Salute to Malcolm Tan

Grab the pictures from the The star website

 He is the history teacher in the secondary school in Singapore. I really respect him when he uses the role-play method in the history lesson. (Get to know him when I read the Star newspaper). Like in the photo above, he becomes the Japanese soldier in the history lessons about the Japanese occupation in Singapore. Such kind of real, alive and amazing history lessons impressed me because using such role-play lesson need the production cost which is the history costume. He really has the passion and dedicated in using this kind of method to engage their students with the history lesson. Gambateh~~~ A teacher should not only be academically qualification but have the passion to teach and inspire their students to learn well.

I recalled my memories that I also dislike history when stepped into form 1 in the secondary school. Monotonous and boring are always related with the History subject. My mind changed when my Papa taught me the History subject (Form 1 history) during the night. (Mama requested him to teach me History subject since there was hardly found the history tuition teacher in my hometown).  However, he did not use the role-play method to teach me history. Papa’s facial expression, intonation captures my attention to read up more history. (Paleolitic era is the first history lesson that Papa going to teach me). The highest marks that I got from the History subject in the monthly test of the secondary school raised my interest to History subject higher. From that time, I remained keen on the History subject although it was all about reading and highlighting the History textbook.

Although Papa is getting older, he still likes History. He will use his spare time to read some historical books in the library in my hometown. He will watch the success history of the Lim Wu Tong over and over again when he learned in the lobby of the Genting Highlands. (the time when my whole family travel to KL). Watching the success history repeat did not mean my Papa had the limited space in his brain, he just really obsessed with the history. Trust me History can steal my Papa’s heart brutally besides Mama.