The Modern Singh and other Teachers

This is the official photo of the School Staff in 1966. By early 1966, Mr Philip Liau succeeded Mr E W Jesudason as the Principal of Raffles Institution. Both were very strict disciplinarians, running the School with iron fists, imposing their visions and their ambitions for the School. Although the boys feared them, we all subscribed to the need of keeping the School in shape; we believed that this would maintain RI at the pole position among all secondary schools in Singapore. Anglo Chinese School (ACS), St Joseph’s Institution, Victoria Secondary School, St Andrew’s School all stood far behind RI.

Of special note was the Rafflesian Spirit then. It was palpable. It stirred us on not only to pledge loyalty to the School but also to achieve the aspirations and ambitions our principal and teachers had for us. Unlike other schools, the boys came from all backgrounds, many from families with humble means. We were chosen by merit after completing the PSLE, Primary Six Leaving Examinations and came from many different Primary schools all over the island. One observation then was that unlike the mission schools ACS and MGS, Methodist Girls’ School, there was never a line of cars at the school gates waiting to pick any of us up after school, we all walked home or took the bus. The RI spirit gave us the glue that kept us together, helped us overcome setbacks and spurred us on to fulfil our ambitions, not realizing that we were to become that Merdeka (Independence) Generation that will help not only to secure Singapore but to move the country from a third world backwater to a first world and first class country.

We owe a huge debt to some of our teachers in RI, though they were not all excellent in teaching, although some were, but that they showed tremendous personal interests in the boys always anxious to impart by word or deed, the virtues of industry, respect and fair play. They always questioned after our wellbeing for example, were home conditions right for us and how we were coping.

Up to this day, 50 years hence, we have tremendous respect for our teachers. To be honest, we were not altogether respectful then; this blog will record many mischievous pranks we played on our teachers. As expected, these playful acts became etched indelibly into our collective memory. In spite of this, our teachers and their names are fondly remembered.

The following teachers taught us in 1966:

Mr Charanjit Singh                Form Teacher and English Language

Mr Pwee Hock Teck              Physics

Mr David Paul                        Chemistry

Mr A L Sundram                    English Literature

Mr Phua Eng Lim                  Geography

Mr David Lim                         Music

Mr Leo Chin Fook                 Additional Mathematics

Mr S Puhaindran                   Elementary Mathematics

Mr Lee Tee Sim                     Chinese Language

Mr Ahmad Zahari                  Malay Language

Mr Kassim bin Ahmad          National Language

Mr Charanjit Singh was our form teacher. He was a modern Singh, meaning that he had shaved his hair and need not wear a turban. In those days, modern Sikhs were very rare, thus Charanjit stood out as the exception. It did not stop some of us at the back of the class often chanting ever so softly, "Sing ...by yee..Sing". That does not mean that he was not interested in Sikhism, in fact many remembered that he used to speak to us about the Sikh temples in Singapore.

He was a great storyteller and he used magazines and newspaper cuttings to illustrate some of the lessons he taught. Since he was teaching us English many of his cuttings were about wrong words used or misspellings which gave different, sometimes funny twists to the articles themselves. Poh Seng said that he was so impressed with Mr Singh’s collection of articles that he himself started the habit of keeping current affairs articles and cataloging them.

Poh Seng recalled that one day he brought in an article about National Service, compulsory conscription into the Singapore Armed Forces for boys at age 17  or 18 years. NS had just begun in Singapore and it always made the news. Charanjit told us that he was wary of young National Service drivers, he was not confident that they could control the large 3-tonner trucks especially in their ill-fitting combat boots. He told us, when driving his small car he would steer clear of these big trucks.

Joe Chua Cheok Kwang was given the name of Explorer by Mr Singh. There is a story to it. In the last two weeks of the year, our class was moved to one of two classes above the Teachers’ Common Room. No one knew the reason. While there, Charanjit was toting up the marks of the final exams and putting them on a spread sheet. When he was gone we all crowded around the spread sheet trying to look at our marks when he suddenly returned, which made all to run to our seats. Charanjit noted that Joe was in the wrong seat. When asked, Joe stated that he was exploring and Charanjit hence referred to Joe as ‘Explorer’. It was an apt nickname because that building was rumoured to be haunted, which meant that Joe was out looking for ghosts. We did not think we had a fair shake when we were moved to a different location; some months later, the building was torn down because it was deemed to be unsafe. That must have driven the ghosts away.

Indeed Mr. Singh was a straight shooter, he was so straight that he had not realised that his class was notorious for playing pranks on other teachers. He thought that we were well behaved school boys and it was not until the end of the school year when he realised we were not the angels he supposed us to be. Wang Swee Chuang said, "I must say that C Singh was a pretty good bloke which the class managed to con for a long time". Poh Seng observed that there was a Hanna Barbera Cartoon popular in those days, Precious Pup. We were like that puppy to its blissfully oblivious dog owner old lady, and Charanjit Singh was like the blissful oblivious old lady. (Click on title to view one episode)

Our whole class respected him and did not play any pranks on him, that is why he was so blissful until just before parting ways with him.  He turned quite bitter against the class towards the final days feeling that he had been fooled all along.  Perhaps if he had known earlier, he could have made us better behaved students.  Fortunately the bitterness came with less than a month remaining in that school year.  He ought to be very proud that Sec 3B Sc sent almost as many to Sec 4A Sc for the following year as Sec 3A Sc.

There was a Maths teacher by the name of Mr Soong who we believed seems to be picking on certain boys in class who were actually good and well behaved students. One such person was Lee Dan Lin a quiet unassuming character who happened to wear a perpetual smile. Mr Soong mistook the innocent smile for smirking at the him to the point of expelling him from class on one occasion. 

Another victim was Gangan Prathap, now a famous senior scientist in India. Soong was teaching and he thought that GG was not paying attention. GG was immediately shouted at and GG's immediate reaction was one akin to having a jolt of high voltage electric shock. He immediately stood up at full attention and continued listening to the teacher or at least pretending to do so.

Swee Chuang thought that he was good mathematics teacher who only pretended to act fierce and tough. Swee Chuang actually received a F grade for Maths in Sec 1B, which he credited to have woken him up to take up Maths seriously.

Contributed by Chen Wen, Poh Seng, Swee Chuang, Joe Chua and Lionel