By Chew Phye Huat and Chew Phye Keat
AS we reflect upon our mother’s legacy to us as a teacher, there are two values in her teaching life that we inherited from her. These values were learnt through her life’s experiences rather than from her teacher-training days. She taught us these values more through her life than her instructional moments with us. Although both of us have not ended up in the teaching profession, we carry these values with us and uphold them in our respective church teaching ministry.
The two teaching values we learned from Mum
1 One must be a student before one can be a teacher. Mum grew up in a discouraging family environment for a budding teacher. Firstly, her parents were not keen on her going to school! This was in the 1930s in Kuala Lumpur when education was optional.
However, due to a timely intervention by an aunt who mentioned matter-of-factly that if Mum did not go to school to be educated, she would not be able to read a letter from a mistress to her husband-to-be. Thus, Mum was permitted to attend primary school! God certainly does work in mysterious ways.
Mum just loved going to school. She would diligently do her housework both before and after school just to make sure that her parents had no cause for complaints. However, her education went beyond the study of just school subjects. Being in the Bukit Bintang Girls’ School which was a Christian mission school, she studied and excelled in Bible Knowledge.
Truly, Mum did not give up her love for education and Bible reading to her dying days. During the last two years of her life when diabetes had affected her eyesight and she found it difficult to read, Mum would still get up at 6a.m. every day just to read her Bible (with the aid of notes) and the Daily Light (a collection of daily Bible readings).
Throughout her life, Mum was a fervent student, especially of the Bible. Moreover, she knew her content well (being an English and Geography major). Hence, she was able to impart her knowledge to others, whether they were students in school or women at the church Bible study.
2 Beyond the classroom, one teaches through one’s life and example. (Teaching is therefore more than the dissemination of information).
There are many former students of the Bukit Bintang Boys’ Secondary School who speak of Mum’s love for Geography. Mum inspired a generation of BBBS students to note the five Great Lakes of North America, the hot, dry summers and the mild, wet winters of the Mediterranean climate. She was known as a strict teacher and did not tolerate tomfoolery. However, nobody would disagree that her no-nonsense approach had good intentions. Basically, she wanted every student to excel in his or her studies.
Her attentiveness to her students did not end at the classroom level; she took an active interest in them. Instinctively she knew if students faced difficulties at home. She had gone through similar experiences as a student herself and wanted every student to have a fair chance at succeeding. She also made the welfare of her students an item of her personal prayer life. She was never timid about her Christian faith. Openly, she encouraged attendance at Scripture Union and Chapel services.
Immediately after her retirement from teaching, Mum spent a lot of her free time leading women’s Bible study groups and visiting the sick and lonely church members. It was then that we saw another side of her, which we had not witnessed before in her teaching career.
As Mum could not drive to do the pastoral visits, she had to rely on some ladies in the church for transport. As these women drove her to the different places, Mum mentored them in the art of doing pastoral visits and praying for the people in need. Some of these women are still doing this type of pastoral care today. They would remark that Mum showed them the way to serve in that capacity.
Undeniably, the Lord Jesus Christ was the motivating force behind Mum’s life and mission as a teacher. She loved being a teacher because of the debt of love she owed to the Great Teacher who gave himself to die for her. Therefore, she saw her teaching vocation as an extension of the mission of the Great Teacher.
Mrs Chew Chye Theam nee Madam Ong Lim Neo taught at Bukit Bintang Boys’ Secondary School in Petaling Jaya for over 20 years until her retirement in 1983. She went home to be with the Great Teacher on Feb 11. Used with permission from TCF In Step 2005
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