6.

My image is hidden on the far right; A teacher in Temenggung Ibrahim Girls School Batu Pahat
( Primary Class 2 )

Nurturing the Love for Teaching

In July 1956 I was transferred to my home town  Batu Pahat . I was delighted to be back with my parents and to teach in my old school, Temenggung Ibrahim Girls School .I reported to the Headmistress  Mrs Poey and she gave me the choice to teach in the primary  or secondary classes. I chose the primary classes.

I taught  back to my old nest from 1957 to    1962. It was great fun and  not at all like those days in Muar . In Muar I did not know anybody . Daily at about noon I walked to school and walked back home , reaching home almost dark  . On weekends I would go back to  Batu Pahat. My father would fetch me every Thursday and send me back to Muar every Sunday. As a person I was very timid and very dependent on my father. I would be miserable and almost on tears if he were to come late. But surprisingly I enjoyed my teaching days in Sultan Abu Bakar Girls School.  My cousins whom I stayed with , the headmistress  , my mentor and colleagues were all very supportive but me this green horn teacher and  the over protective child missed home  very much.

In 1957 a new school building was opened in Jalan Lim Poon Batu Pahat. All the primary school children and the teachers from Temenggung Ibrahim Girls School were transferred to the new building . I was one of them. There were ten of us teachers,  together with  about four hundred students. Mrs Rajaratnam became our headmistress.

I think  I had the best days of teachings in Batu Pahat. I was very enthusiastic  and may be my dream was to change the world : I wanted every child to have equal opportunities as  mine.  In the earlier days I would go to the homes in my neighbourhood requesting them to send their children to school. Those days it was a common practice especially the girls  not to continue schooling. Even my own sisters had to stop schooling to get married.

In school I enjoyed teaching the lower classes , but when I was more experienced I was given the upper classes and finally I was given a  Special Malay Class. Special Malay  Class was a program for Malay rural children to study in an English medium primary school . Forty students from different Malay vernacular schools  were selected . They were the students who did well in their schools after having completed their primary three vernacular education.

Normally at age  eleven and  going twelve they were put in Special Malay Class One ;  the following year they go to Special Malay Class  Two, learning the English language intensively. On the third year they go to Standard six and the the normal practice was , the same teacher would teach the same set of about forty children  in class One and Two , and when they go to standard six they get a different teacher.

At the end of Standard Six they had to sit for the National Qualifying Test and most of them failed because of their poor command of the English Language. I was the product of this  programme and out of forty of us , only two of us , myself  and my friend Saadiaah completed our Senior Cambridge  Examinations at one go ; that is not having to repeat our studies in any of the junior classes. 

When my turn came to  teach the Special Malay Class One , I requested to be allowed to teach the full three years. The headmistress agreed and  I was given about forty children of Special Malay Class One students.   

I was very determined to help them master the English Laguage . Of course my methodology  was very traditional. I drilled them with their grammar and spellings and sometimes punished them for not doing their studies at home. I was very sincere and meant well. I wanted all them to succeed because most of these students came from far away villages . They were not at all like my former Chinese and Indian students who were the town dwellers. They were very poor and not well exposed to the challenges in life. Before coming to this school some of them had never even seen a bus , because there were no buses in their villages and they had never travelled into town. This reminded me of my own experience: I first travelled in a bus on my own only at the age of 14 and when I stepped on the steps , the bus driver turned the  bus slowly. I was terrified and jumped out of the bus .

One pupil from Parit Kassim had to leave school when she was only in special malay class one. Her brother had to send her on a bicycle daily  about eight miles away. It was too costly and too tedious for him . I offered the child to stay with my parents and both my parents agreed. She failed her first National  Assessment Test  but passed in the following year.

To my satisfactions only two of my students failed the National Qualifying Assessment and proceeded their educations in the secondary school who later became professionals . Even the one student who failed  , that is the student who stayed in my home , completed her secondary education and became a teacher. After retirement she was reemployed for three years to teach English in a convent primary school.

In School I was an active teacher . Maybe The headmistress was fond of me . She was a Guide Comissioner in Batu Pahat and appointed me to be a guider for the school. Actually  I was the most junior teacher in her school but she would also choose me to represent her if she could not attend any  meetings  . On one occasion she could not attend the school board meeting. I had to represent her. In that meetings the board decided to give a name to the school. I suggested Tengku Mariam after the late Sultan Ibrahim daughter’s name .Sultan Ibrahim was the Sultan of  Johor , father to the present Sultan , Sultan Ismail. The board agreed . And till today the school is, Sekolah Tengku Mariam Batu Pahat.