Have you heard about Northlight?

Not the northern lights, but a school in Singapore. A very special one at that. The principal joked that she found it amusing when visitors asked what is the entry criteria," er....you fail you PSLE!"

The students are repeat takers of PSLE and are mostly underpriviledged children or misfits in the mainstream school.

I first heard of Northlight just a few days ago at a conference and was very touched about their mission because I can relate a little to how it feels to not 'catch any ball" for academic subjects, especially Mathematics.

I personally failed all my E and A maths from Sec 3 all the way to Sec 4, including the prelims. Owing to a stroke of good karma, I spent the few weeks before the O levels studying the 10-years-series and managed to pass the subjects. So I know how it feels like to have failed everything until the teacher has given up and you have given up.

So the principal and teachers at Northlight have to think of innovative ways, not only to teach Mathematics, but more importantly to create opportunities where these young people can find out what they can be good at and to savour small successes.

I salute them. The teachers for their dedication and the students for giving themselves another chance.

Trivial facts about poo

Yup, poo!

Was watching History Channel a little while ago and they had this amazing program called "All about Dung" or something like that.

It was shared in the program that in early Rome, people were accustomed to communal poo-ing and will share a common stick fixed with a 'sponge' to clean up -- hence the phrase "wrong end of the stick"!

It was also mentioned that King Louis X? (forgot which one) who had a phobia of eating in public but had no qualms doing his business in public while undertaking the important responsibility of conducting his official affairs -- hence the term "sitting on the throne".

There was another valuable nugget of information on the usefulness of poo. In rural India, a teacher came up with an ingenious solution to provide electricity to power lamps for his students. Pack cow dung with table salt in a container. Plonk in a disused battery and connect wires. Power flows! Wonderful.