Happy teachers Day / Sekolah Menengah Ibrahim

 

 

I believed the best times of our life are during the secondary  schools days. Those were the days in which we were very mischievous and rebellious  Being naughty however  is not being "jahat" (bad).  I was a Prefect in my famous school-Sekolah Menengah Ibrahim ,  Sungai Petani Kedah. Ibrahim Secondary School is one of the best schools in sports and academic performance in the state. Our nemesis was Sekolah Sains Sungai Petani or Sek Men Mohd Jiwa. Ibrahim Secondary  school is situated at Jalan Kolam Air Sungai Petani Kedah next to the primary school. I still remember some of my teachers who had taught in the school. Some were good teachers and there were others who were .... well  not so good . 

Mrs Pareira was our Maths teacher. She's not very tall and would always be in her colourful Sarees. She had a son who was really good in Add Maths  and a school runner   I think his name is Xavier Pareira whom I heard later became a medical doctor. Mrs Pareira would always wear her big dark glasses and was a reasonably good teacher to some students. However, whenever we had  our Maths class we had to wait about 10 minutes for the teacher to "arrive" at the classroom. She would take her time walking slowly from the teachers' room near the big hall  to our classroom which was just next to the school's  main office. I think the distance is less than 40 meters.  (The 5A class was shifted there by our Headmaster who was Mr Yahaya. Our class was one of the naughty ones and also the noisiest.) One thing about Mrs Pareira was that when she was in the class teaching mathematics, she would explain very softly and as a result  those at the back of the class would not be able to hear her. The arrangement of the class was that the Malay students  would mostly sit at the back and the non Malays were sitting in front of the class. I was sitting  in the middle of the class under a fan (needed the cool air) and because of that I too was not able to listen to what she was talking about and hence I failed my Mathematics  subject (*F9) in my MCE examinations.

Another teacher that I still remember was Cikgu Juriah our quite sexy Bahasa Malaysia teacher. She was quite a modern teacher and would wear mostly tight show-little-flesh sexy Baju Kebaya and we the students andd some of the staff thought she was very sexy looking. A friend of mind Syed Sobrie ( He was a  famous singer in the 80s with the song 'Selendang Sutera' and  was recently conferred "Datukship"  by the Sultan of Pahang) would tease her and sing the song "Juriah ... kau chantik... kau manis..." The teacher later complained to the Headmaster and Syed Sobrie was canned publicly and it was heard  over the PA system. 

Our Sejarah teacher was Cikgu Jaafar Din a quite handsome teacher who had a Sarawakian accent. He was teaching quite a while in the Sarawak state  and later  transferred to Sekolah Menengah Ibrahim . To me, he was not a very  industrious teacher . He was only interested in politics especially UMNO. In the class he would ask a  student representative to come in front and wrote the history notes on the board. I was one the the favorite students asked to write the notes on the board. He would just sit down and smoke at the teacher's desk. Later, I heard that he was made the Pengetua for Ibrahim school. The promotion must be due to politics.

Next was our Biology teacher Mr. Edgar Augustin. He was a chubby, short and fat teacher and was a Jewish descendant. He was really a good teacher. Every time he came to class I would have stomachache and one day I really had a stomachache during the class that I had to ask permission from him to go to the toilet. The rule is that you never asked this stern looking stocky teacher to go to the toilet when he was teaching. I remember one of  my good  friends Sulaiman Daud or Ramli Otman was punished quite severely for not being able to show where the diaphragm of the body was.  He was trembling and shaking like hell and  we were all quiet and scared. But, I heard that he scored well in the Biology subject and now teaching Biology . I got a credit for the subject too.

However, my friends and I from Ibrahim Secondary School Sungai Petani  turned out to be quite reasonably good citizens of Malaysia. Yours truly is now  an education consultant, Mr  Zainal Abidin Ujang was the MSD officer  in the USA,  Azhar Azizan or Art Tarzan  is a very successful  lawyer and a famous anti establishment blogger, Azhar Ahmad an aloof but rich lawyer with his own law firm and mineral water refinery , Chan Keat Swee was a famous footballer in the 80s but now a famous and successul preacher, Mr Sulaiman Daud is a filthy rich and quite religious entrepreneur now in semi retirement and enjoying good life, Mr Zaini Hashim  is a senior producer at RTM,  Mr Jaspal Singh now the  MIC Secretary General and a successful engineer but seems to have forgotten all his good old friends, Mr Patrick James Pareira is a successful executive in the construction sector and humble as ever, Dr Elilarasen who was a  really 'dumb' student  is now a medical doctor somewhere in Kedah, Mr Lim Swee Hing and Mr Phoon are  rich used car dealers in Kedah.  Thank you teachers for molding us to become good citizens of Malaysia. Selamat Hari Guru to all teachers in Malaysia and to teachers at Sekolah Menengah Ibrahim Sungai Petani.