Every year, we DIY gifts for teachers' day and has always been a happy occasion for the children and teachers in school. This year was his first year of his formal primary and also the first time celebrating teacher's day with a larger group children of 29. He was so excited that a party was to be held in class to mark the special day. He was even more thrilled when his Art teacher began to ask the students to colour a card and pen words for his favourite teacher. And he drew and wrote in earnest the whole day after school asking me for comments and reaffirming that he made the best card for his favourite teacher!
His enthusiasm continued with a request to buy flowers for his teachers. I counter suggested that it would be more meaningful if we could made paper flowers ourselves. And I found a video clip on how to make paper crepe flower which was so easy to follow ! Although he managed to make one for himself with my help and guidance, my boy thought that his was not so pretty as it should have looked in the video. So I did most of it nevertheless. He contributed his part by gently peeling of each petals and helping me bits of here and there. We made 8 stalks of paper flowers which we bundled each equally to form a bouquet. It was hard work, lots of passion, patience and effort as his fine motor skill always posed a challenge for him in particular the cutting and folding parts. Yet he was so pleased that he made these.
However, he came home feeling sad and lousy that day. Reason being, his favourite teacher did not say a 'Thank you' for his gift and only to other kids. Worse still, he perceived that I should have bought a bigger and expensive present for his teacher like his classmate who gave an electric portable fan. And he commented our DIY gift was 'useless'. Gosh! I was stunned and felt anger encroaching. What kind of value and message this teacher was imparting to my kid? Despite explaining that it was a token of appreciation to honour his teacher and no money or value can measure it, he was still not able to settle down his feeling. I have never seen him so depressed; he washed up, ate his lunch quietly, walked into his bedroom, shut his bedroom door and slept over it.
In the meantime, I quickly wrote a message via Class Dojo to her teacher reminding that she need to correct his wrong perception back school. And she did fortunately (not forgetting the whole matter after a short break of September school holiday). The teacher literally thanked my son for buying the flower, not knowing we made it which my boy then corrected her straight away.
Till now, he still keeps the teacher's day card in his bag .................-_-
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| Blue for his Chinese (co-form) teacher Red for his English (form) teacher |
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