42 Students Did Not Return To School

This headline on The New Paper on Friday was a surprise to me. I can't imagine that students nowadays can be like that. They were sent out of the school to sort out their haircuts & short skirts, yet some of them decided to play truant after that. What is Singapore coming to?

This incident brought back a distant memory that happened during my secondary school days many years ago.

The situation was quite similar to the one as described in the newspaper article above. It was after the school holidays and the discpline mistress, who had dyed her hair flame red, catching students who have flouted the school rules.

When the discpline mistress caught a female student with dyed hair and ordered her to get it dyed it back to black, the student's reaction was, " Ms Cheung, you also dyed your hair, why can't I ?" The discpline mistress was very stunned. In fact she was at a loss for words.

I always believe the Chinese saying, “上梁不正，下梁歪.” In English, we say " Monkey see, monkey do. "

Therefore, I believe that if we do not want students to flout the school rules, the teachers should try to set a good example for the students to follow.