Reflection

"In this capitalist and prosaic society, ideas and products have been homogenised and replicated countless times. Spanning a multitudinous array of industries, newcomers trying to get a foothold in this era, have failed to even attain breathing space in their respective cutthroat community.

In Singapore, November 22 1999, a baby boy was born in a private hospital. At a healthy weight of 3.5kg, though the boy had a slight case of Jaundice, he was discharged from the hospital within a week of treatment. The baby was named Shawn. He was the first third generation child of the Lin Family. Coupled with the fact that he was a boy, every auntie and uncle came to visit their family. Shawn was from a typical Chinese family. His parents did not have much from the beginning and had worked hard to earn a spot as a middle-income household.

Growing up, Shawn never had much say in terms of what he could do. The biggest priority was to not fall behind on grades and to do that, Shawn was signed up for tuition classes ever since the ripe age of seven. In his free time, his parents chose to sign him up for swimming and taekwondo lessons so as to instil interest in sports in the young child. Unfortunately, it was all for naught as Shawn never truly enjoyed any of these activities.

The only activity Shawn enjoyed and would spend numerous hours grinding it out, would be on his Gameboy Advanced. His favourite game was Pokémon and although he wasn't the greater Pokémon trainer of his generation, he still wanted to catch them all. With that said, Shawn sadly never completed the game properly before using cheats to help him get past the hard parts. From a young age, Shawn had already started to take shortcuts in his daily life. He was lazy and did not really want to perform in anything. This carried on throughout his entire primary school life and now, entering secondary school, he still enjoys doing nothing."

"Wait a minute." Ms Siara could be seen rubbing her forehead. "Shawn, do you understand what it means to write a reflection?"

Perplexed, Shawn cocked his head to the side as he replied the Disciplinary Master, Ms Siara. "Yes. I was reading my reflection."

"This isn't a reflection. This is an autobiography." Ms Siara sighed from the depths of her heart. Why did she even accept this job? All it did was bring additional stress to her life. "I had asked you to write a reflection on why you should do homework, not ask you to tell me about your life story."

"I was about to get to that part though..." Shawn replied nonchalantly.

"Alright I would like to see what you have prepared to say then." Leaning back into her chair, she gave the spotlight back to the student.

Clearing his throat, Shawn lifted up his handwritten essay and continued his reflection, "Obviously, the proper answer to this question would be to answer that students do homework because it helps to reinforce the ideas and concepts taught by teachers in the school."

Hearing this point, Ms Siara's eyebrows furrowed lesser, but instantly went back to its tensed state with Shawn's following sentences.

"However, since you had already known this fact from the beginning, I would not be truly writing a reflection on my point of view if I continued on this tangent. As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. To that saying, I say no! Why should anyone be forced to make use of the lemons that life has given to you? The basis of human rights dictates that everyone has a free will. Coming down to it, why should I do homework if I do not feel like it?"

With that, Shawn finished his reflection. The disciplinary master's face was as dark as charcoal. Her lips were pressed tightly together, unable to form a sentence to comeback from what she had just heard. Ultimately, there really wasn't much they could do with their students. In fact, just to get out of detention, most students would just write a half-hearted response that the teachers wanted to hear. None of them were as full of it as the young teenager in front of her.

Taking the reflection sheet from her table, Ms Siara picked it up and saw how neatly written this reflection was. It could be seen that this boy had actually put some thought into writing this out and not rush to finish. It was then, the teacher decided on the next best course of action. "Shawn, how would you like it if I called your parents down to see me?"

"Ah?" The question stumped Shawn right in the head.

"Seeing that a one-on-one talk between me and you had not changed a single thing, maybe your parents would be able to change your mind on this aspect. What do you think?"

"Uh Ms Siara, I think that would be very unnecessary. I have definitely reflected on my past actions and would not do it again."

"Oh really? Then what was this reflection you had just read out for me to hear?" The evidence was in black and white this time. The young teen was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Not wanting to delay this any longer, the disciplinary master breathed out a sigh again as she spoke as calmly as she could muster out of her. "Shawn, you are a very very bright student. Just from that first paragraph, any English teacher would be proud to call you, their student. It should not be hard for you to finish your homework, correct? This will be last time that I would be calling you into my office by yourself. The next time this happens again, you would be here with your parents. Understood?"

"Yes yes. I Understand. I promise that this would not happen anymore and that you would not have to see me in this office ever again. I promise!"

"Okay, I will trust your word, Shawn. Do not disappoint me further."

'Of course, of course."

Just a week after Shawn had made the promise, he had broken it over not finishing his math homework for the fifth time that month. The year eight student was once again called into the office with his mother and the rest was history.