The Old Boys

I am proud to say I went to a De La Salle school. In fact, I am proud to say I went to one specific De La Salle school: La Salle Petaling Jaya. I spent all my schooling years there, from Standard 1 in La Salle Primary right through to the completion of my STPM 13 years later.

My mother was one of the first teachers in the Primary school and my brothers all did their schooling in that Jalan Chantek institution as well, so my love for the school is perhaps understandable.

And yet, the school itself was modest and in a perpetual state of repair and expansion. A school is never just the building of course and for many years, La Salle PJ could indeed boast of exceptional academic and sporting achievement.

If there was one regret I have of my education, it would be the sense of necessity with which I approached it, rather than the self-fulfilment I should have founded it upon. With one or two exceptions, I studied what I did out of a need to pass exams, not because I derived any particular enjoyment from the subjects. I do indeed blame some of my teachers - that the school did as well as it did in spite of them is an even more astonishing testament to its fine spirit.

I would have loved to have had more inspiring educators than some of the ones I had. Certainly, History should have been more than just a jumble of dates and names. Or Geography more than a map-drawing endeavour, or Biology... The list goes on.

It was certainly not all bad news though. Far from it. I did have some very good teachers - Mrs Violet Chong taught me English Literature in Form 6 and it must surely have taken a few years off her life, even as it opened my eyes and heart to a new way of looking at things.

Mr Vincent was equally illuminating when I went for Physics tuition in the little add-on room he built as an extension to his house. Over the years, he must have given tuition to hundreds of students, many of whom would later speak reverentially and with immense gratitude of his dry wit, his firm yet forgiving disciplining, and of his ability to make things out to be so simple and explicable.

My Bahasa Malaysia teacher in Form 5 was instrumental in me securing the highest grade in my year. I had had a typical year - enjoying my various activities and doing the minimum to get by in my studies - when, after one term exam, she said to me 'John, you are capable of doing so much better. I know that. If you applied yourself only a little more, you will do well.' That shook me - it wasn't so often a teacher told you she had faith in you but you had to live up to that faith and potential. From that day on, I worked at it and when I got my SPM results, I realised just how much Pn Maznah had influenced my future. Looking back 25 years is a little too much to ask of my memory now, but I don't think I ever had a chance to thank Pn Maznah. She had left La Salle and I hope she influenced others as significantly as she did me, wherever she went.

Now, amazingly, over a hundred of us old boys do keep in touch with each other on a regular basis. Linking ex-La Sallians in the US, Germany, Australia, Singapore, the UK and Malaysia, a little mailing list started in 1999 by a group of students from the 1966 graduating year now boasts members from that batch right through the 70s, 80s, 90s and, I believe, even the nought-ties.

Among the very first people I mentioned the Celebrate Malaysia! idea to were indeed the Old Boys - or 'Lasobans'. I received instant support from Melbourne to Melaka and, as is the wont with La Sallians, some very good ideas and opinions too.

Damn, it feels good to be one of the old boys. Vanity dictates that perhaps that should be 'Old Boys'...