SS Quah's Anything Goes: The student leaders in our midst

Sunday, 10 September 2017

The student leaders in our midst

Together with four other friends, all Old Frees, I've been spending the whole of Saturday and Sunday at Penang Free School where we completed a second Student Leadership Workshop for some selected schoolboys from our Alma Mater.

It would have been a shame if we Old Frees do not contribute to the betterment of the Free School in whatever way we can. And my friends and I - Lim Siang Jin, Dr Cheah Swee Poh, Lim Teik Wah and Loh Lean Kang - thought it best to give our time to coach the potential leaders of our society on some soft skill development.

This workshop was actually the second half of two workshops that we had promised the boys. The first was held in April this year (click here to read my earlier story about the April workshop) and we had been amply encouraged by the response to conduct a follow-up for the same set of participants. At first, we had intended to have shorter follow-ups in May and then June, but time just did not allow them to happen. But finally, everything fell into place and the school agreed to find space for our second workshop.

As Old Frees who had celebrated the School's Bicentenary last year, we felt that the feel-good momentum must be maintained as much as possible and the beneficiaries of the momentum must be the present Frees themselves. My friends and I agreed that there was no point in celebrating for the sake of celebration alone if we could not do anything positive for the School.

Unfortunately, we are in no position to help raise money. We are not influential; we can't raise the millions required to improve the School physically. Neither are we capable to challenge the School in any sportive or recreational activity. The schoolboys will run rings around us any time. However, what we can do is to stimulate their minds intellectually and to guide them along on developing their soft skills.

Thus, these workshops were devised. Credit to Siang Jin for his meticulous planning and eye for detail. Lean Kang is a superb former corporate guy who contributed his experience and brought a lot of practical advice to the leadership workshop. Whereas, Swee Poh, Teik Wah and I reprised our roles as coaches to the boys. (Actually, Teik Wah had stepped in as a very capable replacement for Prof Tan Soo Choon who had some other work matters to attend to.)

I also contributed an after-dinner talk on Dr Wu Lien-Teh to make these boys understand how great a man he was. He saved the world from the scourge of the Black Plague but for all his international achievements, Wu Lien-Teh is only remembered in the School through a House that's named after him. Some of us hold the personal opinion that he was the greatest Old Free that Penang Free School had ever produced, greater than any other Old Free dead or alive!

Coming back to this Student Leadership Workshop, coaching these boys was a joy. It was a pleasure to be surrounded by young impressionable minds. The workshop materials made them punch well above their weights and they responded in a way that made us realise that there will always be a lot of hope for Penang Free School. Like I mentioned five months ago, we have many smart boys in our midst and if they were willing to absorb all new ideas thrown at them and served them back to us intelligently, the least we can do is to continue giving them the direction and encouragement to grow.

Again, I wish to emphasise that if you can touch the life of even one Free School schoolboy, you will have done your little bit for Penang Free School. My friends and I have managed to contribute a bit of our time through four long days with them and we now hope that others will do so too.

Finally, we thank headmaster Omar Abdul Rashid, senior assistant Syed Sultan Shaik Oothuman, The Old Frees' Association president Billy Yeoh and The Old Frees' Association committee member in charge of Alma Mater matters Lee Eu Beng for their support of our endeavours. Billy and Eu Beng actually came by to see for themselves how we worked. Much appreciated, guys, it's all for the School! Fortis atque Fidelis.