I WAS 11, sitting stiffly in a wooden chair that felt far too big for my small frame, staring at the blackboard like it held the secrets of the universe – or at least the secret to avoiding a scolding.
My pencil was sharpened. My workbook was neat. And my heart was pounding. Standing at the front of the class was Cikgu Aminah: tall, loud and undeniably garang.
You didn’t talk when she entered the room. You didn’t laugh. You didn’t even breathe too loudly. You froze – not because you were told to but because instinct told you that crossing her line came with consequences.
She didn’t need to shout to get our attention but she often did anyway. Her voice carried – across rows of students, through the open windows and sometimes even echoing into the hallway. She didn’t tolerate laziness, nor did she entertain excuses.
Yet, I knew something else was there; something deeper beneath that intimidating exterior. I was terrified of her, just like the rest of
the school. But for students who could keep up with her expectations, there was a subtle shift in how she treated you.
She didn’t become warm but there was a kind of reserved respect. She would call on you more often, trusting you to get it right. She would hand back your marked workbook with slightly less friction in her voice. And once – just once – I remember her glancing at my paper and saying, “Good”. That one word meant more to me than a trophy.
Even as an 11-year-old, I sensed that her strictness was not random. It was deliberate. There was a purpose behind every loud instruction, every stern correction and every moment of silence that followed a wrong answer. Her strictness was not a mask; it was a method.
Now, decades later, as Dr Adib – a lecturer, a researcher, a supervisor and a professor – I look back with much clearer eyes. I see now the truth
that escaped me back then: she was not trying to be feared. She was serious – serious about the subject, about discipline but above all, serious about our potential.
We often describe teachers like her as “strict” or “no-nonsense”, and we say it with a mixture of fear and nostalgia. However, we forget that to be garang is not to be unkind – it is to care with such intensity that you refuse to settle for mediocrity.
She could have chosen the easy route: smiled more, scolded less and let things slide but she didn’t because she believed we were capable of more.
When I think about the lessons that stayed with me the longest, they did not come from a slideshow or a textbook. They came from that sense of accountability – from being taught that precision matters, that preparation counts and that every problem – no matter how complex – can be solved, if you try hard enough.
Cikgu Aminah saw something in us – and in me. She didn’t need to praise us often; her standards were the praise. Her discipline was the message. She held up a mirror to what we could become, if only we rose to meet her there.
While I’ve spent years since then walking through the corridors of higher education – in Australia, in the UK and now in Universiti Malaya – I still carry the imprint of that early formation. Because real education does not start in universities; it starts in classrooms like hers – where chalk meets challenge and where children are treated like thinkers, not just students.
Today, I meet young people who are overwhelmed by pressure, unsure of their capabilities and quick to measure themselves against filtered perfection online.
They seek reassurance. They crave approval. And while kindness absolutely has a place in education, so does conviction.
There is strength in being held to a high standard – in being told, not unkindly, that you can do better and being expected to rise to it.
Every Hari Guru, I think of Cikgu Aminah – one of five teachers from my primary school whose names I still remember. Not because they were soft but because they were present. Because they believed in
us loudly – sometimes too loudly. Because they didn’t make things easy but they made things matter.
She never saw me become Prof Adib. She never saw the research, the papers and the students I now teach. She passed on a year before I completed my PhD. But the foundation of my academia journey was built in her class.
Every equation she drilled into us, every wrong answer she didn’t let slide – they formed the scaffolding for a life of learning.
To all the garang teachers out there: thank you. You didn’t just teach us mathematics, science or grammar. You taught us grit. You taught us focus. You taught us to take ourselves seriously – because you did, first.
Dr Nahrizul Adib Kadri is a professor of biomedical engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and the principal of Ibnu Sina Residential College, Universiti Malaya. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
