1. A very good afternoon to all of you. First, let me congratulate all our award recipients for your courage to step forward and take up this challenging, demanding, yet I hope rewarding career.
2. Before I start, for all the scholars who are getting your scholarships today, we should acknowledge the people who made this possible for you.
3. They are your parents, your families, your teachers, principals, and the wider society – without which, I'm sure you agree with me that you won't be here. So, thank you to all our parents, teachers, principals, and families.
4. Let me start with a story. Some time ago, MOE was having a seminar with our Parent Support Group. Quite a number of the participants lamented that this is the strawberry generation. One of the speakers, not from MOE, reminded everyone that if this is the strawberry generation, then we are the strawberry farmers.
5. I share this story because, indeed in the line of education, it is worthwhile to always remember that our work is not measured in days or years. If we don't want the next generation to be the strawberry generation, then it is our responsibility not to be strawberry farmers.
6. The seeds we plant today will bear fruit only a generation later. As you embark on this journey, what is your measure of success?
7. I want to encourage you, after this ceremony, to think deeply about this. Write yourself a letter to the future, and take a look at it in time to come when you're tired or when you're stressed.
8. Your measure of success is not how many brilliant students you can produce, what PSLE score or O' levels score your students get.
9. If I were to ask you, what is your ultimate measure of success, how will you answer the question? Not just in the present, but in five years' time, in 10 years' time, in 20 years time, when you are still in the teaching profession.
10. I hope your answer has something to do with the following: that you would be able to nurture a generation with a lifelong passion to learn, a lifetime confidence to contribute, and founded on a set of solid values that goes beyond oneself.
11. That would be my suggestion for you on how to measure success. Not your immediate here and now, or what results you produce from the cohort of students you are mentoring and teaching.
12. Ultimately that will determine not just your success, not just the success of your students, but the success of our nation.
13. If we are only concerned with the here and now, the grades our students get, then I think we would have missed the bigger picture.
14. Is this going to be an easy profession and career for you? No. It's not going to be easy. And I'm not about to promise you less work. I only promise more impactful work.
15. I have never believed any of my teachers are looking for less work. I only believe that my teachers are looking for more impactful work. Education is constantly thinking about how to create impact in the work that you do.
16. The easy part is honing your skills. You can hone your skills through using the latest technology, or through adopting the latest pedagogical approaches. You can even hone your skills on how you can help your students manage their social and emotional development, or how to engage parents and industries.
17. These are all important skillsets that I am confident you will hone, with the help of NIE on your onward journey in the teaching profession.
18. All these skillsets are but the surface of the iceberg. What I hope you will do beyond honing these surface skills are the deep sense of values that you must have within you.
19. Ultimately, the strength of the iceberg is not dependent on what is above the surface, but what is beneath the surface.
20. And this is where your role-modelling comes in most importantly. Your ability to imbibe the right values, your ability to demonstrate and role model those values will be what is important to put you in good stead to grow the next generation of students,
21. Don't get me wrong, content knowledge is important. I have every confidence that you will do well to transmit this to your students. But what is most important to impart to your students are those values that goes beyond oneself. To take care of your fellow men, and take care of those who are less privileged. Help them see their definition of success as beyond what they can achieve for themselves, but what they can contribute to the bigger group.
22. Success in Singapore is a team sport. How we nurture that deep sense of spirit and ethos as fellow Singaporeans is ultimately how we should define our success as educators, beyond imparting content knowledge.
23. Today, content knowledge is commoditised. Anyone with access to an Internet will have no shortage of information at their fingertips. But the new skillsets that are required for our next generation that go beyond content knowledge is the ability to distil, discern, and discover.
24. To distil from the plethora of knowledge they have available at their fingertips, and identify what is the crux. To discern with the right values what they are really receiving and thinking. As individuals and as a country, our value comes from our ability to create new value propositions to entrench our relevance to the world.
25. This means we must constantly encourage our people to not just answer yesterday's questions with yesterday's answers, but to create new knowledge, new value propositions for ourselves as individuals and for ourselves as a country. This is why we hope you will inspire the next generation.
26. I am confident that you will, with all your hearts, take care of the next generation. But I want you to remember as your pour your hearts out to take care of the next generation, that you too must keep growing.
27. You can't tell your students to embrace lifelong learning if you are not learning. If you are not learning and not growing, you will not be able to keep contributing or to move your class forward.
28. I visit schools every other day to see how the school, the teachers, and the students are doing. I always tell the teachers, I do not need to see the students first. I just need to see the teachers.
29. If the teachers have sparkle in their eyes, their students will be alright.
30. So how will you keep yourselves motivated? How do you keep yourselves growing, especially when the going gets tough? You will have a plethora of demands from your daily work that you need to fulfil, to your family responsibilities and other duties that you have which will come with the job.
31. But throughout all this, remember that only when you keep growing can you keep going. Never forget to keep learning even after you graduate from NIE, and start your service in our schools.
32. I shall end off on a lighter note. By now, some of you would have known about Taylor Swift and my challenge. Since then, I have received various messages asking me various interesting questions.
33. Some asked me why did I issue the challenge. Others asked me, if Taylor Swift turns up in my son's school, can the Parent Support Group turn up as well? Others asked if Taylor Swift turns up in my alma mater, can the alumni turn up as well?
34. I had no shortage of such interesting queries. Let me tell you how this came about. I received many DMs asking for me to grant students a day off to attend Taylor Swift's concert, and was thinking about how I should respond. I was taking a walk with my son, and I remembered a lesson that MOE has taught me.
35. Every circumstance can be turned into a learning opportunity if we are creative and if we dare to try. I want you to be creative, and I want you to dare to try.
36. It's a small price to pay for me to offer a day off if some A-lister turns up in your school. But it's more important to learn that nothing turns up for free – not Taylor Swift, not anybody else.
37. But if we dare to try, we will stand a chance. I was taught two things when I was in school because my principal never wasted the opportunity to teach us to try.
38. When I was in JC, the official school motto was called "Towards a better age". It's unofficial motto was "The impossible, we do at once. Miracles take a little longer". We recited that every day because my principal wanted us to try.
39. The first lesson was: if anyone is going to do it, we stand every chance to be that person. So, if Taylor Swift is going to turn up in one of your schools, you have every chance to meet her, so long as you dare to imagine and try.
40. There's no better way to teach people to be enterprising and to try, by allowing them the chance to do so. No amount of theory can do this. Action speaks louder than words – I want you to go forth and try.
41. There are no beginner teachers, there're just teachers. Once you step into the role in the teaching service, you have every right to innovate and pioneer, dare to dream, and to break new grounds and new technologies and pedagogies that comes your way.
42. Now, the answer to the second question. Can alumni and parents turn up in the school if Taylor Swift turns up? The answer for all of you is, yes.
43. If you have partnered the school and contributed to the school, you can certainly turn up. Why? The second lesson is this. Never believe that in MOE you will achieve miracles all by ourselves. Whatever we do, we must think about the partnership with others – with the parent support group, the alumni, the industries, and the many more community partners.
44. Only when we work in concert with other stakeholders in the education system will we be able to transform the education system for the good of our people.
45. On that note, I wish you a meaningful, fulfilling, challenging and rewarding journey ahead. Never forget to dream, and never forget that you can be the change. When you have sparkle in your eye, the next generation will have sparkle in their eyes and I need not fear they will be brought up well. You will be the change you want to see. Thank you very much.