Secondary school teacher Ms. Ares Tan is probably best known for the many connections she has created between GESS and local schools, promoting great cultural exchange between students! She is also currently the Language Coordinator at GESS, overseeing the mother tongue programmes and Language Enrichment Programme. We find out more about Ares and the paths that led her to GESS!
Since when have you been with GESS and what made you choose GESS? What has your journey at GESS been like?
My name is Ares Tan and I am a Secondary School Teacher and Language Coordinator at GESS.
I joined GESS a few years after the inception of the European Section (IB Section), when the school had plans for greater diversity on the cards. Mandarin had just been introduced as a language option in the Middle School.
During the observation round of the job interview, the Head of European Section then, Mr. Iain Fish, gave me classes from grades 6 and 7 to teach. It was also at that time that then Principal, Mr. Torsten Steininger, wanted to add ‘spokes to the wheels’ for GESS through outreach endeavours to build partnerships and engagement at the local level.
He wanted GESS to break through the cultural bubble of an international school where students are distant from the local community. Together with like-minded colleagues, we implemented interactive programmes to strengthen ties with neighbouring schools in the Bukit Tinggi cluster and hosted friendly exchanges with Singapore schools. These initiatives continue to enrich our students’ learning experiences in broad and meaningful ways, and also serve as opportunities for our students to demonstrate the IB student profile attributes of Open-mindedness, Inquirer and Communicator.
What is your pre-GESS story?
Work-wise, I have not always been teaching. My first job was at the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. I was involved in the formulation of air services agreements – multilateral and bilateral treaties governing the operating rights for Singapore’s and foreign airlines.
Travelling was an essential staple of my work. My portfolio included Germany, and in a sense, this was my first stroke of affinity with all things German. This later became the common thread in my jobs.
My job in aviation was followed by the opportunity to work in Germany. This window presented itself through a ‘wind of change’ blowing through East German state-owned enterprises that were clamouring for a foothold in a united Germany’s market economy.
A well-known politician from the state of Baden-Württemberg had gone over to head up one such tech company with restructuring plans. During a study stint in Leipzig, I was offered a job to help develop business strategies for the company, that included joint ventures with Asian partners. In this capacity, I travelled regularly, and there was a period I was taking intercontinental flights every week and each time I would wake up in my hotel room trying to remember where I was.
After a few years, there was this long weekend that I was visiting Krakow and the Auschwitz memorial site, termed the ‘epitome of all dark tourism’ associated with suffering, death and the macabre.
Imagine I had just come out of the exhibition grounds feeling depressed and emotionally drained, when I got a call from home that my father was taken seriously ill. It struck me deeply in my then-solemn frame of mind, the fragility of life and the vicissitudes of human existence. That became a mental trigger for me, to re-calibrate priorities, and to decide that it was time for me to return to my family and spend time with my aging parents.
Back in Singapore, landing a teaching job at GESS was like a synthesis of the homecoming and the experience of a piece of Germany on home shores. It felt quite surreal.
What do you do currently as the languages coordinator and what is your favourite part of this job
Together with my Academic Directors and IB Coordinators for Middle and High Schools, and jointly with fellow Language Heads, we plan and make available the language subject combinations that will enable students in the IB Section to succeed along the IB educational pathway. I coordinate the mother tongue programme which underscores the school’s commitment to help our diverse student body maintain their home (ethnic, heritage) languages within the IB academic framework.
Over the years, I have built up a support ecosystem in the campus, through sourcing and partnering with external as well as in-house language specialists who tutor our students to develop and hone their mother tongue language skills. Additionally, I enlist the help of more senior students who speak the same mother tongue language to increase the engagement quotient for younger students through their interactions. This goes a long way to help our students celebrate their own language identity and feel connected to the community of GESS – a microcosm of a larger world.
I find the job meaningful. A shared reality for many of our students is, they belong to more than one culture, but not to any one of them entirely. They are composed of bits and pieces of the places and cultures that have left their mark on their formative years, while still seeking the missing puzzle pieces for grasping their identity as they go along. Students who study their mother tongue are nurturing a heart language – a missing puzzle piece that helps shape the identity of a ‘third-culture kid’.
I have had students approach me for advice on using their mother tongue to write a letter of gratitude for a parent’s birthday and also to pen a eulogy for a grandparent’s memorial. This says something about their relational affinity with the mother tongue and the affective value for them of their language heritage, despite being far away from the home country.
What are some of your favourite memories from GESS that you will still look back on 10 years from now?
These might not exactly be monumental moments and might even be seemingly insignificant, but they remain in my memory:
During a Project Week trip to Kerala, India, my homeroom students and I were travelling in a stuffy bus on bumpy terrain in the hot and humid afternoon. The ride was getting uncomfortable and taking much longer than planned so everyone was feeling hungry. When we were told that further delay was imminent and which meant we would get to lunch at our destination very late, almost spontaneously, the students broke into a chorus of medleys in unison, to keep each another’s spirits high. It was unforgettable as the students’ best side shone bright.
Back at the old campus, I was using a classroom that was leased from an old building adjacent to the school. Pests were an occasional sight in and around the classroom. One day, there was a huge, fat lizard almost as long as a headband, that fell from the ceiling right onto the teacher’s desk with a loud plop. Knowing my fear of reptiles, the students immediately scurried into action to nab the culprit. While I froze in paralysis, they planted themselves in all corners of the room in a frenzy of wild excitement to trap the creature. The students bursting into action was quite something to behold.
When you are not working and teaching, where are you likely to be found?
Pre-pandemic, during the holidays, I liked to soak up the culture and history at museums overseas, particularly those that house historical relics offering a small overview of ancient cultures. Some of my favourites are the Shaanxi History Museum in Xi’an highly regarded as the ‘shining pearl of ancient dynasties’, and the National Palace Museum in Taipei which hosts the largest number of Chinese imperial antiquities.
I used to volunteer as a docent with the Singapore museums precisely because I like the feeling of being surrounded by historic objects that link our present times to the past by offering a glimpse of how life used to be and how the people of those days would feel and think.
When teaching Mandarin, I try to apply the approach of a museum guide, that of making connections and helping to give a lot of context to the words, many of which developed from the archaic form of script. Hopefully, this can make learning one of the oldest written languages that much more interesting and meaningful for the students!
Another of my interests is Chinese classical dance. I was first introduced to it as a CCA while I was in university. I was captivated by the beauty of this traditional art form. A few years ago, I was excited when my students wanted to learn Chinese dance and to perform it at the Forum for Chinese New Year.
With much effort and diligence, they managed to put together a choreography and executed the dance moves convincingly, despite never having held a Chinese fan or waved a ‘water sleeve’ (classical dance ribbon) before!
My heart was bursting with pride while watching them. It was also fortunate that the viral dance challenges on TikTok, the domain of Gen Z, helped them be comfortable with dancing in front of people.
