Mr Obada AlSaqqa, Second In-Charge of Mathematics and Service Coordinator at NLCS (Singapore), brings a rich and distinctive background to his teaching, one that spans a decade in Civil Engineering before finding his true calling in the classroom.
His journey began early, with his father, an architect, training him and his brothers in AutoCAD from Grade 8. He went on to earn an MSc in Civil Engineering through a Fulbright Scholarship, specialising in construction management, with a master’s thesis that combined mathematics and engineering to create a Fuzzy Logic Model for calculating and mitigating project delay risk. Before joining NLCS (Singapore), Mr AlSaqqa served as Head of Mathematics and Computational Thinking at King’s Academy in Jordan, a prestigious boarding school founded by the King of Jordan with Deerfield Academy in the US as its sister school.
His passion for teaching, however, had always been present. From tutoring friends and relatives in mathematics, computer science, and engineering throughout his school and college years, the desire to educate never left him. Any remaining doubt disappeared the moment he led his first demonstration class. “It was then I realised, without a doubt, that teaching is my true calling,” he reflects.
In his classroom, Mr AlSaqqa believes that mathematics is a language, and that consistent practice leads to greater fluency. He is guided by a favourite line from Dr Seuss: “You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself in any direction you choose.” And the biggest lesson teaching has taught him? “That you can plan the perfect lesson, and sometimes what a student really needs is five minutes of quiet kindness.”
