History project sparks St Andrew's boys' interest in grandparents' wartime experiences
SINGAPORE: 13-year-old Harmeet Singh and his grandmother live under the same roof and talk every day. But it was not until the St Andrew's Secondary One student interviewed her for his school oral history project that he found out that his grandmother, Madam Surinder Kaur, delivered chapattis door to door when she was a nine-year-old girl living in Punjab during the India-Pakistan war.
"She has never spoken about it before, but she was happy that I wanted to know her story," Harmeet told Channel NewsAsia. "She said delivering food was quite a common thing for children to do at the time, because they wanted to serve the people."
"I also found out that she was almost abducted - that was something that was happening to girls during that time, but her relatives managed to rescue her," he added. "I was very surprised to hear about this, and it made me want to find out more about the reasons for all these things that were happening during that period of history."
Harmeet is one of about 200 St Andrew's Secondary One students who participated in the oral history project, which saw them interviewing their grandparents and researching the historical events of their grandparents' childhoods over a period of five months.
"It is not right that this generation's experiences go uncaptured," said Ms Denise Marie Fernandez, one of the teachers in charge of the project. "As time passes, these memories will be eroded and we will never have the chance to ask again."
"Through this project, we wanted to start a dialogue between the older and current generations, and we wanted the boys to process the information they get from their grandparents and really react to it," she added. "I think the experience has made them much more thoughtful and reflective."
It was not all smooth-sailing: Some of the students had communication barriers as their grandparents were more comfortable in their mother tongues, so the history teachers roped in the school's Mother Tongue department to help script some interview questions.
Some of the grandparents were also reluctant to relive the traumatic experiences they had gone through during the Japanese Occupation. "One boy's grandfather worked as a coffee boy for the Japanese soldiers during the Occupation, and he said he was humiliated on a daily basis," said Ms Fernandez. "He came close to tears when he was being interviewed."
Hearing about the diverse experiences of their classmates' grandparents also underlined the fact that there are many perspectives to history. One student's grandfather worked as a cook for the Japanese, and "he said they were very humane, and let him bring home food for his family", Ms Fernandes recalled. "His take was that they were good people made to do terrible things."
For those whose grandparents were born outside Singapore, the project enabled them to start becoming aware of a larger historical canvas. By interviewing his grandmother, student Ho Wei Da found his own personal connection to one of the most pivotal events of the 20th century - the conflict between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang (KMT) that ultimately resulted in the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
SINGAPORE: 13-year-old Harmeet Singh and his grandmother live under the same roof and talk every day. But it was not until the St Andrew's Secondary One student interviewed her for his school oral history project that he found out that his grandmother, Madam Surinder Kaur, delivered chapattis door to door when she was a nine-year-old girl living in Punjab during the India-Pakistan war.
"She has never spoken about it before, but she was happy that I wanted to know her story," Harmeet told Channel NewsAsia. "She said delivering food was quite a common thing for children to do at the time, because they wanted to serve the people."
"I also found out that she was almost abducted - that was something that was happening to girls during that time, but her relatives managed to rescue her," he added. "I was very surprised to hear about this, and it made me want to find out more about the reasons for all these things that were happening during that period of history."
Harmeet is one of about 200 St Andrew's Secondary One students who participated in the oral history project, which saw them interviewing their grandparents and researching the historical events of their grandparents' childhoods over a period of five months.
"It is not right that this generation's experiences go uncaptured," said Ms Denise Marie Fernandez, one of the teachers in charge of the project. "As time passes, these memories will be eroded and we will never have the chance to ask again."
"Through this project, we wanted to start a dialogue between the older and current generations, and we wanted the boys to process the information they get from their grandparents and really react to it," she added. "I think the experience has made them much more thoughtful and reflective."
It was not all smooth-sailing: Some of the students had communication barriers as their grandparents were more comfortable in their mother tongues, so the history teachers roped in the school's Mother Tongue department to help script some interview questions.
Some of the grandparents were also reluctant to relive the traumatic experiences they had gone through during the Japanese Occupation. "One boy's grandfather worked as a coffee boy for the Japanese soldiers during the Occupation, and he said he was humiliated on a daily basis," said Ms Fernandez. "He came close to tears when he was being interviewed."
Hearing about the diverse experiences of their classmates' grandparents also underlined the fact that there are many perspectives to history. One student's grandfather worked as a cook for the Japanese, and "he said they were very humane, and let him bring home food for his family", Ms Fernandes recalled. "His take was that they were good people made to do terrible things."
For those whose grandparents were born outside Singapore, the project enabled them to start becoming aware of a larger historical canvas. By interviewing his grandmother, student Ho Wei Da found his own personal connection to one of the most pivotal events of the 20th century - the conflict between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang (KMT) that ultimately resulted in the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
