It's the start of a new school year at the Saturday program where I volunteer. It's called LIFE: Learning is Fun and Exciting. With each semester comes a lot of planning, a lot of frustration, a lot of fun, and a lot of learning. Sometimes I wonder what progress we're making with the 6-12 year olds.
We only see them once a week - and that's when school's on. What impact could we possibly make? And when I waver, I think of lessons I've learned from a 9-year-old boy: a boy who taught me to connect, to seek to understand, and to persist. A boy who has become a reminder of why I continue to volunteer at Whampoa with Beyond Social Services.
The first time I met Hamid (not his real name), he was 9 and I had just started volunteerig.
When the other kids were sitting down and doing – whatever – reading, writing, making things. Hamid would suddenly jump out of his seat, run around, bang on tables, throw chairs. He would swear – in Malay. Loud and often. He would call the other kids names. And he’d do that to the volunteers too, myself included. Then some of the other kids would follow. I’d come home from those sessions tired and disturbed.
“Why do you bother?” one of my friends said. “These kids from low income homes – they’ve got too many issues. You can’t change them – and you’ll just get upset.”
Why exactly? I don’t know. Probably because I was privileged enough to have had great teachers that made me love learning outside the classroom. Adults who exposed me to concerts, plays, books. And I wanted to pass that along.
At the weekend learning program, we make learning fun for primary school kids from low income homes - in a totally non-academic, weekend sort of way. For instance - after a volcanic eruption in Indonesian a few years ago, we made a plasticine volcano, filled it with red food colouring and baking soda mixture so that when you add water, “lava” bubbles up. Then we have the kids read about and discuss volcanoes. Have them learn how to learn.
The kids were already rambunctious. And Hamid was often a disruptive influence. At first, I would work around them and be grateful if there wasn't trouble. A year into the program, I found him trying to write an English composition assignment for school. The topic: my favourite holiday.
He said he had no idea what to write.
"How about I interview and record you like I'm a reporter and you're on TV news?"
He said OK. Then I turned the iPhone recorder on. He smiled shyly, and he spoke.
He aspired to be a football player. His favourite team was Man U. Of course. He represented his school at sepak takraw. He’d been to Malacca to compete. They’d lost. But what mattered was that they’d showed teamwork. He liked mcdonalds. He wanted to be a policeman when he grew up.
I played the video back to him and showed him that he had an outline for his essay. We talked. He wrote.
More importantly, Hamid finally became more three-dimensional to me. Not a loud skinny kid who instigated other kids.
Working with him became slightly easier after that. He’d still blow up – but less often. And he’d also help keep the other kids in order. That’s when I learned lesson #1: to lead, you have to build trust. To build trust, you have to connect. To connect, you have to care.
What next? Because Hamid was also part of other Beyond programs, I decided to exchange notes with a social worker who worked with him. She told me that Hamid had credibility with the other kids. But that he also had a tough home life. He was the oldest of 5 and was often left at home looking after the three boys and a girl while his mother was at work. A pretty heavy responsibility for anyone - let alone a pre-teen. I'd go crazy too.
Now that I had a bit more context, I could understand why he was so angry all the time. I realised he hated academics so I asked him what he wanted to to learn. He said he wanted to play chess. We got a volunteer to teach him. And I brought him to see grandmaster Gary Kasparov speak when Kasparov came to Singapore. He was rapt. Lesson #2: To be understood - seek to understand.
In the intervening months, and years, Hamid seemed to mature. It wasn't just our program of course, there were the social workers, his school, his sports coach all working with him. There were still issues, but he was more respectful, more calm.
He passed his PSLE. Ended up in Normal Technical. He's now 15. I don’t see him much now as I work with the primary school kids. But I know he’s in the school football team and still part of Beyond. And here’s my last Hamid story.
A couple years ago, he won an award: $400 voucher to buy a bike. He took the voucher home, gave it to his mother for groceries. The social workers asked him he didn’t get that bike he’d wanted to badly.
We need food and things for my family more than I need a bike, he said.
Hamid had started to grow up.
Lesson #3. Never, ever, give up.
I won't sugar coat it- it's tough working with those kids sometimes. I'm drained after each session. But I've gotten so much from them and I've learned so much. Especially from a skinny 9 year old who frustrated and annoyed me - but in the end taught me to care, to understand and to persist.
