Tribute to Mr Tan Gim Hoe

Country Heights, Kajang, Dec 1, 2007 - The Thouroughbreds 7276, MCKK Class of 76 were gathered at the home of their batchmate in Country Heights, Kajang to honour one of MCKK’s greatest teacher, Mr Tan Gim Hoe whose 34 years of service in MCKK should have a place in the history of MCKK. His retirement from MCKK in 2005 is a great loss to MCKK for his dedicated service should be an example of what it takes to be a great teacher not just for MCKK but the country. He retired with only a certificate and a free lunch given by the school. His offer to give free tuition to present day MCKK boys fell to deaf ears. The current administration of MCKK might forget all his services but his former students do not easily forget.

If Class of 76 were the Thoroughbreds then one of the man responsible for breeding them would be Mr Tan. Gim Hoe. For one thing special, he came to MCKK about the time as the Thoroughbred entered Prep School in 1972. He came straight from Teachers Training College at the age of 22. The Thoroughbreds came to MCKK from the far regions of Malaysia at the age of 12. He came to teach, they came to study. The Thoroughbreds left MCKK 5, 6 or 7 years later but Mr Tan Gim Hoe remained in MCKK until 2005. He has been a familiar feature of MCKK whenever there is Old Boys Weekend, Speech Day, Sports day and even during the Centenary Celebration in 2005. He even taught the Thoroughbreds' sons who went to MCKK for their secondary education. Mr Tan was their Maths teacher, to be exact their Modern Maths teacher in lower secondary. I undersatnd that he also taught Additional Maths in his later years in College and on top of that in Bahasa Malaysia .In fact he was my first form teacher in MCKK, form 1C. One day, observing my bemusement at the mysterious symbols of some especially incomprehensible mathematical concept, he shook his head in a pity so genuine it was almost tender. Mr Tan said.." What happened to you "You don't even know what you don't know," he said. "Now that is a problem." Not often in my life, do such transformative lines float by. Suddenly , you had an intuitive grasp of reality when you hear one, though. And good teachers are good at that. They have a way of breaking the cement box containing your head, without breaking your head in the process. They can show you how to be smart — or what’s stopping you. He was, as I remembered him during my time, to be a master in charge of the Table Tennis Team, the Red Cresent and in later years as a Swimming instructor for the swimming and water polo team. And of course he was master for Mohd Shah House throughout his 34 years of service

At the Malay College in the '70s, we had teachers Mr Goh Cheng Leong, Mr D. J. Tate and Mr Tan Gim Hoe — who literally wrote the books on the subjects they taught. (Geography, History and Mathematics, respectively). Cikgu Tan holds the record of serving 34 years in the Malay College- a all-time record, beating the previous record held by Mr Amirthalingam by one year) But even that wasn't the whole of it.He had a passion for teaching and also a passion for learning. Teachers like him also kept learning more themselves, about all sorts of things, and passing it on. Knowledge, they showed, was not an end but a means; not a product but a process. And the mind was a muscle, and needed to be exercised. Mind you, studying in MCKK is like rowing against the current of the Perak River, if you are not moving forward, you are moving backward an you might end up in Tasik Raban or Tasik Temenggor. Without the proper steering, we would probably end up up stream, rather then downstream.

To Mr Tan, teaching is more about being instructive than inspirational Great teachers like Mr Tan don't just tell; they show. They have to have a talent for it, I think, which is why there aren't that many great, or even good, teachers. What made a teacher good, I see now, began with knowing their subject. You didn't get the feeling they'd had to learn what they were teaching, but that they simply knew it. To them to teach is to learn. He didn’t just teach Maths but inculcate the interest of Maths. I remember when I was in Form One, there was this school exhibition on Speech Day when every subject had to exhibit things connected to the subject. Mr Tan didn’t just put up maths formula on manila card but instructed us to build 3-D models with 2-D surfaces with exotic names like dodecahedron, hexahedron, icosahedron, octahedron tetrahedron ( and all other hedrons 'yang sebentuk dengannya') and yes, the hyperboloid ( whic is not realted to Mongoloid).

One time, Mr Tan conducted a IQ test during Saturday Prep on his own accord and initiative. The results confirmed that most of the Throughbreds had some brains and maybe IQ higher than Chimpanzees. Mr Tan was ever a humble teacher, never scolded anyone and always so obliging. Mr Tan would fret and do counseling to those weaker ones and would readily do extra tuition class on his own initiative. During exam days, especially for Maths Paper, Mr Tan would go to the dormitories and personally woke those still sleeping exhausted Malay College boys from their last minute study the night before. He would also be the only teacher waiting outside the Hargreaves Hall wishing and encouraging his students to do well on the Maths papers. Such dedication has not gone unnoticed by the Thoroughbreds and for that he deserved to be honoured rightfully and thoroughly. To them, after 34 years of unselfish service under 11 headmaters of MCKK, Mr Tan is a Thoroughbred Teacher. Or a horoughbreeder!!

Good teachers knew the score, and the drill. They could show us how things worked, what was what, and why things were. The best of them taught us nothing so much as how to learn. ("It doesn't matter if you don't know, as long as you know how to find out.") They treated education as exploration. ("Go from the known to the unknown and maybe to some from the unknown to the known.") They knew that teachers are meant to empower, not wield power; to open doors and windows, not be the view. A famous Chinese proverbs says..” Teachers open the door but you must walk through it yourself..” Confucius also once said”…3 people walking abreast, my teacher must be amongst them..” To Mr Tan Gim Hoe and all the dedicated MCKK teachers, there’s no way we can repay you. Look at what you’ve made us become – older , wiser, intolerant, sensitive ( though not necessary in that order), balding and potbellied. But underneath all that, you made us believe in ourselves to achieve our dreams and ambitions, which started with a simple mathematical formula which says that one plus one must always equal to two...unless it's a binary number. He deserved the best because he gave your best and there is a great difference for being the best given by school and country and being the best because your students say so. and we appreciate you for that, So, on behalf of the Thoroughbred, MCKK Class of 76, I say "... Toh che, gam sia, xie-xie, mgoi, Sifu Tan, Women natre, Guru Tan. Terima kasih banyak-banyak Gikgu Tan.Thank you very much , sir. We are proud to be your students