Managed to get the last copy from the news stands after braving the horrible rains of the day…
Here you go, for those who missed it… (or who like me, usually don’t read The New Paper)
By Gloria Chandy, published in ‘The New Paper’ , 19 December 2006
When the students and staff of Singapore Chinese Girls’ School (SCGS) gathered to wish their popular principal goodbye on 27 Oct, they waved paper flags with her caricature on it. \
It was one that Miss Rosalind Heng had drawn herself four years earlier - on a quirky card to mark Teachers’ Day.
Over 100 staff and students who took part in the Great Eastern Run a few days later were also cheered on by supporters waving the same flag.
“They unfurled a banner with the caricature on it, over the words: This one’s for you, Miss Heng!” ssays the head mistress, clearly touched.
The humorous self-portrait, a homage paid by teachers and girls, is a measure of the woman she is.
Miss Heng, 61, will leave her post as teacher, principal, mentor, friend and one of this country’s longest-serving head mistress on 31 Dec after 38 years of service.
The well-loved head of one of Singapore’s premier schools is looking forward to what she calls “sweet release” from the years of stress.
That’s her little joke.
But what she will miss, she says, her eyes moisting slightly, are the girls - thousands of whom have passed under her firm but benevolent gaze. She chuckles as she mulls over how fruitful it has been.
“We have a school motto,” she says. “It’s Sincerity, Courage, Generosity, Service. But if I’d had my way it would have been this she says, tongue in cheeck: ‘We don’t breed brats’.”
She doesn’t suffer obnoxiousness in kids and tolerates it even less in their parents.
“I’ve had to counsel parents as well as students,” she says, musing over her years at the helm. “While 95 per cent of the parents were excellent, there were always those few who needed a talking to more than their children did.”
She’s taught through two generations of students.
And none is likely to forget the teacher/principal who made them believe they could become all they could be.
Likes Mrs Quek Kooi Lian, 52, her student once, now an SCGS teacher.
“I heard her voice before I saw her,” she said. “She was shouting at the girls in the next class to get back to their seat. And I dreaded getting her as a teacher.
“But when I did, I found that Miss Heng did more than just textbook teaching. Her history lessons, filled with anecdotes, were so interesting. I was inspired by her to become a teacher to.”
Hundreds of others think of Miss Heng as a kind of feminine Mr Chips.
“This writer knows. I’ve been friends with Guru Besar (head mistress in Malay), as I teasingly call her, for 30 years.
Shucks, had I known that surg SIP Was going to be that slack that day, I would have gone back to SCGS later, and made it for the sending off… There was a really nice photo of it in the papers, there’s this red mini cooper with Ms Heng and the driver (can’t see clearly who it was) and the car was decorated with sashes and teddy bears, with lots and lots of students flanking both sides and waving the SCGS flag… They also had the huge banner bearing the caricature the article mentioned. Sigh.
Those who’ve never studied in SC would never understand why we miss that place so much! It’s more than a place of excellent academics; it’s foremost, a place where the students are taught what REALLY matters in life. Not grades, not awards, but how to be a good person…
Shall end off with our very unique school song…
Glad that I live am I,
That the sky is blue;
Glad for the country lanes
And the fall of dew,
After the sun the rain,
After the rain the sun
This is the way of life
Till the work be done.
All that we need to do,
Be we low or high is to
see that we grow nearer the sky.
You can listen to it here
