Friday 21 November 2014

Sleepless on the Eve of PSLE Result Release

Tomorrow is THE day. Technically, it is 'Today' as it's past midnight, but since it is 1am of 21 November, and I haven't slept yet, I will call it 'Tomorrow'.

The day when PSLE results are released.

Strangely, ever since Coco sat for her PSLE and received her results two years ago, I have developed a 'habit' of losing sleep over PSLE result release, even if I don't have anyone in the family who sat for PSLE that year, like this year.

I am not sure what the feeling is called. It can't be 'excited' because PSLE results can be unpredictable. I am not rooting for a top scholar in the country. There is no expectation of any sort for anyone. Or perhaps, there is. I happened to tutor a motivated boy for a few sessions about two or three weeks just before PSLE. He has been placed on the waiting list for a top boys' school through DSA, and it's no secret that the waiting list offer will be converted to Confirmed Offer (Then why go through the hassle of offering a wait-list?). He didn't need to do any better than he already was. He just wanted to get a better score. I was moved by the boy's intrinsic desire to do well. Two or three weeks was too short a time to do anything substantial, but I was willing to give it a shot if the boy was that motivated.

However, I don't really have anything huge to look forward to. The mother understood that time was a constraint and she didn't expect too much of me. She was happy that the boy managed to learn something new within a short span of time. To claim that I could push up his score by a large margin would be too optimistic. We hope for the best though.

Back to why I lose sleep over PSLE result release, it can't be 'anxious' since I have no one close to me straddling between 'pass' and 'fail' or 'express' and 'normal'.

I am not a Primary 6 teacher who looks forward to receiving her report card, as indicated by the performance of her students, tomorrow.

Maybe I am just a kaypoh.

Or maybe I am indeed 'excited'. I learn more about judgement of standards with each PSLE result release. I learn how to gauge possible T-scores of different students.

Maybe I hope to be surprised.

Whatever it is, I hope that no parent will show his or her disappointment should the child's T-score falls below parents' expectation.

That is the least we can do for our children we claim to love.

No comments: