Ms Ong Siong Ngo

Ms Ong Siong Ngo was born in 1932 and started her teaching career at a primary school. Identified by the British Government as an excellent PE teacher with an equally outstanding sporting background, she was awarded a scholarship to Dartford College for Women for formal PE teacher training from 1954 to 1957.

Ms Ong at Dartford College.

Upon her return to Singapore, Ms Ong was appointe lecturer at Teachers Training College (TTC), the first for a local, female PE teacher. She excelled in many sports and taught dance, gymnastics, netball, swimming, tennis, just to name a few. During the 50s and 60s, she also taught PE in Malay to Malay medium classes. Ms Ong was known to be an inspiring lecturer and well-loved by her students.

Ms Ong walked the talk as a PE and sports enthusiast. She enjoyed sports and played squash and tennis competitively in the 70s. In 1973, Ms Ong became the first female national squash champion. She was also the national tennis champion for a number of years in the 70s and represented Singapore in tennis at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. Despite her heavy workload, she picked up wind surfing and introduced the sport to her students during weekends.

Love Sports, Do Sports: At the age of 41, Ms Ong won the 1st female National Squash Championship.

A tribute by former student, Ms Elizabeth Poey:

Ms Ong Siong Ngo was a huge lady with a large heart and a great sense of humor.

When it came to teaching and learning, she would not tolerate nonsense nor compromise safety:

Once, we had a stranger who walked across the netball court during a game. Ms Ong shouted at the man from the other side of the court and he scurried away. She later explained to the class that she cared about the students’ safety, especially the girls’, as much as the proper conduct of the PE lesson.

She instilled a spirit of confidence:

I’ll never forget the day when we had to do a confidence jump in the swimming pool from a 3m board. One of the girls, who could swim well, was afraid to jump off from 3m. She hesitated for more than 10 minutes and decided against jumping so she made her way down the stairs. Ms Ong saw that and walked up the stairs. When this girl saw Ms Ong coming up, she turned around, walked back to the board and jumped into the pool straight away. The whole class cheered. The girl later shared that she was so afraid Ms Ong would scold her that she jumped into the pool immediately to avoid talking to Ms Ong. Then, Ms Ong explained that all she wanted was to ask her if she was alright. The whole class burst into laughter.

She cared for her students while nurturing them to be self-reliant:

When we were doing gymnastics, falling seemed like second nature to us. Ms Ong was firm in her teaching and expected us to perform our movements well. When we fell, she would not mollycoddle us but tell us to get up on our own and try again. That was her way of checking that we did not suffer major injury and her way of teaching us to persevere. At the end of the lesson, she would then approach the student who had a serious fall personally and ask if he or she was well.

A typical day at TTC: Ms Ong teaching educational gymnastics through modeling.

She engaged her students meaningfully according to their starting point:

I had a friend who cried every time we had to do the high jump. She later confessed that she chose PE not because she loved it but because she didn’t want to study the other subjects. We all thought that the passionate PE teacher in Ms Ong would yell at her and ask her to quit if PE is not her passion. On the contrary, Ms Ong guided her with patience and helped her to clear the high jump bar and the PE course.

I was one of those uncoordinated students who was not good at dance, and would not want to look like a fool attempting movements beyond my ability. So during dance and movements classes, Ms Ong would assign me to be a rock or a tree so that I would not be left out in the class activity. At the same time, expressing myself as a rock or tree was something that I was comfortable doing.

Ms Ong was a female PE pioneer and she was very progressive in her thinking and role modeling during her time. She was firm yet encouraging, and was very student-centred in her teaching of PE. She was not self-conscious of her physique and was very graceful in dance and gymnastics. She taught me to teach with passion and good attitude and never let results or awards get in the way of teaching good PE lessons.

About Ms Elizabeth Poey

Ms Elizabeth Poey attended Teachers’ Training College (TTC) from 1971 to 1972 as a trainee PE teacher. Ms Ong Siong Ngo was her PE lecturer whom she considered her role model. Elizabeth started her teaching career in Lorong Bengkok Primary School and then National Junior College before becoming PE Head of Department in Townsville Institute. In 2000, she was appointed Principal, Bedok North Primary School. She retired as Principal, Naval Base Primary School in 2008.

References

Aplin, N. (Eds.). (2009). Perspectives on Physical Education and Sports Science in Singapore: An Eye on the Youth Olympic Games 2010. Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education (Asia).

Interview with Dr Lau Teng Chuan, Mr Yap Boon Chuan, Ms Elizabeth Poey, Mr Goh Ek Piang, Mdm Gwendoline Wendy Koh.