My Teacher : Mr. Tan Pau Chan

 

As I look towards the High School Klang building resplendent on its hill, I am reminded of when I was a student there in the 60’s. It was there in which I got to know a teacher, Mr. Tan Pau Chan who later became the founder of the Parkinson’s Disease Association  in Malaysia.

 

This Malacca born man had been trained at Kirby College, London in a time when there weren’t many colleges in Malaysia. Teachers were sent there for two years of training and whoever who got the chance to go were terribly lucky to have been picked.

 

On coming back home, he taught at Tanah Merah, Kelantan for a few years. Later however, at High School Klang, he taught Arts and English.

 

Mr. Tan did have training in music, but seeing that it wasn’t an active subject at High School Klang, he didn’t get to teach any music. Nonetheless, he was active in singing and he even wrote the school song, heading the school choir and teaching the students how to sing the Negaraku. His inclination towards the arts was also seen through his skills in drawing. On top of everything else, he was a Scout Master.

 

When he first came to Kuala Lumpur, funnily, his Bahasa Melayu had a tinge of the Baba Nyonya accent even though he wasn’t of that descent. But then again, it might probably have been due to his stint in Kelantan. He was a person who was always close to his students even if he didn’t teach them nor had any other connections to them. He never physically punished his students except for pinching them lightly if they did something wrong.

 

Aside from being a devout Christian, he was a man with an open mind and of forward thinking, as compared to some of the other teachers there. This was seen when he gave informal sex education talks to his students, in a time when such things were unheard of.

 

Mr. Tan had 3 other very close friends, who were also teachers at High School Klang. One of them was teacher Turaisingam. He too had his training at Kirby College, London. A charismatic Math’s teacher he was, who was well liked by his students because of the simplicity of his method of teaching. His dedication towards his students was clearly seen from the extra classes he usually had for them. As an aside, I remember him loving to dress up as an Indian warrior.

 

Besides Mr. Turaisingam, there was che gu Sulaiman. He on the other hand, had his training in teaching at the Sultan Idris Training College for Malay Teachers, Tanjung Malim, Perak which was later known as Maktab Perguruan Sultan Idris and now, as Universiti Pendidikian Sultan Idris. This teacher, who was at times dressed like Hang Tuah, taught Bahasa Melayu.

 

The last of the quartet was Teacher Jeswan Singh. He was always wearing the traditional Sikh attire and lived at the living quarters provided by the school and was assigned as the dormitory warden. He was always at the school and was always making sure of the safety of the school premises.

 

The closeness in which these 4 friends were, encapsulates the notion that the difference in race is never a barrier to create feelings of friendship and trust amongst one another. In other words, racial discomfort had no place in their hearts.

 

I first got to know this esteemed man when I was in Form 2. Later, in Form 3, Mr. Tan became my class teacher. It was only in Form 5 and Form 6 when I got close to him. He was special to me, simply because of his confidence of my academic abilities even though I was dyslectic. Dyslexia by the way, is a disability in which the person has problems reading. At times, the word would seem to be reversed or the letters seemed to get switched with each other and this causes problems in identifying what the word really is.

 

In the beginning, I could not understand why he had such confidence in me, when there were other teachers who had criticized my disabilities. It was in fact because he knew that I had dyslexia and knew that I wasn’t ‘stupid’, but that I had a learning disability. This vote of confidence from him motivated me to push myself harder. Hence starting from Form 3 until the end of my schooling years, I used to revise my work at school after class was over, in the evenings till night time. I had to do a lot of revising, more than anyone else, because it was just that much harder for me to learn things. In fact, that was the only way in which I could remember the subject matter. What I did attracted other students to do the same, until a study group was formed. This group grew bigger over time.

 

In Form 3, I was placed in class 3i, the 9^th class,where Mr. Tan was a class teacher which was a class where the ‘not so intelligent’ students were placed. But due to the belief that Mr. Tan had in me, I was motivated to study even more. This came to fruit when I made history as the only Malay student in class 3i which passed the LCE examinations. The other students who passed were one Chinese and the other, an Indian. But it wasn’t a surprise that they were successful because they were from a removed class, hence being one year older than me and were capable of it anyway.

 

It is true what Mr. Tan had once said, that if one studies hard enough, God will grant him success. These were the words which I brought with me to university and even till today.

 

Of the many memories I have, there is one which I will never forget, that is the 13 of May Conflict. It happened in 1969 on a Friday. I remember, many people taking flight out of KL to their various hometowns, as they were afraid of being killed. Among them, there were some unscrupulous people who took the opportunity to buy groceries and sell them again at very high prices.

 

The 13 of May Conflict was mainly centered at KL as opposed to the other cities, where the death toll reached the thousands mark. In Klang at first, there was no racial issue whatsoever. But this changed after the 13 of May. The Chinese, Malays and Indians were killing each other for reasons which were unclear. People were of the opinion that it was a racial problem. Of course, there were some which just followed the pack blindly, not even knowing what they were doing.

 

After the dust had settled, schools were reopened. The 2000 students at High School Klang started to form groups, or ‘packs’ as it were. Mr. Tan saw this and called for an assembly. He asked the students to take a stone and to keep it in the pocket of their pants. There were students who took one stone, and there were those who took many, filling up the pockets of their pants and even their shirts. I took two. One I kept in my left pocket and one in my right.

 

He then ordered that the school gates get locked and that if anyone tried to come in, that the students should defend the school by throwing the tiny stones at them. Imagine having 4000 stones, at least, being thrown by the students . This would keep the school safe from anyone trying to disturb the peace of the school , said Mr. Tan. These stones not only empowered the students and made them feel brave to face what was happening, but it also brought the students together, as one united body, forgetting their need for smaller, more racial groups. The 13 of May Conflict was in fact, a test of comradeship between people of Malaysia, including those at High School Klang.

 

Due to the feelings of awe and admiration that I had (and still have) of him brought upon by his show of leadership in this instance, there was a part of me that always wanted to be like him, or better. As mentioned before, Mr. Tan was a Scout Master. Hence I decided that I too shall join the scouts. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any place left for me, so I joined the Cadets which were rivals to the scouts and were an even stronger uniform group.

 

Mr. Tan and I still communicated through the letters we sent to each other after I left school. I’ve been told that that he kept all the letters that I’ve sent to him safely. Sadly, we lost contact when I started to work in the US. When I came back, I was shocked to find out that he was inflicted by Parkinson’s. I did manage to visit him once.

 

Mr. Tan had suffered Parkinson’s for about 30 years and had passed away in the month of March in 2007. He has contributed a lot through educating the minds of the future generation and also in other fields, which he did especially so at High School Klang. I will always remember him, not only as a teacher, but also as a very special human being.

 

 

Written by: Zainuddin Abdul Rahman, S.M.S (now recovering from stroke ailment)

            (Student from 1968 – 1974)

 

Note: All names of teachers other than Mr Tan Pau Chan are false, in order to protect their identity.