Teaching at Menglait

Teaching at Menglait.

I had to learn to go with the flow as a teacher. Easily the most frustrating thing about teaching was the constant chatter of the students.

They never, ever, shut up! One walked into a classroom and it was as if one were invisible. There was no impact whatever on the students. It was hard for my ego to take. I understood it in a way but it did not make it any more tolerable.

It was not defiant chatter-it was just good natured idle chatter based on the reasonable premise that there was little point in listening to what the teacher said either because it wasn’t worth listening to or because, in as in my case, (I hope), you couldn’t as a student understand it.

At first I tried to and insist on total silence before I would continue but it required too much energy to do this. After a while I learned to tolerate a certain level of background noise which I would not have tolerated in other contexts.

The inattention was not defiance –it was actually just socialization. Yes, the kids were enjoying themselves – at my expense –or on my watch-as it were. But I learned that if I allowed them a certain amount of socialization time - they would then reciprocate by attempting the tasks I set them. This realisation came slowly –and took about two years to sink in.

In the end, I could set the task for the class and insist upon about ten to fifteen minutes maximum of concentration for most students. The rest was pretty much socialization dictated at their pace. This was how I survived. They liked my classes and I was a popular teacher at Menglait. Nevertheless it was grim at times and I had to keep reminding myself to smile. I determined I would try to smile . In the mornings the students always returned my smile. Menglait students taught me how to smile.

 

Most of the staff were quite pleasant –but there was one –the Head of Maths who actively disliked me. I do not know why but she was rude to the point of cutting me cold. Perhaps I upset her over my use of the computer lab one day without her permission -I’m not sure.

That was the problem-Bruneians were generally good-natured but they could be  touchy and you could upset people without knowing you were doing it-in fact by not doing very much at all. This lady,_ definitely had it in for me. There is a certain type of female that really dislikes me –and she was that type. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there are certain types (plural) and she was one of the types. I could see the loathing in her demeanour every time she looked at me.

No, Menglait was relatively good overall but after four years it began to pall-and it was beginning to take a toll on my health. I became hooked on Xanax to get me to sleep and cope with the pressures of being an HOD. But in addition there was simply so little happening professionally.

And yet I was trapped in Brunei because I knew the international school was so good for the children and for Maria.

I couldn’t leave.

It was as simple as that.

Evolution of teaching style at Mengalait.

Regarding the teaching it was a case of adapt or die. It was a tough environment physically. The school resembled a bombed out Dresden relic. It was originally a primary school. The classrooms were old , filthy, ill-maintained and stiflingly hot. Some had fans and none had air-conditioning. It always amazed me that in Brunei all manner of lowly workers from shop assistants to waitresses all worked in an air-conditioned environment but not the students or teachers.

Why? Rumour had it the Ministry felt it was good for the character of the students sit in the stifling heat. And the teachers –well who has ever cared about them anyway?

Most of the kids were hopelessly ill-equipped to cope with the ridiculous academic program designed for Native speakers, which I myself had studied forty years previously as a young boy in Ireland!

About twenty percent of the students could get a bare pass –and about one percent of the final cohort could get a credit! (Grade a-c)

And our school was by no means the worst.

The schooling process was clearly just a huge exercise in political manipulation to sieve and sift out the brighter students who were to become the administrative political elite in the Government and run the country.

The rest counted for nothing. The fact that ninety percent of the students failed was of no importance to anyone.

It was a war crime.

Many of the students at Menglait knew they had no chance of benefiting from the system and consequently most of them were very poorly motivated. Nevertheless, they still enjoyed coming to school –not to study –but to socialize. Malays are a playful and very sociable people-and the boys and girls loved coming to school where they could meet other outside the strictly controlled Islamic environment of their own homes.