seriously u can't blame the school for their lousy moral education & it's ability to congregate a bunch of zi lian aka self loving pple when the ex principal wasn't very a ideal model in moral education in the first place....

*refer to attached article

Retired doc and wife, a former principal, publish essay collection

BY LEONG WENG KAM
Senior Correspondent

RETIRED paediatrician Ho Nai Kiong and his wife, educationist Foong Woon Ho,
are marking their 40th year of marriage this year by publishing a collection of
their essays in Chinese.
While others prefer to throw dinners for their children, relatives and
friends to mark such happy events, they are celebrating their anniversary
tomorrow with a book, Xing Yuan, meaning 'fate with the apricot'.
Launched a week ago at the World Book Fair 2006, it contains 76 essays on
both medical and education-related topics, written by them between 1999 and
last year for the Chinese daily, Lianhe Zaobao.
'With the book out, I think we will have a quiet dinner tomorrow instead,
since two of our three sons are away in the United States,' said Dr Ho, 68, who
retired five years ago as senior consultant at the KK Women's and Children's
Hospital after 35 years of service in government hospitals.
His wife, Madam Foong, 62, who retired last year as principal of Nanyang
Junior College after 36 years in the education service, said: 'The book of
essays shows what we have been doing in the medical and education fields all these years, both involving human lives.' Madam Foong, who also taught at the former Hwa Chong Junior College and was its vice-principal between 1987 and 1997, added that there are many doctors and teachers in both their families. Her two younger sisters are teachers, and her husband's two younger brothers are doctors. His younger sister was a teacher too. Two of their three sons, Kok Sun, 38, and Kok Yuen, 34, are doctors. Their youngest son, Kok Kyu, 33, is an investment analyst now working in New York.
On using Xing Yuan as the book's title, Dr Ho - who is still active in the Chinese community, sitting on the boards of several schools - said xing, which means apricot, is linked to both the good practice of medicine and education in Chinese history.
Ms Valerie Phoon, chief editor at Candid Creation and Xing Yuan's publisher, said the book is the first of its kind. 'It is a valuable collection of essays by a husband-and-wife team who are also well-known personalities in the medical and education fields,' she added. Dr Ho met his wife when studying at Chung Cheng High School in the early 1950s. She was then his sister's classmate at Yangzheng Primary School. They
went on to study at the former University of Singapore where he graduated with a degree in medicine and she in Chinese studies in 1966. Since the early 1990s, they have shared a weekly column in Lianhe Zaobao's
literary supplement despite their busy schedule because both love writing. 'If health permits, we will come up with another collection of essays when we celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary,' said Dr Ho.

*honestly, give me a break about ur contributions to education and how talented ur sons or ur family members are. u're like advertising ur family & if that's not enough, ur contributions as well as ur husband's contribution to the society. i'm nt saying it's bad, but the act of over flauting makes me wonder if u truly wanted to contribute because u are compassionate. how many times do i need to hear u repeat u have 3 sons out of the country who study medicine or that u've taught in hci and blahx shit sch & reformed many lives by giving them chances. WHO DOESN'T ??? MY SEC SCH PRINCIPAL DOES IT TOO OKAY???!! U WANNA COMPARE UR LIST WITH HERS????

it's obviously a D-U-H when u become a educator that is to teach & inspire. i agree that there are not much teachers who took up this profession with this noble aim but there are still quite a number of educators out there who do inspire. so stop crapping like u're the only gem around in the education system.

& u wanna advertise for the romancing singapore campaign as well? who the hell is interested in what u'll be doing for ur anniversary unless i'm ur kid or ur fan.... DOTX. the worse thing is u actually need a book to list out ur contributions to save future people who wanna honour u the trouble of compiling ur OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS huh????!! tell me u have another word for zi lianism?? like what? i'm just so bloody great that i need to publish them or smthing?

how come i don't see mother theresa writing a autobiography title: "my life, my contributions"? or maybe the pope should write a autobiography too, something like :" the changes i've made for the greater good of humanity" ?!! or maybe u wanna sell vcds the next time on how u celebrated ur 50th anniversary with u narrating how the singapore education system would have failed terribly without u??? something like " mrs ho, the saviour of the singapore chinese education system" ? and with captions like, "my contributions are great, i changed their fate..."?

and to think u come frm a sch which so value morales and u dun even have a shred of humility in u. if u're good enough, ppl will naturally sing praises for u & tell others of ur contributions. if there is none who are willing to do that, it shows that what u have done is not enough and is nt extraordinary enough so it's really no use going ard trying to reuse egs again & again to reiterate ur greatness in the education system because there are so many ppl out there who deserve more praise than u do....

it's really not about how much u've done. a soceity does not come to where it is today because of the efforts of a single person. e testimonials which we're forced to write encourages us to self praise, to say that the success of a team is a result of the efforts of the one & only u. that the team would not have achieved these results had i not been around. what does this render ur other teammates? does it mean they're lousier? that they have put in less effort them me?
& here we are learning that there is no "i" in a team. what will happen to team work if people start adding "i"s to it? how can we even progress together as a team anymore?