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du-colleges-conduct-practical-exams-amid-covid’s-second-wave,-students-distraught

A teacher with an online class of Primary 5 students used social media on Monday (Feb 21) to emphasise the “reality of students these days”.

In a Facebook post, Matthew Zachary Liu wrote:

“10 year olds are swearing.
12 year olds are surfing porn.
14 year olds are sexually active.
16 year olds are broken.
18 year olds are committing crimes.”
He explained that most parents and schools may be oblivious to this, They may be too strict with the children or simply in denial until it is too late to get through to their children.

Mr Liu shared the following incident that occurred during an online Home-Based Learning (HBL) class with P5 students:

“During one of the HBL sessions, I was conducting a class online for Primary 5 kids. In the chat, some boy decided to spam “69” as one of the answers which created havoc in the chat box.
So I called him out.
“Why is your answer 69?”
“Because..” he unmuted, and then just burst out laughing”.

When he called on the student and asked him to explain what it meant, the boy was uncomfortable. The boy had repeatedly typed ’69’ and sent it multiple times in the chat box that could be seen by Mr Liu and all the other students.

Mr Liu told the student he was not reprimanding him and added: “I want you guys to know that if you’re not ready to explain whatever you type or say.. or if you now know that it makes you uncomfortable, next time, think about how your words and actions can affect you and those around you before you go blurting something out. Because you have control over what you choose to say or do but if you don’t, you better be ready for the consequences you may have to face”.

In his post, Mr Liu wrote that parents need to be more aware because real conversations and the right education needs to be in place to teach certain things beyond just academic subjects.

While he said that devices may be part of the problem, ultimately communication is what was important.
“It could be the difference between them cursing “f**k you” under their breath or acknowledging in their hearts that they “love you””, he added. /TISG