[Miniseries 02] Skydiving Into This Madness Called Education World

Mr Q- was not the typical kind of principal you would expect to meet in a private tutoring centre. For starters, he did not bear that matured look that most entrepreneurs seem to possess. He looked boyish and dressed casually. If short sleeved white shirt, grey office pants and blue slippers characteristic of prisoner footwear were considered casual. I was actually thinking more in the line of “fashion disaster”, or even “unkempt”.

He also did not have that kind of highly contagious personality that inspired employees around him, working wholeheartedly for him. If anything else, it would appear that he was the kind of boss that was stingy and stint on things which were necessary.

Moreover, he had two waste paper bins in his hands when I first appeared at the door. Of a supposed language school. With only four classrooms and a long dark stretch of corridor. And the only working light in the corridor was flickering. This was the perfect setting for a serial murderer addicted to torturing before slaughtering them would commit his crime. For a brief moment, I thought my life was over. The interview was a bait and I took it! Oh God, dear Lord and heavens above, if I ever get out of this alive, I would —

“Oh, so you Aw, coming for an interview, ah?” he looked at me from head to toe.

Translation: So are you Aw who is here for an interview? The entire translation process took approximately two seconds.

Wild imagination interrupted, my response was to nod foolishly when I heard part of my name. In retrospect, that was a mistake.

“OK, you follow him, go over to our main office first,” he jerked his head at another well-dressed gentleman. “S-, you bring him over,” he addressed the gentleman. That was pretty coherent.

S- brought me over to the “main office”, which was, in my opinion, another dingy office unit. There in the unlit office, he seated me at the counter with a curt instruction to fill in some forms. Did I mention I hated forms with a passion that was almost holy since my two university application failures?

I filled in the forms dutifully and prepared my certificates for perusal. So began my interview. Except my potential employer, S-, said nothing while I was filling in the form. Instead, he had disappeared into another long stretch of corridor in the main office.

What was with long dark corridors in this school anyway? And why were all the lights switched off? I knew it was a chore to go to some language school on Sunday afternoon for extra lessons, but the entire place looked gloomier without the lights. Saving electricity is the duty of every person but the people in this school seemed to bring it to the extreme.

“So Aw, you received the message sent ah?” I swallowed my howl and resisted the urge to jump into the air. In my mind, I cursed at my sheer idiocy. I could not believe it! Mr Q- was interviewing me? So he was the principal?!

Mr Q- clapped my shoulders in an attempt to build rapport before walking to the other side of the counter, where he took over the application forms with deft practice. Never again, am I going to form hasty impressions of a “casually” dressed man. Even if he had two waste paper bins in his hands.

All right, admit it. Under those circumstances, you will also inadvertently make the same mistake as I do.

After a round of haggling over my wage and defining my job scope, he introduced The School to me as we started to walk around. Rather than school, it was more accurate to say it was a collection of two office units.

In one office unit where I originally met Mr Q-, there were four classrooms with the names Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard. It seemed excessive to give them such names. I was thinking more in the line of “Yale”, “Princeton”, “Dartmouth” or “Brown”. I mean, I could already imagine the following dialogue:

A: So where did you study previously?

B: Oh, at Cambridge!

A: Really? That must be fun!

B: Yes, sort of, I guess.

A: So how is UK?

B: How would I know?

A: But I thought you said you studied at Cambridge?

B: I did!

Imagine the confusion! I reckoned both parties would be scratching their heads, making a decision between eccentricity and sheer idiocy. There had never been a better prank than this.

The other office unit, however, was more down to earth. There was a manager’s office (full of documents, assorted “recyclable” resources and cartons of canned drinks), Vice Principal’s office (stacks of books and papers swaying dangerously like UNO Stacko), Sales room (leaflets and brochures placed neatly on a desk with a huge calculator on top of it), a library (dismally stocked and in shambles), a photocopier room (a small room with a sofa, two cupboards full of teaching materials and boxes of photocopier paper stacked beside the photocopier) and a classroom (codenamed — wait for it— MIT).

“So Aw, remember to come on Monday morning nine o’clock. If you cannot come ah, at least call lah,” Mr Q- continued to babble. On the surface, I was nodding politely but internally, I was having a struggle: since when did I become “Aw”? “Aw” is my father, not me.

The vice principal’s room was only seven steps away from the front desk. Eight, if you were really very short. Dwarf short. Gimli short. So as we walked to the vice principal’s room, I considered as many times as Mr Q- called me “Aw” whether I should correct him to call my name. I bit my tongue though.

“And Aw ah, at least wear something like this when you come on Monday,” Mr Q- gestured to our well-dressed vice principal, J-, who had a deer-in-the-headlights look when Mr Q- suddenly opened the door.

And like a tempest that decided it was more fun to harass another part of the world, Mr Q- closed the door brought me over to the library next to the vice principal’s room. I could see J-’s puzzled look through the small window pane on the door as I turned to the library.

“You Monday teach the little kids in this room. I know a bit messy, but at least got a board, so can lah,” Mr Q- continued with his rhetoric.

Translation: You will teach the children in this room on Monday. I know it is a bit messy but at least there is a board so you can still use it.

“OK, I see. So I’ll come here on Monday?” I raised both my eyebrows at him and pasted on a plastic smile. After an hour and half of interview, in which the haggling of my wage actually took up about half an hour, I was desperate to leave. Am I here to interview for a job or apply for a volunteer job? Apparently, my subtle hint did not get to him.

“Yes, Monday. Nine o’clock. Don’t need to buy assessment books. Can just use the books over the other side. The cupboard there.”

Translation: Yes, Monday, nine o’clock. You don’t have to buy any assessment books. You can use the assessment books in the cupboard over the other unit.

“OK, ya, thanks. Erm…”

“Printer here can print. No need to print so nice for kids lah. Two in one can already.”

Translation: You can use the photocopier here to print worksheets for the children. There is no need for you to make such good copies for the children. You can choose the two-in-one page selection for make copies.

My shoulders sagged as he droned on, seemingly never-ending, about the use of the photocopier. Then the importance of punctuality to avoid morning photocopier crowd. Then the usage of the photocopier paper. Then the amount of teaching materials the school has, from primary levels to secondary levels. Then the importance of punctuality. Again.

By the time I was dismissed, I could empathise with Sun Wukong, the Monkey God in Chinese mythical literature Journey to the West, when his master, the Tang monk, punished him by chanting some Sanskrit sutra to give him a headache with a tightening headband.

Monday, 8.45 a.m. I arrived at the doorway of The School. I had taken some Primary One materials back home to look over. Mr Q-’s description had been encompassing except for one area.

He had stressed time and again that there would be four children in my class, all waiting to go into government school. The only catch was that they were all Chinese nationals. Apparently, they had to take a Principals’ Academic Content Test (PACT) before they were qualified to enter government school. I took it that it was something akin to some qualifying test to enter government schools.

He also mentioned that the children were unable to understand a single thing in the other teacher’s class because she was an Indian and was unable to speak proper Mandarin to the children. Hence, this was when I came in and took over. I supposed I could be grateful to that teacher, as well as the clueless students who were previously in her class.

And finally, the children were very mischievous so I had to be strict, sometimes even fierce, to keep them in line.

However, he had conveniently neglected to mention the most important thing — students’ abilities. I had no idea what was the standard of the children. So it was with a certain sense of trepidation as I stepped into The School, where it would become my workplace for the following four years.

As I photocopied my worksheets for the four children in my class, students buzzed in and out of the office. From what I could gather, there were also secondary school students studying in The School, waiting for the next round of PACT to get into government school as well. The School is not just opening English classes for primary, but also secondary students. And they have quite an accomplished history.

It would seem that my wild imagination prior to the interview was just that — wild. There were enough students and potential students whose parents were making enquiries for Mr Q- to hire one sales personnel (M-), one front desk administrator (Miss K-) and five teachers (Ju-, T-, J-, D- and S-) besides me. At the very least, all the lights were switched on, transforming my previous impression of a gloomy institute into a bustling school. And Mr Q- was wearing proper shoes without two waste paper bins in his hands.

No, the slippers only appear in the afternoon. Apparently, I learn later that when it is hot in the afternoon, he will wear slippers to keep himself cool. Do not ask about the waste paper bins though.

“Oh, Mr Q- said there will be a new teacher taking over some of my students. You must be Aw,” an Indian teacher, who came into the photocopier room with a paper cup of coffee in hand, said.

“Erm, yes,” I replied.

“I’m D-, rhymes with tulip in a cup. I’m also teaching the primary class,” she introduced herself before squeezing past me to get to her teaching materials in the cupboard. Yes, the room was that small. Then she sat on the two sitter sofa in the small photocopier room, drinking her coffee leisurely.

Thank goodness there was still enough space for a third teacher to navigate. Though she came in without a second look at D- and me, took her teaching materials and left the photocopier room.

“That’s Ju-. She teaches one of the secondary classes. In the morning, everyone is very rushed,” D- said with a tight-lipped grin. I believed she also said something else but I was distracted by a random thought: her face looked like it was coated with a layer of glossy wax.

“Oh, I see. Eh, do you need to print?” I asked politely after confirming my scanned materials for print.

“Nah, it’s ok. The kids still have the worksheet I printed the other day. I am going through it today,” she took a deep gulp of her coffee. “Let me tell you something. You better print your worksheets earlier because this machine sometimes breaks down.”

“Oh, okay, thanks,” I replied awkwardly. I was running out of topics for the conversation, nine o’clock was approaching fast and D- was not helping by sitting on the sofa, drinking her coffee like a socialite of gentry drinking tea in a tearoom. I just needed to stand beside her, dressed in tuxedo and a Victorian tailcoat with a white cloth over my hand to complete the image.

Instead, I stood by the photocopier, pretending the papers coming out from the feeder was the most interesting phenomenon I had ever witnessed in the whole of my natural existence.

I could swear D- must have timed her drinking to my printing. The moment the machine stopped regurgitating the papers, she finished her coffee as well.

“Well, time for classes. Good luck with the kids,” she waved me goodbye and left the room.

“Thanks!” I replied a tad too late. Then I blinked a few times at her words. Shrugging it off as an offhanded comment, I gathered up the worksheets, the teacher’s copy, markers and my personal bag and went over to the library next door where I was supposed to conduct my lesson.

I paused at the door and took a deep breath to prepare myself for a pretty little speech. Then I opened the door. “Well, good mor-”

“ARGH!”

“EEEEEEEWW!”

“Hahahaha!”

Into Pandora’s Box, defined as two screaming children chasing each other around the room, another laughing loudly with his mouth of full McDonald’s breakfast meal and the fourth child sitting on his chair, staring blankly at the desk. I could still see remnants of chewed hash brown, drool and destroyed stationery on the desk. The salutations died on my lips.

What had I got myself into?

A titbit information suddenly flashed across Tien’s mind: It was mentioned in Allan and Barbara Pease’s The Definitive Book of Body Language that people always form quick first impressions, no matter how brief the contact is. That would explain Tien’s hasty opinions of his boss.

Tien had also pored over the same book countless times since then but there was no mention or explanation of screaming children or children who were frothing with half-chewed food in their mouths. On the bright side, he was more than qualified to reproduce the entire book from memory, word for word. Drawing the pictures were still a challenge though.