Ms Judy Ng shared how heartbroken she was when she caught her student cheating during an examination. She wasn’t so much as disappointed in him, as she was in herself. She felt she had let him down.
How did her conviction not reach him, that the first and most important lesson anyone should learn is how to “zuò rén”? The Chinese term refers idiomatically to how a person should live an upright life for himself and the community. Ms Ng seeks to embody how to “zuò rén” as a teacher too. “A life changed, a life that is grateful, a life that reciprocates” is what she aims for, adding, “That’s why teaching is meaningful.”
Inspiration: She creates a safe learning environment
When Ms Ng started out as a Maths teacher 15 years ago, she saw that the greater impact of her teaching lay not in grades but in less tangible results such as building students’ confidence and self-esteem. About seven years ago, she began teaching Character and Citizenship Education (CCE), motivated by the conviction that every teacher should be a CCE teacher at heart, who nurtures values and self-knowledge along with book knowledge.
Ms Ng is heartened when students progress after giving them a nudge or a word in the right direction. One day, she might be speaking up for a student whose classmates laughed at for aspiring to attend a junior college, which seemed out of reach. On another day, she might be at a parent-teacher meeting, listening to a tearful father seeking help for his son’s addiction to online games. After Ms Ng spent some time speaking with the student, he handed his laptop over to his parents, determined to focus on his studies for his upcoming exams.
“The classroom environment is very important,” says Ms Ng. “If teachers are there to give them hope, they will dare to dream. And our students are at the age where they dream.”
“A life changed, a life that is grateful, a life that reciprocates. That’s why teaching is meaningful.”
Ms Judy Ng Suan Khee
Transformation: Achieving goals, one mindset change at a time
Ms Ng approaches teaching CCE, including social-emotional competencies, career guidance, and the concept of citizenship, with the same dedication as teaching Maths.
To add structure to her students’ understanding of CCE lessons, she embarked on developing frameworks that are easy for them to apply even outside of the classroom.
Unsurprisingly, “zuò rén” is an intrinsic part of her SCORED, OLAY and ROLE frameworks. These frameworks guide students towards proficiency in decision-making, perspective-taking, effective contribution and showing respect, especially when navigating sensitive topics.
The SCORED framework, for example, serves as a tool to help students in “systematically making good decisions”. Recognising that teenagers are often influenced by their emotions, the framework includes step-by-step assessment of a situation, along with advice on responsibility and empathy. The framework has been incorporated into the Secondary 3 curriculum.
“Learning and doing anything well boils down to the mindset,” Ms Ng says. She recalls about her efforts to improve the performance of her students who struggled with Maths by first addressing their aversion to the subject.
“I used the chapter on Probability to motivate them,” she recounts amusedly. “Probability is about calculating chances, right? So I told them that based on their results so far, people would calculate that they had a low probability of passing. And if they did pass, they would prove to others that they are not defined by probability.”
The analogy not only helped them to understand the concept of probability but also personal agency, she explains. “I want to put across the message that there are many things in life that they can change.”
Reflection: Teachers, be proud of any effort, however small
As a mentor to other teachers, Ms Ng celebrates the multiplier effect of being able to impact more than 40 students per class through their teachers. Her commitment to mentoring has earned her the Academy of Singapore Teachers Associate Award in 2022 and 2023.
She has also displayed a knack for anticipating issues, such as when students started spending increasing amounts of time on their devices. She started lessons on responsible use of social media and, in 2023, led her team of colleagues in developing and piloting anti-cyberbullying lessons.
Her recurring message to her peers is to not feel shy about acknowledging effort in themselves and in their students. “Even if our students improve by just 1%, it will add up,” says Ms Ng. “Through mentoring, I am confident that I can contribute to building a community of passionate educators ready to address the challenges of shaping the next generation.”
