A Lawley Visit

Friends from Lawley High School

Last week saw a break from the mundane routine for the students of the school as we had a friendly drop in visit from a counter part from Perth, Australia...Mt. Lawley High School. It was an impromptu arrangement from an old comrade who happens to be teaching in that school ; Mr. James Cheah.


The gracious green light from the principal saw the occasion becoming a reality and it was good as the students from both sides met for a very short while ; an hour an a half; and managed to make some exchanges.



The Lawley students ranged from age 13 to 15 and brought much excitement to the school as the Caucasians were a foreign sight to them. As they climbed up and down the stairs I kept reminding James and his counter parts - Alison, Jane and Anita that we are a no-frills school and that we are only a very ordinary day school for ordinary boys and girls...Air Asia type. They happened to fly in by Air Asia and so they understood the connotations. Air Asia is doing the world good ; making the impossible ; possible.




A no-frills school meant we had to work hard to raise funds for some infrastructures especially beautification features. They were amazed that the Leo club of the school once raised funds through a talentime ; an effort by Pn Nurhayati Cheng and Johnson Lim (the then president) and built the pond that has given given much delight to many. The teachers of the school asked a pertinent question ; who cleans the classroom ?... to which Pn Tan quickly reminded me of the Library prefects' great effort in keeping the resource centre clean and tidy. They told me their students are more pampered. I told them...character-building is the school's social obligation to the parents of the school and teaching children to clean is surely but part of our educational agenda.

I do not know if I had caused some offence as I emphasised that we need to teach our children all forms of skills - learning, cleaning, helping - moulding them into characters that we deem right.

Next, we thought that we ought to highlight that we are a multi-racial school and that the richness of the compositon has taught us to have practical living skills...so we diligently wore some local cultural costumes and uniform bodied ones too. Our students were really darlings as they put on their best behaviour and were so eager to please the visitors.

The congkak was a good game to introduce and they were mesmerised at the rules of the game. It was a meaningful time for both counter parts and I am sure the meeting would have created long lasting memories ; at least on our part.


Sara had diligently prepared the cakes the previous day and I proudly presented them along with some local sweets.




We had a short break and exchanged further on opinions concerning education in schools and at home. Basically, Mrs. Anita Chong told me that their students ought to emulate some of the things that we do like general cleaning and leaving imprints in school. Things come too easy over there. Our God-sent hall was a total surprise to them as they do not even have a hall of this size ! Not too bad...our school.

For memories and keeps in the album, we took a 'family photo'...a photo that will go down to the annals of the school.

As usual, all good things must come to an end. We bade our goodbyes and I bade farewell too to my dear friend of 35 years, of the same town, same church, same university and this has been the first time we met after a span of more than 3 decades.

Adieu, friends from Perth, Australia.