"She got 20 marks more than me!"
My eyes widened with a look of astonishment and disgust. I got a bit more disgusted as I went through the questions with him because the paper was relatively easy and most of his mistakes were stuff like "3x - 4x = x".
"Where's the minus?" I asked accusingly, like he'd just killed a kitten. He looked away, stared at his phone and shrugged.
On a normal lesson he'd be more engaging. I could tell that he was disappointed so I was comforted by the fact that he knew he could have done better. But it didn't stop me from nagging.
"When you look at these numbers instinctively you know that the answer will be 1 or 7 right? Then you see whichever comes first then you know whether it's positive or negative. It's so easy, so basic how can you possibly get it wrong?!" I was about to launch into my standard tirade of "If you know and you make such mistakes, you might as well not know how to do." but I stopped myself.
Teaching is a tightrope. I've to be encouraging enough to spur them to do better; I've to be harsh enough to get them to work towards it.
"I think my dad will kill me lah if when I show him the paper."
"Yeah, I think so too."
There was silence as I continued flipping through his papers and he continued staring at his phone.
"There was this girl," he started, sounding a tad bitter, "she always gets lower than me in class one! Then right, now she everything also get the same marks as me. Cannot believe it right!"
"You know, I wanted to cancel next Tuesday's tuition. I thought we would possibly vomit and die if we were to see each other 3 days a week."
"Yeah but now cannot already."
"Exactly. Now cannot already! But okay, O levels are still about 5 weeks away. Just practise! Your standard is already there. You just need to stop making these funny mistakes!"
He nodded.
"You'll do well because you deserve it and you're definitely good enough."
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