Thursday, April 18, 2013

Don't ruin the future!

Children are the future, they say, and I cannot agree more. Children hold the very power to make or break the future, not just theirs in the long run, but also our own in the short run, say 20 odd years from now. I don't think I'll be dead yet so I'd really like to enjoy my not so distant future especially at my golden ages.
I recently visited a semi-privatised high school in KL and the experience I had with these teenagers...let's just say, I felt the need to blog about this the very instant I drove out of the school premises. I have been visiting a good 20-30 schools in this past 2 months, not to mention my 2 years of teaching PE before this, and never had I met such rude and disrespectful 16 year olds - all 368 of them. And this was a reputable school, a so-called "Sekolah Harapan" (Hopeful School).

At the start of our event, I did my usual sharing of knowledge about exercise and burning calories and strength training, and I kid you not, for every question I threw at these kids, I was met with a resounding "NOOO!". It was their favourite answer for everything!

"Guys are you ready for an awesome workout?" "NOOO!"
"Guys any of you are athletes or play sports?" "NOOO!"

Everything! The negativity alone was enough to tick me off. Then we proceeded with the activity. We had asked some of them to carry some picket boards bearing motivational phrases on them to cheer them on. Not 10 seconds into their training run and these kids started throwing these boards around and whacking each other with them! I was apalled! We also had these smartphones on loan to them to try out an app and before we started running one of them already caused a problem with one of the units. When I asked him "What happened, what did you do?" (In a nice polite way of course, not implying anything to him) and he replied "Hang kei maaa, not my fault also!" ("The phone froze, not my fault also"). I tried fixing the app for him and while I did this he said to me "Samsung of course laaaa, not iPhone also!"...

There was absolutely ZERO respect for these equipment that were on loan to them! That wasn't the end. There's more. During the activity, I was counting out the number of push ups for a group of kids, and one of  them had the nerve to swear at me for every count. His words were so crude so I started counting from zero again. And again. And again until I was pleased.

I don't know about you guys but we were a private company visiting their school for the first time to provide them a FREE training session and the way I was brought up, we treated visitors with respect and politeness. Not with disrespect for another person's private property and negativity.

Oh, I should also mention, that for the FIRST time in the past 2 months, the school celebrated the LAST team with roaring applause and laughter. They were SO glad to be the losers, that completely shot my blood past boiling point!

Parents, I am but a humble 27 year old who is single and have not had children. I do not know what it is like to raise a child. But I have BEEN a child, and a teenager and now a working adult. So forgive me for saying this but dear parents, just what sort of attitude are you guys condoning for your kids? To celebrate negativity? To treat others with disrespect? To have no drive and determination to be the winner? Why?

Please teach your children to be respectful and positive men and women. These are the very ones who will be running the country not too long from now. Your children are a reflection of your parenting, whether you like it or not. They are what you taught them to be.