Remembering My Driving Students

Interesting Tales Of Students Who Learnt To Drive Under Me In Forty Years As A Driving Instructor

In the process of teaching students, eventually there would arise certain interesting tales and stories about them. In today’s article, I will try to recollect certain episodes which I feel are worth relating to readers.

Once, I taught a Biology teacher of mine. She was about 50 years old then. Her husband, incidentally, was my Science master too. As such, when the hubby approached me about his wife’s intention to take driving lessons, how was I , as a former student of theirs to refuse.

When my former master met me to tell me of his wife’s good intention, I was surprised. “Sir, are you certain of your wife’s decision?” I asked him.

Well, Yap, my wife may be a little bit of the old side, but do remember, she is still your teacher. Don’t forget that!

Shivering away, I replied, “Yes, sir. Everything will be okay. Sir, leave it to me. Don’t worry”, I said.

The fact was that after hearing what my “sir” said to me, I couldn’t sleep for the next three days and three nights!

If you were a driving instructor like me, could you envisage trying to teach your 60 years old mother how to drive. Money wise aside, I must tell you of my old teacher’s habit before the story ends.

To be frank with you, ask any instructor, the better or higher qualified you are, the harder you are to teach. Therefore, with this premise in mind, teachers are renowned to be amongst the most difficult of all students to tutor.

So do you want to know about my old teacher’s unusual habit? Well then, here goes.

Whenever this lady teacher pushes the gear stick into neutral, she will rotate the gear lever round and round a few times, albeit violently, before she puts it into the next gear. Without fail, she does this action for every gear shift movement.

Her action is tantamount to making roti canai, so to say. Can you imagine what’s going to happen to my old junk’s gear box?

By the time this old teacher of mine completed her driving course, I told myself, my gear box would have gone kaput!

But how was I, as her student in Form 1, were to tell my teacher not to do that stupid thing? I obviously had to bear and grin it.

And that was not the end of the whole story yet. When she went for her practical test a few months later, I was afraid she might react like a teacher she was.

I advised her over and over again, “Teacher, please remember”, I said to her. “Today, please remember, you are taking a test. Do not act if you are giving or ordering your students around! You are the testee and the man testing you is the tester. You have to respect him no matter what. Please teacher, remember that!”, I implored of my Biology teacher.

And do you want to know what happened after that?

When the test began, usually tester hollered cepat sikit loudly. My biology teacher got angry and shouted back, “Shut up, you!” she said.

And do you want to know what the tester did?

Well, he stopped the car, aborted the rest of the test for the day. The tester then demanded to know who her driving instructor was.

He demanded to see me to inquire how on earth such a candidate could be sent to him for test. This instructor, in the mean time had quietly gone behind some pillars to hide to avoid getting the onslaught of the angry and fuming tester!

I once taught a student from Pulau Ketam. He was a shrimp catcher. A kilo of shrimps costs approximately RM26 then. The students owned me a balance of RM150.

I requested the student to supply me with some shrimps for the balance of the amount owed. The following day, the student lugged along from Pulau Ketam a total of 5 – 6 kilos of shrimps!

Taking home the shrimps, I received a scolding from my wife for having bought 2 – 3 years supply of shrimps. The vegetable dishes my wife prepared for the following years after had shrimps in it for every dish she prepared. After that, I did not fancy eating any more shrimps for quite a while.

And finally, I feel the story of a grandmother and her granddaughter, both coming to learn under me should be related. The grandmother, although nearly 60 years old was so enthusiast about her getting her license, that she performed extremely well, especially during her parking test.

The tester in charge, a certain Encik Ismail was so impressed by her performance. When the old lady finally got through every aspect of her test, the above tester commended her.

“Even younger candidates cannot do what you have done”, he said to her. “Here are two ringgit, go and have a drink. You truly deserve it”, he said.

As her driving instructor, such incidents encourages me and spurs me on to do even better.

Incidentally, her granddaughter did fail on her attempt. A surprising story, but it is true…

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By | 2010-03-23T21:20:10+08:00 March 23rd, 2010|My Memories|0 Comments

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