Just when I thought I had quite a good second primary school year despite the incident with the teacher during the first term examinations, the following year wouldn’t be any worse if not better. True enough, year-three was good for just the first three months!
One sunny afternoon on the fourth month right after recess, a gaunt bespectacled man walked into our classroom and told our current mild-mannered class teacher that an arrangement was made at the headmaster/principal’s office. Mr. Mild-mannered was to be the class teacher of another class and this new teacher, Mr. Chuah Kok Thye would become ours for the rest of that year.
Immediately after we had all settled down and Mr. Mild-mannered had packed and bolted, Mr. Chuah gave us a pop-quiz/test on English spelling! That sent me into a panic mode and admittedly, out of desperation I tried to peek at my neighbor’s paper!
“Brien! Don’t copy!” he said firmly with a stern eagle-sharp stare at me. I froze!
I was the first ‘new’ student that he didn’t even need to remember or memorize my name to my face because we share the SAME Chinese name (except for our surnames obviously, or should I say, good riddance?)! It was also quite obvious that for some unknown reasons that he just didn’t like me the very instance he saw me and for the rest of the year, psychologically tormented me.
Of course, right after that first surprise-test, I got a few strokes from the cane that he brought with him for failing the test. His cane was like his third arm and I never saw them apart except during recess. The cane also became my palms’ “constant aquaintances” throughout that year.
During those days, students were segregated into groups within the class based on their grades. The ‘A’ group would be the crate of “apples (in the teachers’ eyes)”, while the average ‘B’ students would be like the middle-child in a family. The ‘C’ group was pretty much considered the “mild” delinquents and the ‘D’ would somehow contained kids from mostly poor/underpriviledged families, or the academically challenged and the teacher would use words like , ”stupid’ or “hopeless” loosely on them.
One day, I got up too slow when the ‘B’ group was asked to return to their seats and most of the ‘C’ group was called forward and were already seated around me. One of my classmates said to Mr. Chuah, “Sir, Brien is supposed to be the ‘B’ group”.
“If he is so stupid not to know his own group, he now belongs to the ‘C’ group! Brien, pack your bags and move to the group ‘C’!” boomed Mr. Chuah.
I quietly packed my stuff and moved to the ‘C’ group for the rest of the year. At 9, I was too timid to reason with him or his cane!
Mr. Chuah had another trait and that was being in the foulest of moods on most Mondays. He would magnify any minor petty subject/situation into a punishable major at any slightest opportunities. When that happened, he would usually take it out on us boys particularly his unfavorable ones. There was however one incident that he swung his cane repeatedly on one of the boys from the ‘A’ group. Joe (who is also currently on my Facebook) remained nonchalant and pretended that nothing happened despite the lashes on his feet after he had accidentally stumbled and stepped onto Mr. Chuah’s toe! All Joe wanted was to ask for permission to go to the toilet!
Once or twice a week, Mr. Chuah would humiliate me by announcing to the class of my unkempt appearance; my dirty nails and my hair that was on contrary to what you see today, or more appropriately what you DON’T see on my head/scalp, I had a full head of course thick hair then. No matter how hard I tried combing it down with various types of hair creams, oils or lotions (they haven’t invented the hair mousse or gel yet), my hair would still stand up by the time I reached school and would resemble a toilet brush! Also, the word “stupid” was used loosely on me so after a while, I began to believe that and my grades also slipped to below-average from average. The believe started from the incident of being slow to get up from the floor before the ‘C’ group sat down around me.
I also spent the rest of the year in constant fear because Mr. Chuah had told me week after week that he wanted to see my father to discuss my behavior and grades in class. In the evenings, I would see him passing by my house in his motorbike and once, he actually saw me playing outside in the garden. I thought that was the end of me when he looked back and stared but he didn’t stop or eventually made any actual efforts to contact my dad.
Near the end of every primary school year, teachers would ask all the students on what kinds of professions that they would like to be in when they grow up. Naturally the bright ones or the ‘A’ and ‘B’ groups would describe professions like doctors, dentists, optometrists, pilots, and businessmen. The underprivileged and academically weak would be RECOMMENDED by the teachers especially when they were unsure with suggestions from the teachers like drivers, plumbers, street-sweepers (NO KIDDING! I heard this with my own ears!), construction-workers and cooks (this was the era before cooks like Anthony Bourdain or Mario Batali took the profession so many notches up to what it is today)!
About a year later when the Ipoh race-course had one of those ‘open-day’ events where children were allowed in for just that particular Sunday, I saw good ol’ Mr. Chuah! He was looking at the scoreboard and somehow at that age, I knew what happened and what caused his foul-moods on most Mondays a year earlier especially with that hurried desperate expression.
At year-four, I had a much kinder teacher (and he constantly made that known to us. And we kids used to mock him, “…teacher is very kind to you..!). I was a little happier with my life even-though I didn’t have much of any self-esteem left. My grades went back up to being an average student that year with only one negative remark on my report card from the “kind teacher” where he wrote, “Brien likes to talk in class”.
It was strange that the even-numbered years of my primary school days were better and kinder, while the odd-numbered years were just horrendous. I was still with high hopes that my primary school years would get better during my final two years, but never had I anticipated such incredible meanness and madness from a teacher that awaited me at year five! She constantly abused me physically that it took me years to work it over…
To be continued on Part 3
Related links:
“some evil demented creatures in the form of teachers – part 4 of 4 – despite and in-between the bad, there were the good years and better teachers”
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