Molding clay

I'm currently doing Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. Most Aussies know this as the quintessential TAA. Unlike Malaysia where any random idiot fresh graduate can walk into a government school to scar nurture the minds of future generations, Australian trainers are required to have a Bachelors degree in the subject taught and the TAA at minimum.

I'm not planning to go into teaching (what if my students think I have a fat ass when I turn to write on the board?), but the course will at length explain the many acronym-ed, obscure-termed and heavily regulated education industry, my knowledge of which is sketchy at best.

A geek at heart, I've always adored classroom situations. There's just something so fulfilling about passionate discussions on an academic dissertations. There's something about watching a man stand up in front, preach intellectually that makes him more handsome, taller, articulate.

Unlike most of the immigrants of my generation, I didn't move here via the student visa route. So really, it's my first experience in an Aussie classroom. And it was fun! As the focus of TAA beyond the usual boring theory stuff is more on the technique of teaching, the discussions centred on our experiences as learners.

Although lacking any actual skills, my forte lies in my ability to arrange my face into this Intent Listener expression. It's so good I managed to throw one of my (very experienced) workshop facilitators off earlier this week. So whilst I might be daydreaming about lunch, last Saturday or how my thong is Really Uncomfortable, I always appear a good student.

But I digress. I love learning. I've had teachers who have inspired me to be a better person, inspire an unexpected passion for a subject or just made me work harder if not for anything else, to reciprocate their zeal.

On the flip side, there are those who have humiliated me in front of the entire class (1996 - "Your father is useless"). Or those who have openly crushed my self esteem (2003 - "Don't be stupid - you'll never make it"). Or discriminated me on the basis of my size/ colour/ sex (2006 - We were diving so the cues weren't verbal and quotable). Or made baseless accusations against me (2001 - "I know you're trying to seduce the boys").

I'd been brainwashed into believing that the fault of failure always lies with the student. And my TAA trainer, bless him, insisted that the teacher carried much more weightage in this equation.

I'm not a trainer in an official sense, but my various careers have always required knowledge sharing/ coaching to some extent. And it's just so important when they look to you for help, to be kind. To not crush them with callous adjectives, to brush them off when the questions begin to grate, to not make them feel stupid for wanting to know more. This coming from having experienced both sides of the coin. I feel like attitude precedes technical knowledge really. At the end of the day, I no longer remember my differentiation and integration but I'll always remember how Cik Yuen stopped her lunches in favour of coaching a student not even from her class (my own Add Math teacher was the one accusing me of being a seductress. Snort. Yeah right). And I forget all those technical grammar terms, but I will never forget Puan Yong's constant encouragement and her empathy (not to mention the way she matched the colours of every accessory to her outfits and the 50,000 pairs of shoes she kept in the trunk of her Mercedes Benz). Or how in 1992, Miss Goh once said that every lie you tell leaves a black dot in your heart.

I am suddenly inspired to pull a My Name Is Earl, only instead of hunting down all the people I've wronged, I'd like to thank every person who has taught me something and tell them I'm doing alright.