High 5: 28 July 2017 by Ms Lee Pei Ying

Good morning School Leaders, colleagues and Gessians.

Today I would to share about one of the recent craze in Singapore, the Macdonald’s Nasi Lemak Burger.
When I first heard about this new creation, the initial thoughts that came to me were, “Oh my, who on Earth would come up with such a thing?”, “Are we seriously going to have coconut rice within the burger?” Not long after, I came across the posters and advertisement of the new launch, and so I thought to myself, “So that’s how the burger looks like, no coconut rice…” Therefore, some of these thoughts based on what I have heard or seen lingered in me for quite some time.

Eventually, when the burger was finally launched, I did not have the opportunity to try it and perhaps got lazy to queue for it, until this Tuesday. Coincidentally, this was also the day where they announced that this limited edition Nasi Lemak Burger is out of stock island-wide. Now that I had heard it and seen it, it was only until Tuesday that I finally manage to also touch it, smell it and taste it. And so, it turns out that’s actually what the Nasi Lemak Burger was all about in its totality.

To me, if I did not have the opportunity on Tuesday, I would probably never have actually known or learn how the burger is like. The initial thoughts that I had would have just remained as it was. And that’s the importance of using all our senses – touch, hearing, taste, sight and smell – to gather data and information!
In fact, it is necessary that we rely on these five senses in our daily life, so that we gather accurate data. For example, in our daily dealings and conversations with our friends and classmates, we often fall into the trap of passing judgement or making conclusions just based on one source of information, hence causing it to be a biased viewpoint. Therefore, why not take a step back and give ourselves to the opportunity to triangulate with other forms of information?

For the Secondary 1 to 3 students, you have recently completed a Social Emotional Competency Inventory perception survey. Perhaps, take some time to ask yourself, “How much do we actually know about ourselves and how can we be more aware of what’s going on within our head, mind and body?” At the same time, have we also been spending too much time chasing after social media popularity and the next “Like” rather than devoting time to improve on our self-awareness?

Research has shown that if we frequently keep ourselves to within an artificial and non-stimulating environment, our senses tend to go numb after some time. Such individuals will become so disconnected from their senses that it takes a much longer time for them to become aware of what they are actually sensing! It’s time for us to step out into the natural environment and work on our senses!

Could you recall how you used to learn as a baby or young toddler? He or she puts it in their mouth to taste it. When an older child encounter an interesting object, they hold out their hand and ask to have a look. They don’t want to see the object; they want to touch it in order to gain more information about it. Gathering data through all the senses is about students using taste, touch, sight, smell and feel to gather as much information as they can in order to be successful. It is about learning as much as possible about the environment and relating that new information to past experiences. Even when an adult comes across a strange or unknown liquid they may usually smell it first. They are testing the smell to see if they have encountered it before.

At the end of the day, we can only be as accurate as the information we have on hand. Hence, the key message of today’s sharing, is of course not about how exciting the burger was, but rather how we can rely on our sense to gather a multitude of data. Let us all grow and learn how to better use our senses, and be aware of what we are sensing!

Thank you and Onward!