It’s the drive that matters

MAY is the month we celebrate Teachers Day. It is the time to commend and honour, salute and proclaim the many teachers who have made a difference in our lives.

I want to write about two special “teachers” I had over the years. They neither possessed teaching certificates nor held officially-designated positions as teachers, but their main task was to “teach”.

The first was an instructor who would teach me how to drive. It was in the late 1960s. There was a long break before university began and I thought it beneficial to learn a new skill.

My parents did not own or drive any vehicle. So, I would be the first in the family to learn to drive. My driving instructor, Lai Gor, knew he had a “difficult” student before him. Experience told him that he had to be extra patient.

In the first lesson, he explained how the gears, the brake and the indicator lights worked and demonstrated how to engage them with his old teaching vehicle, a Morris Minor, in stationary mode. That was the theory part and I was comfortable with it.

Then I was told to get onto the driver’s seat, start the engine, engage the gears and let the car move. I was “driving”, but I was also sweating profusely throughout the first lesson, even though the instructor was sitting beside me.

Lai Gor would remind me that to really learn a skill, I had to keep practising until it became like second nature to me.

The most difficult lesson was to reverse and park. Somehow these left-right turns of the steering wheel and how they were transmitted into backward motions of the wheels that would direct the car into the parking lot, got me all confused.

The car was simply not going in the way I wanted it. My instructor was shaking his head many a time.

After many trials and errors and his patient and repeated explanations, I finally got it. The old Morris had none of the modern gadgets that guide you into a parking lot.

Many lessons down the line and I was ready to go on the test route. It included driving up a steep slope, parking at half way then, restarting the car, making a U-turn and finally driving down the same slope. This was to test a student’s ability in changing gears and applying the brakes.

There were some trees lining the slopes. And, the driving instructors from different schools, including Lai Gor, had tagged some of these trees with colour stickers to indicate to novice drivers, the locations to change gears and apply brakes.

Follow the steps methodically and it would “guarantee” a pass in the test.

I completed all the practical lessons and passed in my first attempt.

The oral test on traffic rules was a breeze as it should have been, considering I had much experience on theory tests in school.

Lai Gor opined that you needed first to learn enough to pass the driving test.

After that you could learn to “really” drive when you were on the road all by yourself. A scary thought indeed!

But, on reflection, I have really “mastered” driving after chalking up thousands of kilometres on the road on my own.

My second “teacher” also taught me how to “drive”. But, this time it was driving a golf ball into a designated hole.

He was my golfing coach Bala. I was then a full-fledged “senior” school teacher. Bala was a young man.

He started me off at the driving range. After a short introduction on the types of woods and irons, the putter and tees and their respective functions, he demonstrated the first drive using a wood.

I came to this game because I was simply fascinated by how a player, with no more than three or five strokes of the club, whether wood or iron, could get an approximately 2-inch-diameter ball into a hole that was not much bigger than twice its size and that was placed hundreds of yards away. At least that was what it seemed like on television.

But, alas! It was not that easy. I must first admit that I was never the athletic type, with naturally agile arm and leg movements.

I was clumsy in sports. My involvement in games went no further than table-tennis, badminton and basket ball, dubbed then as the “safe Chinese school games”. So, it really tested the patience and perseverance of Bala to teach this senior teacher movements and strokes that others could have picked up in perhaps half the time compared to the long hours he took on coaching me.

For a long while, I was not getting it. My golf balls were flying everywhere except where I wanted them to, or where they were supposed to be.

I was brought to the actual playing course and then back to the driving range. This happened many times.

Bala would insist that I tried again and again to execute the strokes as he had demonstrated. Slowly but surely, I began to get the hang of it.

Soon I was ready for the handicap test. I made it; though with the maximum double-digit score. I could still remember the relieved but excited look on Bala’s face.

He was a dedicated coach with a passion to impart his knowledge and skills to his charges. He had confidence in me and was determined to see me through.

When commended on his friendly and effective coaching style, Bala humbly responded, “I learnt it in school. I’ve had good teachers who’ve showed me the way.”

I couldn’t agree more, teachers do make a big difference to their students and to other teachers too.

To all teachers, HAPPY TEACHERS DAY!

The writer is a former principal of a

secondary school in Negri Sembilan.