Had a long meeting with Evans's teacher and the Ah Ma yesterday after school. Why? It all started just because of an incident in class on Monday.
In a nutshell, when returning a pencil to a corner of the classroom, Evans was holding the pencil with the lead exposed. His classmate "I" was jumping around and the accident happened. The pencil lead scratched "I"'s face, just underneath his eye. But apparently "I" didn't cry. Teacher called in "I"'s ah ma and my bro on Monday to explain what happened. My bro translated to Ah Ma and also apologised to her. And we thought story would end there.
But no, with the Ah Ma being superduper protective and couldn't let it go... she mumbled about the incident and she kept saying accidents must be prevented. I think Teacher did tell my mom to ignore Ah Ma but the last straw came and my mama raised her voice at the Ah Ma. Yesterday upon reaching the classroom, the Ah Ma directed her remarks at Evans saying that seeing his appearance like the gentle / decent kind, didn't expect him to be so naughty. My mama quickly asked Evans into the class and she confronted the Ah Ma to repeat her sentence. Ah Ma just quickly walked away. My mama was furious when she described the episode. I was very upset by the Ah Ma's behaviour. Luckily my mama said Evans seemed unaffected, a bit blur of what happened.
I decided to speak with teacher when I picked him up from school. But before I could speak to teacher, I saw the Ah Ma with her grandson outside the classroom and she seemed like she had something to tell me. I asked her and she blabbered about the accident. I told her firmly that what happened was an ACCIDENT. What does she need from us to move on. And I lectured her that it was INAPPROPRIATE of her to talk to a 5 year old like that! Of course she digressed or whatever... her thinking wasn't very logical at times. In short she wanted all accidents to be prevented and especially for her grandson.
Teacher asked us into the classroom and told me not to talk to Ah Ma first. While Ah Ma kept asking us questions about the incident, I distracted Evans to talk about other things and ignore her. Teacher was also upset with Ah Ma for not giving them a chance to move on. Ah Ma kept dwelling on the incident and added on a few more scenarios where she observed there could be potential accidents like the kids should not be lying on the floor cos they would trip people, especially her grandson who would not know how to say "Excuse me"; teacher should not call the kids to return the pencils because different people hold it differently and can poke others... Teacher tried his best to explain to her that the kids need to learn and this is part of training them to be independent. Ah Ma didn't buy it and she repeated those scenarios again and again like a broken record. Finally the VP came and she sensed this Ah Ma was not convinced so she tried to appease her. Thankfully I did not have to translate anymore so that the meeting could end soon. Ah Ma's key point was to pay more attention to her grandson and she wanted no more incidents. She felt the teachers did not do a good job. So the VP said from now on, her grandson will stick with teacher once he stepped into class but she would not be able to guarantee her grandson would be happy. And she would tell the teachers to keep the pencils for the kids. I know this is just an interim solution to appease that Ah Ma.
The kids were asked to hug ah ma and me. I felt sorry for Evans when teacher asked him to apologise to Ah Ma since she was still upset. Evans was a little bit on the verge of tearing, and the same went for me. Such a small matter... and we made it look like a huge mistake. But it was just for a moment, then Evans was back to his cheerful self.
I just hope the Ah Ma can move on and stop her nonsense, causing so much unhappiness. And I hope she could give her grandson more trust so that he could have fun in learning.
And Evans, good job for being understanding.
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