My Ex-Principal

You may think that this post has absolutely no link with you and will probably choose to skip it but I am still going to carry on writing.

Mrs Karen Oei Boon, principal of Tanglin Secondary School from 2003 to 2009, has passed away yesterday. I received the news from a Facebook friend's status update last night. I was still suspecting whether was it genuine but all doubts were cleared when I saw the obituary in the newspaper today.

She was an innovative leader. I dare say that she was not and will never be the "mainstream kind of principal" we encounter in most secondary schools. As long as she is present, every assembly in the mornings would see her giving a speech which lasts about ten to fifteen minutes.

Back then, everybody or maybe majority of the students couldn't be bothered with what she was talking. Quotes like "tiny droplets make a mighty ocean" or "cleanliness is next to godliness" have were mentioned on more than one occasion.

When I was in secondary two, my literature teacher forced us to write essays where we have to link what we read in the textbook to what Mrs Oei had spoken about during morning assembly. That made us left with no choice but to listen and scrutinize every word she mouthed.

Fast forward a few years to today and I swear that I wouldn't mind doing it all over again. The things which Mrs Oei talked about weren't just motivational quotes, it was exposing us to non-academic topics which we will probably not be coming across in the classroom for the rest of the day. The fifteen minutes was, in my perspective, actually a "rest" before actual lessons began.

Back in 2004 when I was a little cuter than I currently am, Tanglin staged its first musical production, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Everybody was forced to audition for it. I succeeded at dodging it by singing a nursery rhyme (instead of some pop song) and reacted dumbly during the piano segment.

The musical was meant for the school's 40th anniversary celebration and yes, Mrs Oei was the brainchild of this historical project. In the area of arts, TSS introduced the Dance Programme for lower secondary students. We had 90-minute sessions weekly in the dance studio and there's even a written examination at the end of the semester.

My time in secondary school had me being obligated to take subjects that the average neighbourhood school kind wouldn't have to. They include dance, literature and additional mathematics. Tanglinians had to move our bodies to music, read "chim English stories" and take on higher levels of mathematics as part of our curriculum.

All these became a reality because of Mrs Oei. Should I be grateful to her? Of course! How many people can boast that they learned dance as a compulsory subject, read literature books that even JC students have no idea about and took two types of maths during their secondary school days?

Some of my former classmates might not see it this way but the day will come when they finally admit that in one way or another, they benefited from Karen Oei's reign as the school's principal.

Condolences to the family.

Raymond Eng
Class of 2007
Tanglin Secondary School