Selamat Hari Guru

Its the 16th of May, the official Teacher's Day. I was in two minds about making this post but finally I decided that I have to do it, about 30 minutes before the day is over.

Why did I hesitated in making the post? Because I do not want to be seen as appreciating my teachers only on Teacher's Day. Just like why I did not celebrate Mother's Day because I feel mothers (like my wife, since I do not my mother anymore, though I have a replacement in my Makcik who has been a gem to me my siblings and all our children) deserves more than just a day of appreciation.

The only problem with "official" days is that by not celebrating them we are deemed to be not appreciative of the people concerned. To prevent this "misconception" I decided to make this post.

I can talk (or write for that matter) forever about teachers. However, in this post I am only going to write about my primary school teachers.



Standard One 1965 - Mr. M. Palany. He slapped me once for climbing the hill going up from the field instead of taking the stairs. I was also the class monitor and had the honor of carrying the exercise books of the class to his home not far from the school on my way home to catch the bus.


Standard 2 1966 - Miss Saraswathy (I think). Did not remember too much but I hate it when we were asked to remember our tables and recite them one by one in class failing which we have to stand on our chairs. Despite this I was still bad with my tables.

Just found out that actually my class teacher in standard 2 was Miss Wong. Ms. Saraswathy was a subject teacher (maybe).

Standard 3 1967 - Cikgu Jamaluddin. Again as a class monitor I was given to do some chores for the teacher. In this case I was asked to mark the work of the class. The teacher will give me his red ink pen and I will do the marking. He will just sign at the end. On one occasion I put a remark "Good" on the exercise done by a girl whom I thought I had a crush on. I was given a scolding by the cikgu and after that he did not ask me to do the marking again.

Standard 4 1968 - Mr. Chow Weng Wah. Had very little memory about the year. I was caught fighting one day with a new student who just transferred from Singapore after his father retired from the police. I thought he did not show enough respect for us kampong boys and gave him a few punches. Mr Chow was upset and scolded both of us. He then said if we want to fight, come to the front of the class. I thought I heard him said he want me to go to the front of the class. When I reach the front, he said in a loud voice: You still want to fight?. No wonder my friends looked puzzled when I walked past them towards the front of the class


Standard 5 1969 - Miss Devi. The year of our Assessment Exams, the first major exam in my life. Back then very few students scored all As (five subjects). I was earmarked to get 5 As. Miss Devi knew that my weakest subject was English but my other subjects are okay. So whenever we have extra classes, while the other students were studying all the exam subjects I will only be studying English. Despite all her efforts, I did not get A for English and there no one who scored all As for the school that year.



Standard 6 1970 - Mr. Victor Chinniah. Hockey master and a few other clubs including Scouts if I'm not mistaken. He was a good teacher but I was not happy with him when I left school. I was always competing with another boy, Thomas, to get the first position in our exams since our early years and we have alternatively grabbed the first place on many occasions. In the first term exam in Std 6, I beat Thomas. In the final exam (the last exam of our primary education), we scored exactly the same marks, so it was tie. To break the tie, Mr Chinniah said whoever got the higher English mark will be first. So Thomas got first and I got second. I thought that was not fair. Why should it be English and not Malay (which I was better at)? It should have been a neutral subject like Mathematics (which I would have won) or Science (which I think Thomas would have won).

The other teachers:

Mr. Tan Beng Hooi - Headmaster, Very dedicated teacher with a fatherly figure type of attitude. He taught Civics which helped us be better citizens. I remembered that Civics was not a boring subject then.

Cikgu Ali Bulat. Big sized teacher who taught us Bahasa Melayu.

Ustaz Abu Bakar - Taught us Ugama Islam. Very strict (but only with the boys, if I remember well). His exams are very tough and in Jawi. On many occasions, my agama marks pull my average down depriving me of first position in class. He later furthered his studies to university. Later he taught at mosques and suraus where he then became a teacher to my late father. I still bumped into him during Hari Raya prayers.

To all the above teachers who are still alive, Thank you very much and may your life be Blessed. To those who have left us, May Allah give His Blessings to your souls.

SELAMAT HARI GURU, Cikgu.

Note: Class photos courtesy of Saleha Hassan (via Facebook), a classmate in primary school. Now a teacher at St Francis Institution, Melaka.