarding him, I always came out a bit surprised. He never failed to kind of impress me. Even in his exams. (Ask him what he learned in school today? His classic answer is : "Mmmm... entahlah tapi adalah belajar." )
This is my boy who only knew his ABCs (only A to G, mind you) and numbers 1-10 when he was 3.5 years old. Never interested to speak in English. Not interested in books, no matter how colourful they were. When he was almost four, he attended a playschool in England for 3 months and again surprisingly, the teachers told me how participative he was in class. Again, despite his very limited English, he somehow thrived.
Then when we returned to KL, we decided to send him to a newly set-up kindergarten, just behind our house, ran by a Malay lady as we thought we did not want to burden him with too much stress (read:homework) if he was to attend schools like Q-dees, CEC or Smart Reader. We wanted things to be easy for him. But the Malay lady turned out to be a thief. After collecting the fees for the second half of the year, she decided to close the school and ran away with the money! So, Amir never did learn anything from that short 5-month period. He never liked the school in the first place and dreaded to be sent to another school. So we let it be and he was free of school for the next 6 months.
The next year, he attended Smart Reader and again being a playful boy he is, he "graduated" from the school with little knowledge but a lot of friends. He entered Standard 1, still "crawling" in his reading, both BM and English. He was put in the last class after the school assessed him. We were not surprised. For the first six months, he was struggling with his reading and writing but he was good with numbers. Shockingly, came July 2007, just out of the blue, he began to read so well, I was like SHOCKED! By the end of the year, he was number 2 in class and got "promoted" to the second top class for Standard 2. And he continued to do well, always in the top 6 and got promoted again to the top class in Standard 3.
I really don't know how to explain him. When doing his revision at home, he ALWAYS asks for help, as if he knew NOTHING. He hardly had homework. He read Doraemon books, period. But his teachers would comment: Amir seorang yang cerdik.....
When we came here, enrolling him in a Brit international school was a bit worrying. So when the school suggested that he takes ESL program, we were all for it. And amazingly, he is doing good and settling well in school.
I might always be sceptical of him and not easily pleased, despite what others said of him, but let it be known I am always so proud of him.
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