On World Teachers' Day, two veteran educators reflect on a lifetime of teaching

IN the soft hush of memory, where chalk dust once lingered in the morning light and rows of young faces waited with anticipation, two women look back on lives spent in classrooms — lives neither of them could have fully imagined at the beginning.

For Theresa Loh Kam Toh, now 84, teaching was the career she never intended to choose. "I wanted to be a nurse," she recalls, adding: "Teaching was the last career I would choose."

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The thought of standing before a classroom of more than 40 students filled her with dread. During her teacher training, the scrutiny of lecturers observing her every move only deepened her hesitation.

"I told myself, 'No way'," she confides with a small smile, almost amused by the memory.

Yet, while awaiting her Cambridge examination results, Loh was approached by her Secondary Convent principal, Sr Xavier Casey, to "help out" at the primary school. It was actually meant to be temporary.

Instead, it was the beginning of a teaching life that would span decades. "Little did I realise," she says, "that I was actually teaching the little ones."

When the opportunity came to train formally at the I.J. Convent Teachers' College in Bukit Nanas, Kuala Lumpur, she accepted. By 1963, she was standing before her first Form 2 class. A year later, she took on Form 3 students in the morning session.

"Since then, I never looked back," she says softly.

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For Repiah Singah, her journey began differently.

For her, teaching was an aspiration that grew into more than three decades of service. She began in 1982 at SM Tengku Mahmud Iskandar in Sungai Mati, Muar, where she taught biology, science and mathematics.

By 1987, she had moved to Institut Pendidikan Guru Temenggong Ibrahim in Johor Baru, where she spent much of her career nurturing not only students but future educators.

When she retired in 2014 at 58 as a senior lecturer and subject specialist in mathematics, she left behind generations of students and teachers who had passed through her care.

Shares the affable 70-year-old: "I aspired to be a versatile, excellent and dedicated teacher. Not just to produce students who excel academically, but those who grow beyond the classroom."

Their classrooms may have been different, their journeys separated by decades, but both women came to understand that teaching was never simply about getting students through examinations.

For Loh, the transformation was something she witnessed over the course of her career. Education, she says, gradually moved away from an emphasis on rote learning and examination results towards a more holistic approach.

Explains Loh: "In the early years, teaching was about facts — about preparing students to pass exams. Today, a teacher is also a mentor, a facilitator and a guide in character building."

For Repiah, the fundamentals remained constant even as the profession became more demanding. "The profession has become more challenging over the years. But what has never changed are the goals and principles of a teacher, namely to educate, guide and to shape character," she says.

And for both these ladies, that responsibility demanded something that could never be measured by a timetable or salary. It was time.

OF SACRIFICES AND PURPOSE

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Smiling, Loh recalls that teaching English and mathematics meant endless marking. She taught two classes of English, with essays to be marked every fortnight. She would often remain at her desk during breaks, sandwich in hand, with exercise books piled around her.

Chuckling, she confides: "I hardly went to the canteen. Otherwise, I would have had to take more books home. I guess these were sacrifices I made. But you know what? I have no regrets."

Nodding, Repiah says that she also remembers the same willingness to give more than what was required. "An educator sacrifices time, and often even personal finances, for the sake of students," she says.

The sacrifices, however, were not always visible.

There were students who skipped lessons, struggled to find motivation or simply seemed indifferent to learning. For Repiah, these were not the students to give up on, but the ones who needed more patience, persistence and understanding.

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"Such situations must be handled with perseverance," she says, adding: "Success comes when we can rekindle their motivation and remove that sense of laziness. Replace it with purpose instead." Her approach was never about choosing between discipline and compassion.

Both, she believed, had their place in the classroom. Explains Repiah: "One must be firm and punctual, but also constantly guide and motivate. Corrections should be made openly, but constructively."

It is a philosophy that Loh understood equally well. For her, discipline should never come at the expense of a student's dignity. She remembers being deliberate about the way she spoke to children, particularly when they had made mistakes.

"I do not believe in using harsh words because nothing positive comes from it," she says simply. Instead, she chose to listen before judging, believing that empathy and respect could sometimes accomplish what punishment could not.

"A firm but gentle approach works far better," she says.

For Loh, that instinct to understand rather than simply reprimand eventually extended beyond the classroom. In her later years as a school counsellor, she visited students in their homes, taking the time to understand the circumstances behind their behaviour and the struggles they might not have been able to articulate at school.

It was another reminder that, for both women, teaching was never simply about getting a student to learn a lesson. Sometimes, it meant first understanding the person sitting in front of them.

LASTING MEASURE

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For Repiah, too, understanding a student was inseparable from teaching one. She believed that a teacher had to look beyond the behaviour in front of them and try to understand what might be driving it.

"Be honest and patient in resolving problems," she advises, adding: "Use psychological approaches to shape character. Stay close to students, especially outside the classroom, and never punish without understanding their mistakes."

Perhaps that is why, when they look back now, it is not the grand achievements they remember most vividly, but the small moments that have stayed with them.

For Loh, one of those memories goes all the way back to her earliest days in the classroom.

She remembers a Standard Six class with particular fondness. "They were angels… so well-behaved and eager to learn," she recalls, the memory still bringing warmth to her voice.

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Repiah, meanwhile, remembers the students who initially struggled and the satisfaction of watching them slowly find their footing. For her, few things were more rewarding than seeing weaker students improve, especially when their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results finally reflected the effort they and their teachers had put in.

"When their SPM results improved, every effort felt worthwhile," she says softly.

But perhaps the clearest measure of a teacher's influence is only visible years later, when former students return and reveal that something said or taught long ago has stayed with them.

Loh has taught mothers and their daughters, watching generations pass through her classrooms and go on to build lives of their own. Every now and then, however, a former student would return and remind her that some lessons have a way of staying with us.

She recalls meeting two former students who reminded her of advice she had given them years earlier: whatever jobs they eventually took, they should never become "clock-watchers". It was a simple lesson about work ethic, but clearly one that stayed with them long after they had left her classroom.

For Repiah, the clearest sign of her influence came in another form. Some of the students she once taught went on to become teachers themselves, carrying something of her lessons into classrooms of their own.

"I feel grateful, proud and fulfilled," she shares, adding: "… especially when my students go on to become excellent teachers themselves."

Perhaps that is what makes a teacher's influence so difficult to measure. It does not always end with a report card, an examination result or the final school bell. Sometimes, it simply carries on — in the choices former students make, the values they pass on and, for some, the next generation they teach.

FULFILLING JOURNEY

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Loh's own teaching journey took an unexpected second turn after she left the teaching service in 1993.

Seven years later, a former student — by then a principal — welcomed her back into education at Tun Dr Ismail International School in Johor Bahru. She later served as director of studies at Sri Ara International School until 2019, finally stepping away from a profession she had once been so reluctant to enter.

But even then, something of the teacher remained. "I still love to teach," she admits.

Perhaps that is why, even in retirement, neither woman speaks of teaching as something that simply ended when they left the classroom.

For Loh, the role of a teacher has only become more demanding in an age of technology and rapid change. Knowledge, she believes, is no longer enough. "It is not about feeding students with knowledge anymore," she says, adding: "It is about helping them think — about developing critical skills and building character."

And if she could offer one message to a new generation of educators, it would be simple. "A teacher does not just impart knowledge. Above all, she inspires."

Meanwhile, Repiah's advice is equally grounded in the values she spent a lifetime trying to instil. "Value time. Be punctual. Follow rules. Cooperate and help one another," she advises. And to young people themselves, she offers a reminder that education should reach beyond academic achievement.

Says Repiah: "Knowledge is important. But beyond that, have self-discipline, respect your teachers, your parents and those around you."

Looking back, neither woman speaks much about the long hours or sacrifices. What remains, instead, is a sense of gratitude for the life they were able to build through their work.

For Loh, the reflection is disarmingly simple. "All I can say is that I enjoyed every moment," she enthuses.

Perhaps that is where these two very different journeys meet.

Loh never planned to become a teacher, while Repiah set out wanting to become one. Yet both found themselves spending decades doing far more than teaching lessons from a textbook.

They taught perseverance, discipline and kindness. They learned to look beyond a student's mistakes and see the person behind them. And, years after the classroom doors have closed, they continue to see traces of that work in the lives of those they once taught.

For a teacher, perhaps there can be no greater measure of a life well spent.