Mr ASHOK PILLAI A/L KUPPUSAMY

From SJK (T) Ladang Chemor

Nominated by LESHANTHRAN A/L KUBINTHARAN

Mr. Ashok Pillai A/L Kuppusamy well known as Mr. Ashok. For me, he is the definition of a real teacher who serves without expecting anything in return. I get to know Mr. Ashok when he taught in Sri Murugan Centre (SMC) Ipoh in 2015. He was just paid RM 25 for teaching per month. There were about 60 to 70 standard six students including me in the classroom. He came inside. He smiled and greeted us. He introduced himself and started teaching. At that time, I was a B grade student. I will always get B in my science because I was struggling to understand the way of answering experiment questions in paper 2. He taught all the students about the answering technique especially the variables, hypothesis, relationship and conclusion. After learning for a few weeks in his class,I could realise the difference in me. I was much more confident in answering than I used to be. I got my first A grade in my school's mid term science exam. I told him that it was because of him and thanked him but he told the it was all my part and he was just a small drop of the success. Besides being a teacher, Mr. Ashok was also a great motivator. He was my pillar of strength. He motivated all his students that the future is in our hands and we need to study hard to succeed. He always mentioned that he had no favourite student, he treated everyone equally.He was meeting parents of students who were weak in studies and discussed with them about what can be done to solve their problem. At that time, he was not married yet, so the age gap between him and the students are not too big. His class would be always fun-free for the students as he treated everyone as his siblings. It was around the month of May, where I joined his tuition class which was opened to serve others and not to gain money. He do not even advertise his tuition. The news was spread by the student's parents whose child got good improvement after going to his tuition. When I joined the class, the first thing I noticed is there were 4 poor students who studied without paying a single cent to him as he refused to get paid by them. As UPSR was getting nearer and nearer, he taught the answering techniques again to improve our understanding and gain alertness on the type of questions asked. He go through the past year exam papers with us so that we can have an idea about how the paper is going to be. He did all these by making use of the technology, he used Ict to teach us through slideshares and various computer programs so that we could catch up faster and to make it easy for us to understand. He also explained about the questions that might come out on that particular year and fortunately most of the questions he told were out in the exam. When, the results were announced, I got straight A's in UPSR. I thanked him for everything he have done. Even at that time he said that it was all my effort and he was just a small drop of the success. That proved me that he is a real teacher who sees teaching as a field to serve others an dbuild others and not a field to gain money.