AUGUST 13 — “You call yourself a Victorian?”
It was jammed down our throats from seniors, teachers and probably the school gardener throughout our freshman year until we’d wake up in the middle of our sleep, unable to answer but filled with a sense of expectation.
And get on the 6.15am Foh Hup Omnibus Company ride from Cheras to school. Alight at the old ENE Building and trudge through the squatter colony and up past Stadium Negara. To school.
It’s right next to the second highest building in the world, for those unacquainted with the Victoria Institution’s location.
For those equally unacquainted with the school discipline enforced, I can sum it up.
It was plenty and I experienced the whole menu through the years. Students had to slip into lines before quarter past seven or get held back by a prefect at the front gate.
Whether the student was dropped by a government vehicle courtesy of his high-ranking father, or just the riff raff unfortunate to miss the bus, everyone late was held back.
And the truly late — guilty! — run twice around the school which is not a small campus before heading to class. Yes, I got a lot of cardio done in the morning through the years.
To be more than you were.
This was the tone set throughout my secondary school years in a school fixated with symbolism and traditions.
The VI Way
It’s Founder’s Day tomorrow, 133 years ago Mrs WH Treacher, the Selangor resident’s wife, walked along with a line of city elders, those who raised the funds for the Queen’s Jubilee, to the selected site by the Klang River.
A stone was laid and classes began the following year.
Thirty-six years later, thanks to persistent flooding, the school moved up to Petaling Hill in 1929.
Talking about that school, it is something I never tire of doing.
It gives me the opportunity to delve into how expectations can be a good, and even a great thing, when exercised with wisdom and care.
There was hardly anything phenomenally special about the boys even if they arrived from their primary schools with good grades or sporting excellence. Hardly.
It was expectations which drove us forward. So that we lift ourselves and meet the expectations, in the classroom, on the fields and in manners.
Being 12 is scary. If I am to take liberties, so was being 13 and 14. Right up to fifty and beyond.
So, when the whole environment at school was about expectations and standards we are all naturally demanded to meet — of course many of us failed to match it — it gave us a springboard.
There’s a word to describe what comes out when the expectations are managed rather than laid on the shoulders of the young like a boulder. Confidence.
And if the younger student is unsure of himself or questions his own temperament, he only needs to look up to senior students. They exude confidence.
Since they took the journey before and excelled, or at least in our eyes it appears they did, we feel we can too.
Only years later when we sit with super seniors did we learn about their shenanigans. That they too were petrified young boys in their time and naturally did many naughty things.
Yes, to the elephant in the room, there was ragging. Not intended as displays of power and control but as rites of passage.
For, the ultimate goal was to build deep camaraderie within the student population.
Yet, as I consider my schooling with the hindsight of time, more than setting the tone, expectations, the occasional excellence, the most sought after or better phrased the large umbrella where all of these sit, is character development.
To be a person who more often than not says what he means and means what he says.
To set examples rather than wait for them. To be disappointed with oneself when acting poorly rather than waiting for others to prove your guilt.
Don’t expect a medal for doing the right thing. Don’t sell people down the river for a quick gain.
And one day after seven years, the school coughed me out and asked me to carry on with my adventures elsewhere.
The green, green grass of Bangi and beyond
This is not a “my school is better than yours” segment. Rather, an observation that a large majority of our schools do not have a cultural framework which emphasises discipline and civic duty.
There may be individuals in the form of teachers, sports coaches and senior students who turn into Mr Miyagi and do their bit.
A great headmaster can do wonders. But without a larger tradition or culture to house the effort or to embolden the actors, the impact is restricted.
And the school products are then passed on to tertiary institutions.
What I did learn quickly in the public universities system, attending Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, a large number of students arrived with the grades but not necessarily the confidence or character.
It nurtured a defensiveness which permeated life on campus. People fought for positions and not to elevate the general body.
Beat people down with ad hominem attacks and CV presentation rather than with argumentation.
But worse, not expect more from themselves, to keep themselves in check. To understand excellence without finesse is sad.
No amount of success will compensate for a lack of basic manners.
Many hold key positions in the public and private sector today but whether they expect more of themselves, I suspect very much. The defensiveness is too imprinted in them, and the fear of losing face.
So, nothing is rocket science. Nurture never is. But it has to be present.
Unfortunately, too many of our schools are run badly, and parents are taking the manufactured grades through examination gaming as proof of quality.
I fear a few technocrats are nodding in the back and are ready to introduce Character Building 101 with two instruction hours per week. Ace the course, they say.
Character development is a tad bit more complicated. A good place to start is to imbue kids with traditions and expectations to meet through examples delivered.
My pal Azam Aziz believed in that. He poured in time, money and effort to the school through the alumni over the years without waiting for encouragement or acknowledgement. A year ahead in school, he was miles ahead in terms of personality.
He’d hate the nonsense dominating Malaysia these days, devoid of a sense of honour and decency. Azam died early this year.
As for me, I’m still unsure about the effect of the VI project on me. I’ll let people call me what they want.
But Happy Birthday, Victoria Institution. If it stays true to traditions, it’ll remain much taller than the building next door. Be yet wiser.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
