The Holier-than-thou Attitude

I was from a religious school. I spent 5 years there. I've met a number of good teachers and friends. To a certain extent, I do feel glad that my parents sent me there albeit my interest in attending other schools.

But the part that I don't like about being there is the attitude of some of the teachers and students. They are the group who things they are simple better than anyone else. Well, not academically, of course. Religiously!

Just because they can quote numerous hadiths and verses from the Al-Quran, they have this holier-than-thou attitude. Dictating others and using religion as their front. Their attitude is such that I felt so irritated. The 'macam bagus' attitude often gets on my nerves.

I can still vividly remember in one occasion. I was quite close to the senior English teacher in my school. He was the only Indian and he was a priest too. But his attitude was far more mature than some of the ustaz and religous-clique students. Being a christian, he was often challenged by the ustaz to have a so-called inter-faith debate. You know, who's better, Islam or Christian. But my English teacher insisted that the debate has to be in English or there wouldn't be any debate at all. Now, being raised from a religious background, without much oratorical skill in English, the ustaz dared not. So, the debate never took place.

He often lent me some his story books and I often consulted him when in comes to debate, public speaking, poem recitation or role-play drama. I love taking part in them. He was ever so helpful. He even taught me how to prepare a public speaking text and how to manage my editorial team for the English Language Society.

A few of the holier-than-thou guys warned me to be careful with him. "He's priest, remember," they said. Yeah, so what? I didn't see any ustaz who wanted to help me in Arabic the way my English teacher did for my English 322 or 1119. I didn't see the passion in teaching the subject in the face of my ustazs and ustazahs. All I could see was the frustration, especially when all the good students jumped into another boat and went to Kolej Islam Klang to further their studies. I was offered but I decided not to leave.

With my English teacher around, I could see how he took his job seriously. You can imagine the speaking ability of the religious students in English, especially when all of them are Malays. If you ever want to practise English by speaking with each other, you are showing off. But, I didn't care. I found a friend and I spoke English with her like nobody's business.

The result? I have all the certificates for most of the English activities. That really help with my varsity application. I got A1 for my English and C5 for 1119. My other friend got A2 and C3 respectively. We were the first students to ever get a credit for 1119. Further, not many students dared to sit for 1119 exam. Didn't have the guts to even try.

The holier-than-thou guys, where are they now? Most of them are quitely becoming government servants. Their idealistic attitude, I wonder where it went.

As for my English teacher, he passed away when I was doing my law matriculation back in 1992. He was a wonderful teacher. He has shown such passion in teaching that is so admirable. He never looked down on anyone, even though most of his students are so hopeless in English. He just never give up.

From the bottom of my heart, I salute you, sir!