LETTER  to the  EDITOR

Did you know that Singapore is a regular contender at the World Schools’ Debating Championships? And did you know that ACS is well represented in the Singapore team each year?

These achievements speak well for ACS, but what surprised my primary school teacher Ms Noelle Selvadurai was that I was attending the 2003 World Schools’ Debating Championships in Peru as an adjudicator!

This year’s national team featured two students from ACJC—Chan Yong Wei and Joshua Tan.  Team captain Chan Yong Wei did us proud when he led the team to Singapore’s first grand-final, after beating former world champions like Canada, New Zealand and Scotland in earlier rounds. Despite sickness and the A-level exams looming over their heads, our boys did marvellously well taking on some of the best speakers in the world. 

I was filled with pride for our team when I overheard conversations between adjudicators and the principals of schools that hosted us in Peru that ‘The Singapore team is very professorial… They are very well trained... I wonder how they are like in class.’! I was particularly pleased for the two ACSians in the team, and their coaches, chiefly Mrs Geetha Creffield from ACJC, who was one of the best teachers I ever had. 

When I shared my Peru experiences with Ms Selvadurai, she promptly instructed me: ‘Peter can we have an article in by the first week of September?’ – just like homework being dished out to me in the good old school days.

And how could I refuse?  Ms Selvadurai was one of my best teachers and she is probably the chief reason why the Primary 6.8 class of 1994 still keeps together. It is teachers like her that make ACS a bastion of cogent thinking and keep the passion of exchanging ideas alive and well in ACS.

Hence, here’s my assignment, albeit a week late. 

And Ms Selvadurai, thank you for all the encouragement you gave me in school!

I am indeed proud to be a product of ACS!

 

Peter Ho (P 6.8 - Class of 1994)