SMJK Keat Hwa 1: Teacher, Is It Worth It?

   It is the time of the year when results are out or are coming out. This is usually a busy time for me as students will come for chats to explore options. Over the years, this time of the year would be the time when there would be quite a few such impromptu sessions. 

This year, it is different. We to had meet for yumcha sessions instead. Boy! It’s a challenge trying to keep up with the young who feel that 12 midnight is still young like them. Been a long time I even stay out of the house past midnight. Lol!

Anyway, in one of the conversations, a former student asked if it was worth it, 'chasing' the teacher bully and getting transferred out from the school. I told her that I was anticipating it because the Principal didn’t seem to want to do anything about it and I had applied pressure that would make him retaliate. In fact, I had told a teacher in late October that the Principal would do that. At that time, the teacher said that would not happen. Turned out my gut feeling was right. It's not about whether it was worth it. At that time, to those students, it meant something for their voices to be heard.

     Then she asked why I did it. This was because she said many of the students I stood up for didn’t appreciate what I did. I told her, how could I expect any of them to appreciate what I did. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting any. They were teenagers and for 2 years, they had been on the receiving end of verbal curses and intimidation. I told her, if a teacher comes into a class and berates, curses or scolds a student, wouldn’t the rest of the class just sit out quietly, and in their heart, hoping that she will continue with that one particular student and not zoom in on them? 

     Survival instincts would kick in and everyone will just hope that it would not be them who get the showers of verbal assaults. In such kinds of classes too there would also be less cooperation and trust among each other. It will be each person for his own because when ‘attacks’ come, you need to survive.

     It wasn’t the teacher I had issues with. It was her behaviour. Actions and behaviour which were unbecoming of a teacher. And so, there I listed those behaviours as put forward by the students to the Principal in their meeting on the morning of 31/10/18. You find them in 3 sessions of meeting. They are taken from 3 sessions of recordings. 

1. Teacher making the class monitor complete and mark her attendance monthly/daily. Even after being admonished by the Principal, she continued to do it by asking another student to do it because she was angry at the class monitor for going against her. 
2. Using her position as a class teacher to intimidate the students. There have been incidents of previous batches who had their Kelakuan in their Sijil Berhenti bad because she didn’t like them. 
3. There was a case of missing funds (PIBG and magazine) which a student’s parents complained to the school. When the parent insisted that the money be returned, the student became a victim. He failed his BM consecutively during F5 until the trial exam, where he got an exact pass for the paper.
4. The same student had his BM Lisan SPM given a score of below 10 marks. When the external examiner came and pulled his name out for a moderation exercise, he used the same material and the marks given were significantly higher.
5. The students were worried for their siblings in the lower forms because they were worried that this teacher would take it out on them. An example was given where during a PT3 Lisan exam, for no reason, when a candidate entered the room, he was asked whether he was ‘so-and-so’s’ brother. Students talked about their older siblings’ experiences, all of which pointed towards a verbally abusive teacher. 
6. Students talked about the teacher being on her mobile phone during lessons most of the time and not teaching. Apparently she would be scrolling on the phone. 
7. She would also punish them by making them sit outside the class for 1-2 weeks for not completing just one question of a 50 or 100 questions exercise. Those students would sit out of the ‘class lessons’ for that duration of time.

     Now, these were the list of complaints put forward by those students. I asked the student if she would be okay with such kind of behaviour from a teacher. Silence ensued... 

The point is, many seem to think that I went overboard by pushing for a solution from the Principal. She said some students said they joined in the ‘fight’, and was looking for drama. I told her I knew that. You have victims, bystanders and what have you not in any scenario. 

This was a straightforward issue. It was regarding an abusive and unprofessional behaviour of a teacher. How do we condone and tolerate such behaviour? Worse still, apparently too, she had always been like that, for more than a decade in SMJK KH1. Did she become meaner over the years?

A final point... the human mind is myriad of complex mix of emotions and logic. Many said that they learned to deal with her by shutting their ears and minds while she ranted and cursed. That's logic at work. But how many of us ever paused to thank our lucky stars that no one had actually snapped emotionally and mentally because of her abusive behaviour? That is where emotion might have taken over and caused permanent loss? So, what if one day, one kid... perhaps on an emo-roller-coaster…. is in class and the teacher curses her... and something snaps? 

A Form 5 boy from that batch was killed while riding on his motorcycle one night early this year. What if he had been one of those boys who had been cursed? One of her regular curses was “Aku sumpah kamu mati dilanggar lori.” Such curses... they do not belong in the classrooms, what more coming from a teacher. In BM, we can sometimes be melodramatic and use phrases like “Kita yang bergelar Pendidik.” So what if kita yang bergelar Pendidik ini menyumpah anak muridnya mati dilanggar lori.... and it did indeed happen?

So, is it worth it??? I told her I am actually past caring about the transfer. What I may still care about is the shame that I feel because it was allowed to continue... that my former colleagues were divided along racial lines and could not stand as one to stamp out a bad behaviour. The curses of this bully teacher should be on their children too…

What right do we teachers have ... to strut around, some with the canes or heads held high up and say... “Saya cikgu, you kena dengar cakap saya?” We lost our credibility the day we made excuses for all the things listed above….. Kids are sent to us to be shaped and moulded.. but we let them loose as damaged products. 

For a complete picture of the incident:
SMJK Keat Hwa I: Beyond the Facade of Pride 2
SMJK Keat Hwa 1: Kisah Seorang Guru Pembuli
SMJK Keat Hwa 1: Beyond the Facade of Pride 1