Wheel Power by Anthony Thanasayan

MUCH of the media last week brimmed over with glowing tributes and inspiring stories about teachers and the unique and indispensable role they play in nation-building.

I thoroughly enjoyed them all – done to fittingly commemorate Teachers’ Day. However,I must say that among all the towering tributes to teachers, I didn’t come across any that specifically featured teachers with handicaps. In my time (which was some 20 to 30 years ago) finding a teacher with a disability was virtually an impossible task. But not today, thank heavens, which must surely attest to the fact that things are slowly – but surely – picking up as far as disability advancement here is concerned

Lee Tur Chung: Among the first batch of disabled persons to graduate as a qualified deaf teacher in the country.

“I’m referring, of course, to special education teachers who in practice frequently work hard and tirelessly to teach Malaysian kids with disabilities,” continues Lee who, for more than the past three years, has been Special Ed teacher at a primary school for the deaf in Shah Alam.

He says that Special Ed teachers often demonstrate a greater level of understanding, patience and even bonding with the students. “It’s a highly skilled task when it comes to teaching special kids who have disabilities,” Lee points out, adding that the results of such a labour of love may take from a few days to a month – or even a year, before teachers in this demanding field get to see the results of their labour.

“I was one of the first batch of disabled persons to graduate as a qualified deaf teacher in the country,” explains Lee who is actively involved in a number of deaf organisations including Kuala LumpurYMCA Deaf Club.

He says he and the deaf community are indebted to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who was then the former Education Minister and instrumental in providing the opportunity for disabled people to become teachers in their own right. He adds that there are as many as four more deaf teacher trainees currently who are on their way to graduation not long from now.

“But we’re still quite a way yet from being completely out of the woods yet in terms of equal opportunities for disabled Malaysians,” he cautions.

Lee says several deaf applicants with good results had been rejected when they applied to become teachers for the deaf. This puzzles him greatly as he argues that the reasons for having more deaf teachers far outweigh those for not having them.

Also, he believes that the creation of more deaf teachers in the special education field will also assist hearing teachers of the deaf to significantly improve the quality of their skills in the deaf’s essential communication mode: sign language. Not only that but Lee is also convinced that such a move will ultimately bring about greater deaf people’s active participation and direct involvement in education of the deaf – as well as in all matters involving their future – which, in turn would help improvetheir quality of life.

“In the United States and Europe, deaf people are involved in all sorts of positions in the education field: from being a simple teacher’s aide to a principal, professor and deaf government officer!” says Lee. “Wouldn’t it be simply great to see such things happening for the deaf here in Malaysia too?” he asks.

He adds that sometimes the negative perceptions about the disabled are so deeply ingrained within society that they can even rub off on disabled individuals as well. He cites his own experience when he first started to teach in his local school when many of his deaf pupils found it hard to believe he was deaf because they never realised that a deaf person could become a qualified teacher for the deaf.

Though Lee does have to put up with occasional discriminatory practices such as not being allowed to have the right to have a hearing teacher to accompany him to workshops for teachers (so that the person can interpret the proceedings to him), Lee says it’s all in a day’s job for him as he presses on.

The struggle for the deaf will continue, he says, in a world that’s centred and focussed on hearing.