The maths and science teacher from Singapore believed she would be walking into a world of excited senior students. Instead, she discovered many had become disengaged with learning.

“It was a bit of a culture shock initially,” the Trinity Lutheran College principal Dr Wong says today.

“In Singapore, a classroom had around 35 students who all sit in a row, all pay attention and all do what the teacher said.

“These were all senior students so I thought they were pre-university and must be highly motivated.
“Instead I found they were pretty jaded about their ability to do maths. It was quite a steep learning curve.”

Instead of being discouraged, Dr Wong deepened her interest in education by moving from Canberra with her husband to Queensland, joining some of the state's most prestigious schools.

These included Ipswich Girls’ Grammar School, St Hilda’s School and John Paul College.

However, it was her placement in 2010 as deputy head of college at Trinity Lutheran College that she finally felt she had “returned home”.

She described the 1000-student school in the middle of Ashmore as “close knit” and filled with energy and vigour.

“The place was like a family. I’ve been here for 10 years and I am like the furniture.”

Dr Wong embodies a global perspective on learning, having being born to second generation Chinese migrants in Singapore and living as a proud Australian with a Canadian son.

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“One of our pillars is global citizenship. We feel everyone of our students has a place in the world.

“Our gifts, even if we don't know what they are yet, those gifts are to serve the world.

“Look at the pandemic, we can’t live in a cubby hole.

“I want the children of Trinity to cast their sights wider than the boundaries of Australia.”

Once an aspiring architect who dropped out because she discovered she could not draw, Dr Wong likes to tell her students the first path isn’t always the right path.

Now with an alphabet behind her name, Dr Wong PhD, MEd, BSc, DipEd, MACEL, FAIM, AAICD ensures she learns something new each year.

“It really doesn't matter what you do, just be very good at what you do,” she said.

“You always need to be learning, I went back to university with a toddler at my feet to learn about leadership and management to help me do a better job at work.

“When I finished I told my husband if I every go back to study just slap me, but four years later I decide I would do a PhD.

“I feel that as an educator I need learning stories for my student as teachers we need to remember how hard it is to learn something new.”

She is now learning cello and plans to add French to her repertoire.