CHAPTER 22: EARLY SCHOOL YEARS

When we were very young, my brother and I used to haunt the Chinese primary school where our sisters studied. We were probably around 4 or 5 years old. [My eldest brother was already in Chinese High School (in BP) - probably Secondary 1 or 2. ]

One day, the 2 of us went and peeked in the classrooms and saw our eldest sister in class. We called her and offered her a sweet. Boy, was she embarrassed! She shooed us away. We then walked to my second sister's class. We gestured her to come out. She sportingly left her seat and came out of the class to pretend to blow her nose. We offered her a sweet. She took it and asked us to go home - which we did.

 Eldest sister class photo. Most of her classmates stopped schooling after Standard 6

Second sister class photo. She was obviously teacher's pet

How we wished we could go to school as well. Both my sister did rather well in school, especially my eldest sister. She was either the top scholar or the second best student in her class. Year after year, she would bring home prizes which she won in school. My second sister was more active in extra curricular activities. Thus she would be involved in the annual school play, took part in elocution contest, be involved in the annual Merdeka day parade. They were teachers' pet in their own ways.

When it was my turn to go to school, I anticipated walking with my sisters to school. Imagine my bewilderment when instead of attending the Chinese school in the village, I was sent to a convent school eight miles away. I felt completely lost, not understanding a single word uttered by my teacher. I had not even a rudimentary grasp of English.The first few months was a total blur. I was placed in 'B' class - together with others who know no English. I could hear the students in 'A' class chatting away with their teachers. 'A' class was lively, 'B' class was very quiet. The teachers must be very good - for not long later, we were able to read :

"A pan, a man, a man and a pan. This is a man, This is a pan. This is a man and a pan.... Is this a pan? No, this is not a pan. This is a man.... etc, "

Then we had spelling - students who didn't know their spelling were punished. So every night, I would diligently memorise my vocabulary. The effort paid off for I was rarely punished. My friends were not so lucky. I felt sorry for my classmates seeing them made to stand for not knowing their spellings. I cringed whenever I see the teachers using a ruler to whack the palms or rap the knuckles of my friends.

In those days, the teachers were very 'creative' in their punishment. One teacher Ms Tan was particularly cruel. She would pull the hairs of the slow students, twist their ears and once I saw her pull a student by her eyelids! Here are the list of punishments :

- For not knowing your spelling - stand until you remember how to spell.

- For repeated offense (2 wrong words) - stand on one leg

- For not knowing your timetable - a whack on your palm, or rap on the knuckles

- For untidy work - pull ear or pull hair.

- For extremely untidy work - whack, do squats while pulling your own ears

- For talking in class - stand in the corner of classroom facing the wall

- For not doing your homework - stand outside the class
- For careless work - write between 50 to 100 lines  "I will not...."

Fortunately I was spared of the whacking and rapping but I had my share of standing in the classroom (for talking) and standing outside the classroom (not doing homework).

In the middle of Year 1, a student came to join us. Her name was Evelyn. Evelyn was a peranakan and she spoke no Chinese. She sat next to me. I remember her vividly for she was instrumental in my being sent to stand in the corner of the classroom. Evelyn was the most talkative girl in class. From the moment she stepped in the class, it was yak...yak...yak... Teacher's punishment had little effect on her. Teacher whacked her - she cried for a short while, and in the next minute, she would be asking the teacher some question. Teacher sent her to a corner, she stood for a minute and then she would be fidgeting and talking. She could not sit still - rocking on the chair, walking about in class. Once she fell off the chair when rocking it on 2 legs. Kapoom!! Miss Teo, our class teacher was so exasperated that she made her stand on one leg for at least 15 minutes! Today she would be diagnosed as ADHD. Poor Evelyn! She was the most messy pupil I had ever met. Her exercise books were full of holes - due to vigorous rubbings. (Now I can probably guess she was dylexic as well - for she spelled certain words backwards). She would lick her eraser and then rub out any mistakes in her work (there were many). So apart from holes, there were plenty of smudges! You can imagine the whackings, the hair pulling, the ear twistings she received. Yet she remained cheerful. She would try to engage me in her chatter but I only responded minimally - due to my poor command of the language as well as fear of teacher. One day I allowed her to copy my work - and was thus punished for this crime! I never help Evelyn after that!!

'A' class was elite - mostly daughters of doctors, bankers, civil servants, rich businessmen. The girls has kindergarten education so they were ahead acadamically compared to 'B' class. 'B' class were mostly daughters of farmers, tradesmen and judging from our poor command of English, did not attend kindergarten. In fact when teacher was not in class, most of the students would communicate in Hokkien or Teochew! There was a Malay girl in our class. Her name was Arfah and she was very, very quiet in class.

I was just an average student. In fact I looked forward to the end of school each day so that I could play with my cousin and my brother. Until I discovered books. One of my favourite activity was story telling. Teacher would gather us in front of the class. We sat on the floor and she would read to us. 'Ali Baba and the 40 thieves', 'Sleeping Beauty', 1001 Nights - Tales from Arabia...etc.... She never finished a story for halfway in the reading, she would stop and asked : "Who wants to borrow this book?" Eager hands would be clamouring to borrow the book. The lucky one who got the book would then take it to her desk to continue reading. Then teacher would open another book.......

There was a mini library in the class and each day I looked forward to borrowing a book to read. Thus during recess, when the rest of the pupils were busy chatting, I would be reading. Thus my vocabulary improved and so did my comprehension and composition writing. Soon my compositions were chosen to be read aloud in the class. In Standard 3, I promoted to the 'A' class. And I met Choy Min and Bee Lian whom later became my best friends.

I had no photo of my primary school days but here is a photo of me in Form 5. I am third from right - wearing glasses (last row). Bee Lian and Choy Min are to my right. On my left is Lily Chong (Miss Malaysia 1974)

Note : Those punishments didn't seem to cause any psychological damage to us. Our classmates are sane citizens and still contributing to society. While I would not endorse those 'creative' punishments to today's school children, I believe there should be a healthy dose of deterrents to keep our youth on the right path and rewards to motivate them to realize their potentials.