Cast From The Herd: Memories of Matriarchal Malaysia
M. Bakri Musa
Excerpt # 97: The Novice Teacher
Mr. Norton had earlier discussed my being a temporary teacher at Malay College during the hiatus before going abroad. I was thrilled to be considered. While prestige was a factor, the more practical reason was that I would have some money before going to Canada.
So that early December after leaving Malay College, I was anticipating the letter from “Headmaster, The Malay College” inviting me to return. January came and there was none. Disappointed, I went to my old Tuanku Muhammad School (TMS) in Kuala Pilah, but it had already made its selection. I scoured the “jobs wanted” ads but scored zero.
Later in the week my cousin Baharuddin who was teaching at the new Idris English School in Tanjong Ipoh, a couple of miles from my home, dropped by and said that his school was desperate for a science teacher. The headmaster, Mr. Chin Chin Ngan, happened to be my former home-room teacher during my Form Two at TMS. So that very afternoon I went to make my application. He was still in his office and better yet, remembered me. After a brief interview he offered me the job.
I started the very next day and was issued the science syllabus and textbooks. The textbooks were translations of a discarded series once used in the English stream. They were so outdated and full of errors that I was surprised the government saw fit to translate them. Perhaps they had the cheapest royalty payments. To refer to them as books would be too generous. They were but flimsy mimeograph sheets stapled together, with the print bleeding through, making reading them a challenge. The frequent irritating and glaring typos only made things worse.
The translations were appalling and erratic. They had translated the word instead of its root through slight alterations in the spelling as with reaksi for reaction (chemical). That only complicated matters when it came to finding the appropriate derivatives like “reactivity.” The translations were also inconsistent and haphazard, with “reaction” variously translated as reaksi and tindakbalas. In other instances they were simplistic, as with kotiliden for cotyledon.
I dispensed with the textbooks’ amateurish (or more accurately, half-assed) translations, reasoning that whether it was kotiliden or cotyledon, both would be new terms to my students. So why not learn the original English? That would help them with the reference books. I remembered the old brochures of the Rubber Research Institute’s extension department that my father used to receive where they maintained the original scientific terms. I reasoned that if my father could readily understand them, so could these bright young students.
I also ignored the obsolete experiments and made my students do the same ones I did at their level. I also designed new ones on seed germination, for example, and made them collect tadpoles and banana leaf moths to observe and record their metamorphosis. Those exercises served as a good introduction into science by sharpening their powers of observation and stimulating their interest in the natural environment.
Although these students came up through Malay primary schools, they were very different from my classmates at my mother’s old school a decade earlier. These students were more like those in the English stream: smartly dressed with socks and shoes, far from the kaki ayam (barefooted) with ragged shirts and pants that were the standard attire back then.
Like my prep school students at Malay College the year earlier, these kids were eager and diligent, but subdued and not assertive. A few may have been on par intellectually with the boys of my prep school, but as a group I could tell the difference. Part of the problem was their limited English proficiency. It did not help that they were put among English-stream schoolmates. Then there was their teacher – me, raw and untrained.
Between the excitement of a new job and the challenge of teaching science in Malay, the day went fast. Soon it was the end of the month and payday. What a pleasant surprise! I was told that my pay was $310.00 per month, the standard rate. My paycheck however, was considerably more, almost equal to my father’s, and he had been teaching for decades. I had not factored in the assorted allowances like COLA (Cost of Living Allowance). Right there I was impressed with the value of education as an investment. It paid, and did so very well for me.
My father often discussed filial obligations with us. He reminded us that when we get our first paycheck we should offer him a portion, however small, as a symbolic gesture. So I did. To my surprise he refused it, as did my mother. She advised me to save the money as I would need it in Canada. So for subsequent paychecks I banked almost the entire amount as I had no living expenses being that I lived at home.
How fortuitous that I was not offered the Malay College job. The pay would have been the same but I would have had all those living expenses. Whoever made that decision did me a great favor. Later I discovered that I was indeed offered the position, but the appointment letter was misaddressed to a Kampung Tengah in Perak, not Negri Sembilan.
There was one major embarrassment. My younger brother Adzman was in Form Two of the English stream, and I had to teach his class Art. I was a dud when it came to anything artistic. Now I had to teach it – to my brother! It was a source of endless embarrassment for me.
I read all the books on art I could get. One in particular was helpful, Art and the Human Form. I learned much that would help me later in my anatomy class at medical school. My parents also helped me with my lesson plans by letting me read theirs.
When the first term holidays came, I was more than ready for it. Earlier I had approached my headmaster whether there were courses over the holidays I could take, as with those earlier “normal-trained” teachers. There were none. Six years after introducing Malay secondary schools, they still had no formal program to train the teachers, especially for critical subjects like science and mathematics. This to me, and the earlier problem with textbooks, represented a dereliction of duty of the highest order by the country’s top leaders. Their victims? Again like today, young poor Malay kids.
Next: Excerpt # 98: Getting My Driver’s License
