You have done your best!

Standing on the left is SAM with his friends moments before the results were out, not knowing he'd cry later. (Picture: Courtesy of JHM)

I can see a lot of me in him. His hair, his facial features, his body figure… Just like me, his skin tone is a bit dark unlike his big sister and the kid brother, contrasts heavily to his mom’s very fair complexion. Kids are always kids but generally speaking, he is the type of kid that considerably very well-mannered, well-disciplined, charming and easy to handle. Errr… as of me when I was a kid, those traits… in a scale of 1 – 10; I’d give myself 7.5. Yeahhh righhht… may be 5 out of 10. Nope… it can’t be lower than that! He would take any advice from either his teachers or parents literally.

When the mother said he could only lie down at least one-half hour after a meal, he’d time his stopwatch to exactly 30 minutes then he’d lounge around if he had to and had it observed religiously. An Ustazah told him one has to answer to parents’ call even while in-prayer, and he did, then he’d start it all over again. I felt sorry for him and told him to go by with it. I said watching TV is allowed until 8:00 pm only; right on the dot he’d either have it switched off or he’d be doing his school works. 10:00 pm in bed? Precisely on the minute! That is Sam! Sure he is a kind of kid that parents would love to have. In fact Fara and Edrin are no exceptions either; it’s just that I want to focus on Sam in this entry for an obvious reason.

Slightly more than an hour ago, UPSR results were out. Sam sent me text message telling me he’s got 4A 1B, some 10 minutes before I start writing this. I called him up right away and he said he was sorry for not getting straight A’s and he was so depressed with the results. Obvious blemishes in my eyes while talking to him – he talked with that kind of tone of voice apparently not happy with the results, I know he had cried, and very quick I consoled him up telling that was very good already, nothing to be sorry and I was equally happy as him getting all A’s.

Regardless of the results he’s got, I am actually very happy considering his promising performance months before the actual exams took place. Rather unfortunate he didn’t make it all A’s. I’ve never made a pass to him letting out my expectation as not to pressure him up and in the first place, straight A’s isn’t the scale I measure things up anyway. I regularly went through checking all the topics on the syllabus for each subject months before the exams making sure he knows what he had learned whilst the bigger contributions had been by his mother, to patiently be by his side as he finishes his home works every night and to reward him with a cup (read: mug) of milo moments before going to bed. We both parents knew he didn’t need tuitions when he was coping well with it. The existing loads at school are already too much for him to bear apart from having to attend religious school in the afternoon. I tried my best giving him maximum time to play, especially riding his bike, those video games and cartoons that he loves – I don’t want him to miss his precious time as a child for something he’d treasure later in life.

Days prior to the exams, I loosened him up, free to play games, watch TV, laze around… whatever he liked doing… but NOT to touch on books. To me, it was all done as far as preparations were concerned. And…right after the exams, I went through checking his papers (I didn’t want to but Sam pushed me to) and I was pleasantly surprise, for instance, in mathematics, he got only 3 questions answered wrongly and they were only due to his carelessness, not that beyond his comprehensions. The standard of learning for kids today is so high as compared to some donkey years ago when I took up similar exams. (During my time, similar exams were held in Standard 5, called Penilaian Darjah 5). Even I myself who used to take up mathematics up to 400-level at the university didn’t actually find it that easy, or perhaps the lapse of time has been far too long since I started my working life. And…other subjects are equally of a higher standard as well.

As-a-matter-of-factly speaking, it is not getting 5A that matters to me but when he comprehends well on what had been taught in school, matters, and that is even more compelling to me. Straight A’s is just a bonus. I’ve made a strong statement instilling my homespun philosophy to my kids; learning is not just for the sake of making grades, not about positioning yourself in the group of “elite” students, not about being what number you are at amongst the peers but to understand & appreciate what knowledge is all about, what it really means in practical life and thus makes you see the apparent relation & compatibility in ‘you reap what you sow’. Some kids or adults if you like, due to their lower aptitude level by birth, they may not score in the first sitting, perhaps they would only excel in the second or third attempt or in any number of attempts for that matter. So, what difference does it makes in the true connotation of what learning & knowledge is all about? Fast or slow, now or later. Scoring grades does not necessarily grant you as knowledgeable as to-be-looked-smart would. Sufficed to say, the institutionalized formal learning in schools and colleges is only a small fraction of the whole universe of knowledge.

Sam's big sister, Fara, she had got 3A’s and 2B’s in her UPSR some two years back, I was just as happy. I consoled her frustration, praised her, celebrated & rewarded her for what she had got, knowing the fact that she was essentially at the standard of 5A’s in my eyes.