Conversations with Louis Rozario Doss.

^{Interviewed by Atan Mustafa (Ipoh,2016)}

            ^Mr   Louis and the Starians side by side,

                  conquering the world.

I can safely say that the teacher who had the most impact on me was Mr. Louis Rozario Doss, who taught me English in Form 5 and who was also in charge of the English debate team. I say this because as a lawyer, my most important tool of the trade is the English language and I owe my proficiency today to him. I’m sure that the foundation he laid when he prepared us for our 1119 English paper carried us through in our careers until today.

     Starting in S.T.A.R.

    We started off the interview by talking about how he came to STAR. After graduating from University of Malaya in 1974, he was posted to STAR. When he received his appointment letter , he did not observe the envelope properly and only realized that it was addressed to “Cik Louis”. He opened the letter in front of the HeadMaster, Tuan Haji Yahya who said , “ You’re very lucky . If they knew  you were male they would have posted you to Sarawak.” So that was how Mr. Louis was posted to STAR.

     Mr. Louis is an Ipoh boy through and through. He attended St. Michael’s Primary School and completed his secondary education at St. Michael’s Institution. He didn’t know this at the time but he would once again return to SMI as headmaster.

   But did he always want to be a teacher? Actually it was a choice between becoming a Catholic priest, a lawyer and a teacher. In fact he received an offer from the National University of Singapore to read law, but two weeks before he was supposed to leave for Singapore, he received a government scholarship to read English in University Malaya. He said it wasn’t easy to get scholarships and as there were eight in the family , his father’s burden would be lessened if he took the scholarship.

      He then continued with a postgraduate Diploma in Education and joined STAR before the results came out. One early morning, Mr. Michael Johnson, an expatriate teacher congratulated him although he didn’t know what for. It turned out that the diploma results were published in the newspaper and his name was in the top two out of 600 in the cohort. Tuan Haji Yahya then told him that the ministry knew how to choose people very well for STAR. “ I was a young teacher so these gestures were a great boost for me and I knew I didn’t join the wrong profession” he said . “  I was convinced that I was meant to be a teacher at the right school .”

      Leading the English   

        Department.

      Not many of us were aware of the hierarchy of STAR’s teaching staff. However, it was quite obvious that when we were there, Mr. Louis led the English team. In fact he was the Head of the English Department. What we probably didn’t know was his rise to the top was quite meteoric, having been promoted to the position at the age of 26 after a little more than three years in STAR. According to him ,when he arrived in STAR, Ms. Chiang was the Head of the English Department. He started by teaching the Form 4 classes but after three months he was given the challenging task of teaching the language ( essay and comprehension) part of the six Form General Paper. “ I was given the direct plunge into Form 6. That was a great expression of confidence in me and I’m happy that I contributed to the school’s general paper programme . So the training was very good. It was by immersion,” he said.

             After about three years, Ms . Chiang was promoted and posted out and a vacancy was created. The Pengetua, Tuan Haji Yahya could have taken the safer option of appointing an expatriate teacher in the post as the Head of Department but instead promoted Mr. Louis to the position. “ It was another great opportunity for me .I mean, we recognize the merit of having an expatriate officer serving in our school, but I was among the few Malaysians in our residential schools who were in that post. There were Australian and British teachers who could be posted, but Tuan Haji Yahya clearly told the ministry that he had full confidence in his teachers .” The rest as they say, is history.

        Teaching the boys

       Something that is rarely appreciated is how STAR students, many from the kampungs, leave school with a respectable command of English . This was even so in the late 1970’s and 1980’s, when the medium of instruction in school was no longer in English. When conversing in English naturally with some of my batchmates, it’s easy to for me to forget that they were from the lower sets and once had difficulties even to ask permission to go to the toilet!

         We might think that there is a confidential formula of Mr. Louis at work.  It turns out that the secret is a simple reading programme that more of us were not even aware of .Remember that while we were in Form 1, each of us was given a book to read every now and then? Mr. Louis explained that this was actually part of an official reading programme for residential schools implemented by the Education Ministry. It involved reading lists and library boxes which  came to the the classrooms. “ That was meant to be a booster programme to give greater exposure to English. Among the 22 residential schools, STAR had the most successful implementation and the improvement was very substantial,” he said. He continued, “Actually for weaker students, the most important thing is reading. Make sure that they complete 25 short books by the end of the year. That was my target for weaker students.”

     It was a happy outcome personally for the Head of English Department. Our reading programme was rated as best among all the residential schools. “ So this was a plus point for the school and then later they gave me a scholarship to go to England to join a Masters in Education programme in the University of Manchester. That was under the Ministry of Education and the British Council. It was kind of a reward,” he beamed . So off he went on a year’s break from teaching in 1978. A well deserved one . for sure.

        So there you go. We achieved results not by e-learning, PPSMI or other new fangled programmes that our government comes up with every few years. Just get  the students to read and we should be all right.

             The PPM debates

      In 1986, I had the privilege of being in the Pesta Piala Perdana Menteri English debate team, albeit only as a reserve speaker. Although we didn’t get very far that year, what impressed me was the PPM English debate team was a very well oiled machine which had already won three titles by then and at the heart of it was Mr. Louis, who was the teacher in charge.

             One of Several STAR PPM Debate Teams

  

L-R  Suhaimi Anuar ,Godwin Ramesh Kumar, Mr Louis,Mr Harbans,Ahmad Zuhri Wahab,Paska Mia

    

How did he first take charge of the debating team and later lead us to glory? The year he joined STAR in 1974 was the first year of the PPM debates held at MCKK. He wasn’t involved in the training initially as the Pengetua didn’t know about his interest. However, every night the boys came back to school and sought his help. The boys didn’t do so well in 1974 so they went to see the Pengetua to send Mr.  Louis in the next PPM tournament. The Pengetua told me, “ Next PPM don’t forget, whether I tell you or not, you’re going.” The second year in Sekolah Shah Alam, STAR reached the quarter-finals and in the following year in Sekolah Tun Fatimah, STAR reached the semi-final. In the ‘80s STAR started winning. ( Author’s Note : STAR was champion in 1982, 1983 and 1984 under MR. Louis ).

         So why were we stronger in the 1980’s compared to the ‘70s? According to Mr. Louis, debating became a tradition in our school. STAR had a strong force of debators who were getting ready. “ Like that one year when we lost in our first finals in Angkasapuri. We lost to Tunku Kurshiah in the finals. In the bus when we were coming back, there was a form 2 boy who cried. Later on he became the champion debater, Ghazali Anuar. That means we already have got boys in Form 1 and Form 2. The succession plan was there already. By the ‘80s we were already succeeding because the boys from Form 1 and Form 2 already had a lot of experience. “

       Mr. Louis went on to explain how the team prepared for the tournament. Before they went to the PPM every class in the school debated against them. At the same time the Form 1 and Form 2 boys were indirectly trained on the PPM topics. So about five Saturdays before the PPM, our boys would have gone through every topic.

        The English debate team went on to win the PPM once again in 1988 after MR. Louis left STAR. Since then, the trophy has been elusive. However, a lesson to be learnt from the experience in the 1980’s is that champions are not made overnight. The groundwork for any winning team must be done years before , when the boys first come to STAR in Form 1. This applies not to just debaters but to any competitive endeavours.

         On the boys

       What did he think about the boys? He feels that although the boys are playful and mischievous, they have very good hearts. Even though there might have been some misunderstanding with the teachers, they would still come around. The relationship is important and that they would take the punishment. In life there will always be incidents and different opinions , but relationships are very important. He said ,” One of the beautiful moments in STAR was when I was standing during assembly and I saw the boys’ spirit when they sang the Negaraku and our school song. Before I came to STAR, I never sensed that spirit. I could feel the semangat of our boys. I saw the power of a song and the spirit of loyalty to a school, nationalism and the Malaysian spirit. As a teacher, I learned a lot from the assemblies. Every Monday, I look forward just to see how they sang.”

      Rouse Up

          On the topic of uplifting songs, we also owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Louis for composing Rouse Up. Regarded as our unofficial English school anthem, it is usually sung by Starians before sports matches to rouse up their spirits, so to speak. While Mr. Louis is generally known as the composer of the song, not much is known to how it came to be. He explained that composing has been a hobby but for Rouse Up, it was based on a French tune. It was composed around 1981 and the lyrics were based on what he observed in STAR. Tuanku Abdul Rahman’s call means the call of our country. That is the song which embodies the spirit of Starians. Stand steadfast Starians for your rights. Your teachers ever by your side. Behold the golden age of STAR,” he explains.

    Rouse Up can still be heard it its original form, sung by Mr. Louis himself on YouTube.

            After STAR

         Mr Louis left STAR in 1989 on a promotion, 18 years after first arriving. Many felt this was overdue, considering the excellent job he did in STAR after only a very short time.

     Actually he revealed that he was offered a promotion even much earlier, in 1981, to take up the position of Senior Assistant in at SMK Ahmad Boestaman, Sitiawan . He and his beloved wife Julianna had their first  baby at that time and if he had accepted the promotion this would mean that his wife would be alone with the baby in the house. So the offer was declined and he stayed on. It’s hard to imagine what our PPM fortunes would been like without Mr.Louis in the mid ‘80s.

     Opportunity knocked again in 1989. Our former Pengetua and old boy, Haji Hussein Salleh was in the education department and was in charge of promotions. Through the efforts of Haji Hussain and Datuk Abdul Aziz Ismail, a former STAR Pengetua and the Timbalan Ketua Pengarah Pelajaran in Kuala Lumpur, a promotion and posting was arranged for Mr.Louis to take up the Senior Assistant position in SMK Iskandar Shah in Parit. After two years in Iskandar , he was posted to a Chinese school is Sungai Siput as a Penyelia Petang for two years, then back again in Ipoh, in SMK Jalan Pasir Putih, also as a Penyelia Petang.

         Another promotion came along not long after. Mr. Louis was appointed as a Pengetua in SMK. St. Anthony, Teluk Intan. It was a happy coincidence as he attended Form 1 and Form 2 there and he was the first old boy to come back as the Pengetua. Later, he was transferred to another school he attended, St. Michael’s Institution , Ipoh and retired from government service there in 2005.

        So how has the STAR experience equipped him in his new positions? “ Actually my time in STAR has proved to be a great asset because whenever I went out, let’s say to St.Anthony’s, my only memory of hostel life was in STAR. I had the good fortune of being the warden of the Blue House for a time,” he recounted. It’s refreshing to know that besides ensuring the correctness of our subject-verb agreements, Mr. Louis also picked up administrative skills while in STAR.

     He explained that when he was asked to outline a plan for the hostel  at Ipoh International School , he came back again to STAR to refresh his STAR memories. “ I also obtained the rules and regulations from STAR. SO STAR goes a long way. Wherever the teachers are going, we know the extent of our influence. He continued, “ As a teacher , my real fine tuning was in STAR for 18 years. As a principal, I had wonderful exposure to many outstanding principals of our school. So that was a very good place for me.”

       After retirement

   Mr. Louis’s professional life did not end after being the principal of St.Michael’s. He joined Tenby International School and was given the task of starting a Malaysian school alongside the international school in Ipoh. He pioneerd  the establishment of the National Stream at Tenby Schools Ipoh and when the batches finished their Form 5, he was asked to start the A-Level programme for theTenby  International School in Ipoh which was the first sixth form project for Tenby in Malaysia. He started the pilot project in 2010 and headed the programme until June 2009. He now continues as a Sixth Form teacher (CIE A levels) and doubles up as the Community Development Manager,Tenby Schools Ipoh.
    So it appears that our English teacher’s contribution to Malaysian education goes well beyond the teaching of English. To think that he could have taken a different path if he had studied law. I am glad I had the good fortune to have him as a teacher rather than as an opponent in court or worse, as a judge!

               Final reflections

     Would Mr. Louis have done it differently if he had to do it all over again? He admits he wouldn’t reverse it . He went on , “ Personally , I feel very enriched by the experience of teaching English and to this day I think I’ve been as much a recipient as a giver of benefits. I do not regret being a teacher. I’m very happy that I spent my 18 years in STAR. I would not have used the time differently. Every year I spent here I learned a lot, not only from the other colleagues and the principals but also from the students. I still remember them although they might not know that I know them.” He singles out some of his earlier students, Syawaluddin and Nor Azman Yahya who were inspirational to him. “ It was wonderful to teach them because they were very appreciative and very humble. I felt that I was becoming a better person by working with them and for them. So I feel like I was in the right place.”

         I am sure that I am not just speaking for myself when I say that whatever Mr. Louis imparted to us as students and debaters was so much more than what we could ever give back to him. It is so heartening to know that even to this day there are students who are benefiting from his eloquent mastery of the English language which he unselfishly passed on to his charges. We wish you all best , Mr. Louis and if you ever decide to retire, please do it for real this time and take a well-deserved rest!

                                                                                                    Interview by Atan Mustaffa.

                                                                                                                             Ipoh. 2016.