I have never let my schooling interferes with my education. My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers. Everything that I have to learn then, I learned by experience; and for many of those who lack the aptitude, the school compelled them into a weekend remedial program called ‘Extra Curriculum.’

Many became toy soldiers or police ‘bedek’. Crook like me, we trained on our own. I was taught that to acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe. With this in mind, I skipped many a lesson and I observed a lot. Albert Einstein after all said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge…” Talking about which, that I have in abundance. I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. I know for a fact that knowledge is limited. Imagination however, encircles the world. At 13 years of age, I may be young, but I was old enough to be a hero among men. I constantly entertained myself by sitting back in class and plugging into a vision that only I could see. More often than not, a hero’s most epic battle is the one none could ever see; it’s the battle that goes on within me, within my imagination.

I tried to be a student of knowledge; I was muzzled in schools, trained to sing the anthem, took the pledge of loyalty, for ten or fifteen years, and came out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and still did not know a thing. There was obviously something wrong with the institution. The problem lay buried, unspoken for many years in my mind. It was a strange stirring sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that I suffered in the middle of my educational process; and I struggled with it alone. As I struggled with my endeavors to excel, I was wary to ask even of myself the silent question: “Is this all?”

By a system so deliberate, the school found a way to segregate those with ‘artificial intelligence’ into a class of higher learning and alienate the rest into an academy of fools. This process was called ‘streaming’. I simply called it “Dumb And Dumber.” The great majority of the students were required to live a life of constant duplicity. Our education is bound to be affected, if day by day, we say the opposite of what we feel, if we grovel before what we dislike and rejoice at what bring us nothing but failure. This system mowed away a level playing field and created nothing but educational misadventure; and it can’t be forever violated with impunity. I cannot in conscience allow myself to be artificially inseminated by a seed of prejudice. The right of student should not be marginalized.

When I was streamed into a class supposedly better than other, I embarked on the only vehicle I knew then – PROTEST. As a result of which, I successfully ended school serving time with the rest of my “Band Of Brothers.” For this reason and with this reason alone, I acquired the best education that few possessed. Those privilege enough to be friends of the system would obviously argue on their personal merits. Merit or not, YISS ain’t Raffles; and the system that you gleefully espoused then did not yield among thou a rocket scientist, a doctor, a legislator or a lawyer…. A moral bankrupt – maybe.

I have no quarrel with the school though. It was just the system, the management and some of the teachers that I lack faith in. YISS was never a brand name then. It may have been named after the first president of the republic, but that doesn’t necessarily make its student the president’s scholars. I am only too aware that knowledge comes from education; but often when our pride seems wounded it not only leaves our vanity bleeding, it retards one’s pursuit for excellence. I am a patriot to my own course and I do not have to believe in anything simply because I have heard it. I do not have to believe in anything simply because it is rumored and spoken by many. I do not have to believe in anything simply because it is found written in my history books. I do not have to believe in anything merely on the authority of my teachers. I do not have to believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. It’s only after observation and analysis, when I find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, only then I will accept it and live up to it. And for a reason so sentimental, I believe that if I have to live back through time and do school all over again, I would never have traded YISS for any other institution…though it would pleasure me to see more teachers back then do a wireless bungee jumping just like the stunt our late Miss Lau did.