23-29 April

RHSS is always filled with activities. We had 2 important personnel visiting us this week : The Education Minister and Director General (Youth & Sports).

I preferred DG (Y & S) to the Education Minister. The former was very receptive towards ideas and he came here to promote scouting to the schools.

Personally, I felt that Scouts may not receive such attention in Singapore because there are other Uniform Groups the government need to consider as well. Scouting is a big thing here.  It’s good to catch up with Pema and Nawang (the leader trainers of Bhutan Scout Association) though.

I did not have any co-teaching with the teachers since it’s the “unit test week”. Most teachers need to clear their syllabus this week.

Another good practice in RHSS is the teachers’ training every quarter of the year. I personally felt that I had received so much more from RHSS compared to what I had given.

The theme of these 2 days session was : “Teaching to lead”. The trainers, Mr Raj & Bina Sekhar are good friends of Dr Solomon Wang. It was a refreshing and timely reminder of the great responsibility as a teacher.

After the workshop, there is always this usual problem of moving forward with the new learning. How can I help the teachers to sustain their motivation after they got so “charged up“.  With the 2 more Saturday sessions left in May, how can I move the teachers to a higher notch and put all they learnt into practice? As quoted :   “Motivation does have an expiry date and there need new intervention to sustain the motivation of the learners”.

It was a regret that the Dzongkha department was unable to join us in these 2 days sessions. I felt that they should attend because they are part of the teaching team. This group is a very united bunch. They helped to cook our Teacher’s Day dinner at Mdm Sangay’s (proprietor) place. Appreciate them but I am unable to communicate much with them because most of them speak Dzongkha.

Mdm Sangay’s house is big and beautiful. She is also a relative of the 4^th King’s wife.  There seems to be a big gap between the rich and the poor.

Mdm Sangay and her husband will be going to Hong Kong on 30 April and Mr Tshering will be doing a 1-month course in Australia, Brisbane starting May. The school is going to be pretty quiet then.

I picked up my confidence to cook for the RHSS colleague. I invited about 30 teachers with their families to my place on Saturday. A big project for me. It was really nice to hear that their praises and laughter.

Thanks to Fai and group (thai friends), Karma and Ugyen (the couple), Namgay, Anne and Chimi and Tshering (students). They helped me in the cooking and the clearing up.

Time flies, it was almost the end of April. 1.5 month later, I will be back in Singapore. I began to appreciate the warm sunshine of Singapore. Bhutan is not spared from global warming and the weather is quite erratic. I began to feel feverish towards the end of the week. I need rest and more rest.

The 4 teachers finally decided upon the camp date : 9-11 May. Unfortunately, we may need to stay in the school instead of camping outside. We were unable to get the tents from BSA (Bhutan Scout Association) as it coincided with the spiritual retreat on 9 May.

During my stay in RHSS, I found that the girls are physically quite weak. I attended to a number of female students who fainted during the morning assembly.

This Friday is Teacher’s Day!! I am going to have another day of fun. And in the evening, I will be going to Dr Wang’s place for dinner. Yeah!! I am growing fat. Too much food.

I should be expecting quite a number of visitors in May. Pro Stan, Matthew and wife, Dr Robin Yap. Great to have Singaporean friends coming over to Bhutan. That goes to show Bhutan is attractive to Singaporeans.

I must start to travel on 1^st, 3^rd and 4^th week of May. I need to see Bhutan before I come back to Singapore. Bhutan : A beautiful country.