By Christian Adriel Tan (26S07B), Lerraine Neo (26A01A) and Michelle Lee (26S07A)
Every year, RI is joined by a host of new faces: over a thousand new students, new estate members, and—unsurprisingly—new teachers. You may be taught by them or have seen them around school, or perhaps you don’t know them at all. Either way, read on to find out more about three of the newest members of RI’s teaching staff!
Name: Ms Lim Ci Hui
Department: Aesthetics
Meet Ms Lim Ci Hui—a proud RI alumna who’s back where it all began, bringing her expertise from teaching Music at Pasir Ris Crest Secondary School and the Academy of Singapore Teachers. Having taken A-Level Music herself as a student, she’s now back at the MEP classroom as a teacher for the Y5s, characterised by her enthusiastic and bubbly personality that would bring a smile to anyone who has been taught by her.
Back in her RI days, she was not only a dedicated Pressie—but also a member of the Raffles Symphonic Band, and she ‘appreciated this [CCA] combination’ as it allowed her to delve into her already budding interest in music and a newfound interest in writing.
Her love for teaching started from a young age—having spent much time with her grandmother, a Chinese teacher, and her experiences teaching her younger siblings, she felt that teaching was a natural call to action. With this passion, after graduating from RI, she pursued further education at the University of Cambridge as an MOE Teaching Scholar, where she graduated with a Bachelor in Arts and a Master of Philosophy in Education.
Why music? The answer is simple: she’s always been doing it. As an eclectic musician who first picked up piano and later picked up the angklung, percussion (despite claiming to have a ‘terrible sense of rhythm’ at first) and now violin, she knows first-hand the ‘opportunities the music class offers beyond the setting of a traditional classroom’, as well as the ‘many dimensions to the subject’, namely performing, composing, and theory.
Her return to RI was also not a stroke of serendipity—after teaching music to students in three different streams (O-Level, N(T)-Level and Lower Secondary Music) at Pasir Ris Crest Secondary School, she felt that it was time for her to teach Music in greater depth, and her experiences teaching the Y5s have been nothing short of fulfilling. Moreover, she describes her return to RI as a nostalgic ride: “A lot of things are still the same, like the buildings, and even the MEP room…the layout and everything is the same!”
Whilst RI itself may not have changed much since she left, what’s definitely changed is her perspective. As a student, she recalls her experience in RI being quite ‘overwhelming’, but looking back, she now recognises RI for what it truly is: a place full of opportunities and friendships that shape you for life.
Outside class, Ms Lim is every bit as vibrant as she is in school. She’s a big thrifter (her wardrobe is practically powered by Carousell finds), a board game enthusiast (her favourite: Wingspan, which has made her appreciate birds more), and—here’s her hot take— she thinks that sweet potatoes are better than normal potatoes. In her book, sweet potato fries will always beat regular fries, and a perfectly baked sweet potato is peak comfort food.
But beneath these fun quirks lies a bigger lesson she hopes her students will take away: don’t take yourself too seriously. Having once let her fear of failure hold her back from opportunities, she now believes growth comes from trying, experimenting, and sometimes even making mistakes.
“Listen widely, explore boldly, and don’t be afraid to learn from the unexpected,” she says. With her bubbly energy and infectious love for music, Ms Lim hopes to remind her students to maintain a curious mindset, take the initiative to try new things, and most importantly, enjoy the journey of learning.
Name: Mr Cheong Ray Rin
Department: Math
Imagine your math teacher, counting 1, 2, 3.. but this time, not in your classroom, but on a dragon boat in Kallang. This might be hard to imagine, unless your teacher is Mr Cheong Ray Rin, a math teacher who’s also the dragon boating CCA teacher-in-charge!
Having been in the sport for the past 14 to 15 years, Mr Cheong is glad that he’s able to marry what he enjoys doing in his free time–dragon boating—with his work. Seeing how he wakes at 6am on Saturdays for training, it’s not surprising how he refers to dragon boating as a lifestyle, instead of a hobby. He sees commonalities between math and dragon boating, the fact you “must know how to count”, and how you need to be able to get into the momentum.
Our immediate assumption was that he got into dragon boating when he was a student, just like how we get into our hobbies. When he mentioned that he entered JC via the DSA-route, it further “confirmed” our hypothesis: If Mr Cheong has been dragon boating for the past 14 to 15 years, then it means that it was his secondary school CCA, which he used to DSA into JC where he pursued it further.
However, as Mr Cheong, the ex-hybrid stream student would know, our hypothesis was terribly wrong. Not only did he only encounter the sport in the armed forces because of a bilateral exercise with the Malaysian armed forces, he also DSA-ed into JC via choir as a baritone!
While he didn’t join an alumni choir after JC, he still meets up with his friends from choir and ‘forces’ them to sing a chorale piece together, and picks up side quests like performing at the CLDCS concert. He also shares that while he doesn’t have a favourite song, he is quite hooked onto the song Golden after watching the show Kpop Demon Hunters.
Compared to trying out different subjects by swapping jobs with his colleagues, Mr Cheong shares that he would much rather swap lives with a student. As he reflects on how he was like as a JC student, he prompts students to, in layman terms, lock in. As a DSA student, though he had gone through the rigor of O-Levels, he felt like he had a back-up plan to fall back on which was choir.
This translated to his learning approach, where he thinks he had a little too much fun. In his words, “if I were to be 17-18 again, I would still play as hard, but I’ll also study as hard.”
Mr Cheong clearly has many interests and seems to have quite a fruitful life outside of teaching which leads us to wonder—why teaching? And more specifically, why math? He shares that beyond the fact that he has a math degree and how he doesn’t like reading (which thankfully math doesn’t have much of!), teaching was really about nurturing.
Initially, he chose the profession because imparting knowledge is what he derives satisfaction from, but after going into teaching, he realised it was more than just that. He shares that it’s more of nurturing the child and watching them grow in terms of their values.
As for math, he particularly enjoys the challenge it poses for math teachers. As a teacher in JC, the challenge would be to explore the different ‘levels’ of math like H1, H2, H3 and Further Math and whether they then have the ability to teach the different levels to the students.
Finally, we asked the burning question. How can students ace math in ten words or less? To which he answered, “by not always finding the x, but understanding the y”.
Name: Mr Dino Soh
Department: Science/Chemistry
Last but not least—Mr Dino Soh: part-time Chemistry teacher, full-time “67” joke maker. In the span of one 18 minute interview, Mr Soh mentioned the current “67” meme not once, not twice, but 4 times.
(For clarification, Mr Soh is in fact a full-time Chemistry teacher with the school.)
Mr Soh discovered his interest in teaching during his own schooling years, sparked by one of his own secondary school teachers. The teacher, who taught him physics, made lessons “very fun”, something Mr Soh has tried to recreate in his own classes.
“We were playing with the molecular model kit in class,” he recounts, as one of his favourite moments at RI. “Some of them were playing beyblade, some were using it to play pool. There was one guy that was juggling with it.”
Of course, every job has its ups and downs. For Mr Soh, his least favourite part of teaching is the added responsibility of being a CCA teacher in charge of Rugby.
“I prefer [having] more interactions with my students, in class and outside of class,” he explains, noting that the limited time he spends with the Rugby students and his own lack of expertise in the sport limits his ability to do so.
His apprehension has nothing to do with Rugby or sports itself; in fact, Mr Soh wouldn’t mind being a PE teacher instead. He already accompanies his classes to PE lessons when possible, and enjoys playing sports with them or running into them at the gym. It’s another way for him to form connections with his class, and he marvels at the vibrant student life at RI.
“It’s fun to be a JC kid here,” he observes. “With Take 5, movie nights, and all that.”
As for canteen recommendations, Mr Soh is quick to profess his love for the prata stall, highlighting both the prata and chicken fried rice as his favourite dishes. He also cites a mysterious “purple drink” from the fruit store—a butterfly pea drink “due to supposed health benefits”.
Following the trend of a healthy lifestyle, he reveals that he’s played a myriad of sports over the years: volleyball, table tennis, tennis, squash, and swimming.
But perhaps most surprising of all—dance. Every Monday, Mr Soh makes his way to Mandopop dance classes, where “it’s like yoga class. You go there, they teach you the choreo, and then you try it out.” He picked up dance in university, trying out genres like hip hop, breakdance, popping and more.
Unlike all the other sports he’s played, dance doesn’t involve directly competing against another player in a match. It’s the only sport mentioned which involves a more aesthetic aspect, and makes a stark difference from his other interests. So why dance?
“Because I suck at it,” he says. “Before I started dancing, my experience was ‘if you work hard, you will get results.’ But after three to four years of dancing, I still felt pretty bad at it. I didn’t have the confidence to perform in front of other people. It was something that—No matter how much effort I put in, I did not see the results.”
“That’s why I wanted to do it. That’s why I kept going for it. When you see the results, when you see your growth; it’s very fulfilling.”
When asked if he would want to perform at either dance CCA’s concerts, Mr Soh laughs. “If I get invited.”
For those curious about Mr Soh’s dance skills, you’ll be pleased to hear that he will be recording a dance performance for this year’s Farewell Assembly—Y6s, do keep a lookout!
Beyond dance, he also listens to Mandopop for fun, with Jay Chou, Eric Zhou, and Yan Ren Zhong being some of his favourite artists. When it comes to shows, he prefers K-dramas related to comedy or time-travel, listing Signal and Gaus Electronics as current favourites.
“Don’t be afraid to try new things and fail,” he shares, when asked if he had any advice for his students. “Explore while you are young and have the energy. Just step out of your comfort zone and try new things, and you might find something you enjoy for the rest of your life.”
And of course—“Redo your tutorials 6,7 times. Write that in. You can rephrase it however you want, just make sure there’s 67.”
