By Ng Kwan Hoong
When I meet my former classmates from Methodist Boys’ School (MBS), Kuala Lumpur, it does not take long before someone remembers an old teacher, a classroom prank or an adventure that seemed perfectly ordinary at the time. Within minutes, the years quietly disappear. Around the table sit retired doctors, engineers, architects, professors, accountants and businessmen, yet every so often the schoolboy in each of us makes an unexpected appearance.
The memories usually arrive without warning.
Someone remembers our mathematics teacher, Ms Sinnathamby, who expected us to return from Physical Education, put on our shirts and be ready for class immediately. There was little sympathy for excuses. Others recall Mr Loo, our physics teacher, insisting that every experiment and report be completed within the allocated lesson. At the time, these expectations felt demanding. Looking back now, they seem less like classroom rules and more like lessons in discipline, responsibility and seeing a task through to its conclusion.
What is striking is that none of us recognised those lessons while they were being taught. As teenagers, we assumed school existed to prepare us for examinations. We worried about grades, university admission and the future that lay beyond the school gates. It never occurred to us that another education was unfolding quietly alongside the formal one.
Some of those lessons came from teachers who probably never realised how long their words would remain with us.
Our chemistry teacher, Mr Chong K.F., once offered a piece of advice that sounded almost too simple to remember.
“Whatever you choose to do after leaving school, do it to the best of your ability. Go for it.”
More than fifty years have passed, and those words still surface whenever we meet. We eventually entered very different professions and followed very different paths, yet the advice somehow belonged to all of us. It was no longer about chemistry. It was about approaching life with commitment, whatever direction it eventually took.
Other lessons were learnt less intentionally. Many of us still laugh about our chemistry practicals, when mastering the old glass pipette often meant accidentally drawing a little copper sulphate into our mouths before learning the correct technique. At the time, it was simply another laboratory mishap. Looking back, it reminds me that competence rarely arrives immediately. Most worthwhile skills begin with awkwardness, persistence and the willingness to try again after getting something wrong.
Not all our learning happened inside classrooms too. One day, convinced that we were being terribly clever, our class decided to lock a new mathematics teacher out of the classroom. We found the whole idea hilarious.
The principal did not.
The punishment that followed quickly convinced us that actions usually have consequences beyond the laughter they first produce. As schoolboys, we regarded the incident as an unfortunate ending to an otherwise successful prank. Looking back now, I suspect our principal regarded it as an opportunity to teach a lesson that had very little to do with locked doors.
Outside the classroom, growing up continued in ways we scarcely noticed. MBS stood on a small hill overlooking Jalan Sultan. Many of us travelled independently by bus or train. The nearby railway station became part of our daily landscape, and excursions to places like Ampang felt like adventures, even though they covered only short distances. Chinatown was within walking distance, as were the Rex Cinema and Chong Kee ice cream, which occupied an almost legendary place in our teenage lives.
Occasionally, however, those journeys reminded us that the world was not always gentle. Some of us encountered older youths who demanded pocket money with little room for negotiation. It was unsettling, but it also taught us to be aware of our surroundings and, perhaps more importantly, to look out for one another. At the time, we regarded these as isolated incidents. Looking back, they were part of the gradual education that life itself provides.
One of my favourite memories came through the school’s Science Club, when a group of us was invited by the Royal Malaysian Air Force to fly aboard a Caribou transport aircraft over Kuala Lumpur. For teenage boys, it was an unforgettable adventure. We spent the flight peering excitedly through the windows while our accompanying teacher appeared considerably less enthusiastic about the experience.
I sometimes wonder whether such an invitation would still happen today. Perhaps not.
Yet what remains with me is not simply the flight itself, but the curiosity it inspired. Moments like these quietly expanded our world beyond the classroom and reminded us that learning sometimes begins with the simple excitement of seeing something new.
Looking back across more than half a century, I realise that our education was never confined to textbooks or examinations. School certainly taught us mathematics, physics, chemistry and languages. Equally important, however, were the experiences that unfolded between lessons: friendships that crossed different backgrounds, mistakes that carried consequences, teachers whose words matured with us over time, and small adventures that gradually nurtured confidence and independence.
None of us recognised these moments as they happened. We were simply boys trying to make sense of school, friendships and the uncertain future waiting beyond the school gates.
Perhaps that is how growing up usually happens. It is rarely announced. We do not notice it while it is taking place. Only many years later, when old classmates gather around a table and begin telling the same familiar stories, do we realise that somewhere between the classrooms, the train rides, the laughter and the occasional mischief, we had quietly become adults.
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