With the new term came the turn for our class to be on duty.

The 3 key jobs we were to do for the administrative duty was: 1, to greet teachers and schoolmates at the school gate in the early morning; 2, to keep order at the assembly as well as in the canteen and dorms; and 3, to sweep the school yard twice a day. I was assigned to join the sweepers.

When I got my assignment, at first I felt as lucky as happy, thinking sweeping the yard would be a breeze. The first morning, however, saw my initial bliss breaking into pieces. It was still dark when we started. I was so sleepy that I could not hold the broom properly. Although it was spring, it was very chilly in the early morning. A cold wind rose from time to time and bit my face. With each fresh gust of wind, the fallen leaves which I had managed to round up into a pile were dispersed here and there. As a result, I had to do it all over again. It was so annoying, and I became desperate. I could not imagine why there were such quantities of fallen foliage on the ground this season.

One morning I was moaning about the difficulty of sweeping the ground when our teacher came over. He stood by and looked on. After watching me doing the job for some time, he said, “Boy, you should change your tactics. You can’t be effective unless you make the broom hug more ground. Have it firmly pressed down when you are going along.” Then he took over my broom and demoed it. My teacher was much more effective, obviously. I was impressed. I did more work in less time once I practised the new technique.

Exhausted both physically and mentally as I was throughout the week, I learned something. I came to realise that whatever I do, I can always do it better by bettering the way to go about it.