It's below freezing temperatures in the ER right now. 5:45am. I shall attempt to write something coherent. :)

My impressions of the RJC incident ( only got the audio bit, but I can picture it quite clearly ):

1. The teacher was not ranting as stated by some people in the media.

2. A list of valid reasons was given for her displeasure, most important of which is a bad work attitude -- ie. tardiness in handing up work, ignoring instructions given, repeatedly I might add.

3. The fact that this student was taking GP remedial lessons is something I don't recall reading about in the news. Why was it left out?

Most people would've taken sides by now, and in my opinion, few will change their minds whether they've seen / heard this tape or not. However, in my case, the clip has strengthened my support for the teacher.

It is clear to me that she's given this student many chances in the past. I didn't even hear about remedial lessons during my years in RJC, so this fellow is obviously doing poorly in the subject. And who do you think is conducting these remedials? The teacher herself, of course.

She alluded to a repetitive pattern of "defiance". With her long experience in teaching, plus a career spent with intelligent young people in Singapore's top college, many of whom probably made her love teaching even more, and continue to respect her to this day, how do you think she feels when a student shows a blatant lack of appreciation for all her efforts, and compounds it by handing in shoddy work?

Her words demonstrate the great frustration she's experiencing, but her tone was anything but "ranting" in nature. In fact, I think she was actually rather calm. I wouldn't have thought it anything out of the ordinary. It was indeed unfortunate that someone was mean enough to record this and put it on the Internet.

Another slew of letters appeared in The Forum Page today, again slamming the teacher's behaviour. The 2 schools of thought are divided thus: 1) the teacher was wrong because her method of discipline would "break the student's spirit", which will scar him for life and render her an ineffective educator ( I'm trying to paraphrase from a whole chunk of opinions that I've read so far ); 2) the teacher was right because the student deserved such a scolding, and this incident occurred only because she cared for his welfare -- hopefully, in the long run, he will recognize this.

The "vandalism" bit brought up by a few people is utter nonsense to me, so I'm not even going to discuss that.

The way I see it, this student would've suffered a lot more if his teacher decided to let him be, instead of trying to get through to him. Doesn't anyone wonder how much has been accumulating before resulting in this outburst? For all we know, she's taken him aside on numerous occasions to point out his mistakes, to no avail. Normal human beings don't lose their tempers like this at the very first infraction.

Sanjeev Kumar talked about the danger of creating an "emotionally fragile" generation for the future. Sadly, I already see it now, as more and more young children succumb to being pampered and spoilt, and being raised by domestic maids who let them run riot while their parents are busy working and coddle them even more on the weekends. Fast forward to National Service. Drill sergeants making you feel like crap every single day for 2 years, not allowing you to go home for all sorts of horrible reasons, making you feel more insignificant than that slug you just stepped on. I see so many of them reacting badly to this sort of treatment, with some literally sobbing so I will give them MC and let them stay out of camp for a few days. Guess they can't videotape their training officers eh?

In my profession, I see each new batch of housemen getting softer and softer -- falling sick after doing half the number of calls we used to slog through, not carrying out their specified duties because they know their MOs will do it eventually, deliberately switching off their pagers during night calls without even worrying what their seniors will do to them, and worst of all, not bothering to change their ways or giving you dirty looks when you point out their flaws.

I tell you this from personal experience. I've worked with some of the most capable housemen in my 3 years as an MO, but I've also seen enough of the terrible ones to know when my night calls or ward rounds are going to give me insomnia and gastric pain respectively. As I said before, my temperament at work is usually benign, but I cracked for the first time during my last posting, when a house officer committed all the abovementioned offences, then refused to apologize and even lied to cover his tracks. Scolding only drew blank looks, so I filed a formal complaint ( again a first for me ), and his team registrar and consultants stepped in.

Thankfully, he changed his ways after that, and we were on speaking terms before the posting ended. I'm not happy about reacting the way I did that night, but I hope that it taught him something about his bad work habits, and that he'll remember this when he faces his own irresponsible houseman ( which he will ) in the future.

Did I yell at him in order to gratify myself by venting on someone? Did I do it to embarrass him? Of course not. Just as the RJC teacher had her breaking point, I had mine. And the reasons we break is because we actually care about the person, or the person's actions. The teacher was trying to help him pass GP, a very important college subject that will also be of great use to him later in life. As for me, I wanted the houseman to, once and for all, have some insight into his wrongdoing, and drum into his brain the fact that all his actions are endangering the lives of his patients.

My mom, a teacher nearing retirement, told me today that she threw or tore her pupils' books as recently as a year or two ago. She scolds, slaps and gives detention whenever it's warranted. Want to know how parents reacted? They told her to continue, with their blessings. How about the pupils themselves? They gave her presents on Teacher's Day. Even better, they started working hard, and passed with flying colours. When the results came out, they told my mother that if it weren't for her repeated disciplining, they would definitely have failed.

It isn't about "emotional fragility". It's about weakness and denial, two traits that will be the downfall of our youth if it is allowed to fester.

I'll stop writing about this unless a new issue arises. But please, those of you who want to nitpick and criticize this teacher's methods, put yourself in her shoes, or in my mother's or my shoes. I'd be very surprised if you managed to contain yourself. If you do, think about whether you're able to because you're a saint, or because you just can't be bothered. I'll say for the record that 99.9% of the time, it's the latter.