I Will See To It That They Can Do It - Teacher Catharine from R.E.A.L Kids Shah Alam

A lifetime in preschool education industry would roughly sum up Teacher Catharine's experience and accomplishment in this industry. She is a proud teacher of many grown up professionals. Among whom includes a priest in his 30's who is now serving the church she attends every weekend.

Since she got married in 1996, Teacher Catharine joined CEC after she relocated to Shah Alam. She was working in Klang for 20 years prior to that. "In CEC I learned a lot from the school. Whereas before this, I learned a lot from the children. When I first started teaching in preschool, I had to come up with a lot of teaching materials from scratch. I would do some matching exercises with the kids and that's how I learned from them what is the best way for them to pick up new words. I take pleasure in simplifying lessons so kids could learn. It feels really good when they got confident with the letters and words I taught."

Some lifetime awards Teacher Catharine came were not in monetary rewards but the words of appreciation from the parents whose children she taught and guided. "I remember a Punjabi girl who was very close to me. I was very firm with the kids. To my surprise, she told her mom when she grows up, she is going to be a teacher like Teacher Catharine because teacher Catharine is a very good teacher. Another case was a lawyer's son. I attended an event where I met the parents. Both the husband and wife were very glad I taught their son. They said, 'it's only after coming into your class that my son knew what a school is.' Their son never wanted to attend school prior to attending my classes."

"What makes me different from other teachers is that I'm always into teaching and I will see to it that my children can do it. I work hard and go all out to make sure my children had good foundation in English to start formal schooling. There was a child who could not read a word at all and the parents were frustrated. They trusted me and I had to go one-to-one with the child by extending the class to 1.30pm just to help him catch up with the class. I am happy that most of our children are doing very well in schools now. Most of them are top 10 in their classes."

"Another interesting  thing about R.E.A.L Kids is that we did field trips and concerts that are educational for the children. Sports days are very important for the kids too. Occasionally we even have educational talks from the firefighters and dentist too. It makes their learning so much more fun."