Old Ways

Installing CCTV to help curb disciplinary problems among students in school.

*chuckles* Pretty insane, eh? Didn't see how it helps. Back in the old school days, "Kena Denda" was such a common phrase. Berdiri di atas kerusi? Berdiri di luar kelas? *Whips!* Kena cubit? Pulas telinga?

But it really worked. Made you more alert; to your surroundings, makes you learn from the whips and pulasans.... And I have to say that people who grew up in that kind of environment, with those "Law Enforcers In School" enforcing Law and Order, we eventually grew up to be well disciplined individuals.

I bet kids these days don't even have the chance to hear/see these things anymore. How much the world have changed. Whippings (except for public whippings) is now termed "abuse". What about Public Humiliation, as claimed by parents? All sorts of other petty things.

Whats the sole reason kids are sent to school then? Just to gain/absorb knowledge that textbooks could offer? With teachers only allowed to act as intermediaries to help "communicate" the words from textbooks into an easier to absorb medium, but not to "teach them a lesson by physical punishment if anything goes out of way"?? Kids these days are too "well-protected" (in other words, spoilt~). Given the rise in the number of problematic kiddos (which eventually became partof them as a grown up), the public only have themselves to blame. Probably they'll have to look back at their current system. Thats the main source of a problem.

"Berdiri di atas kerusi! Berdiri di atas meja! BERDIRI DI LUAR BILIK DARJAH!!

Sweet memories of childhood. We still have childhood stories to talk about. But these days, the term "playtime" refers to onlineGaming, and every other thing that is related to the N.E.T.

Besides getting those berdiri di atas meja/ kerusi (or any other version of that) screams from angry teachers, ever played Cops vs Villian in class?
Picture this.
A dizzying maze of tunnels (oh, did I mention "Underground"?), where you had to crawl your way through these tunnels to catch the runaway villian. the police would have to trail the villians all the way through, trying to beat each other to the game of cat-and-mouse. The villian and the Authorities, armed with handy weapons designed to take down their targets as fast as possible.
Runaway DrugLord vs Cops.

OKok..I made that up. But it was based on a true story. Haa. Our very own childhood game. But heck, it was fun.

The so called "tunnels" were - erm..desks; those you can find in a typical classroom. Given about 40 ++ desks, we made a MASSIVE tunnel system out of that. Eh wait, strike word "make". We didnt even have to Make, its all there, at any given time of the day, month and year!! Our very own playground.
Throw in the 40+ chairs and double the number more Legs (yes, Legs), its more complex than ever! (read: obstacles) *grins!*

No real drugs were involved in our little game, but if you've heard of Dadih, it looked pretty much like dadah, powder form. (even the name is almost the same!). Comes in packs too, transparent packets. Looks exactly like the real thing. (I think!). Up til now, I'm still not sure what Dadih is used for. Its something edible.
And with the help of the many dadah commercials we used to see on TV during our time, I guess all of us pretty much know how drug addicts do them. Take something, tie around ya arm, tap tap find a vein, inject. I think we used rulers. Haha. Close.

Weapons. Lead cases strapped nicely with rubberbands, bullets were made of paper,, and there, we have paper-pults (our idea of a handy pistol/shotgun? - We had to "reload" our paperbullets after every shot). And not to forget those 30cm long wooden/steel rulers. Our so called parangs, swords and the sort.. So full of brilliant imagination, and boy we're so bloody creative.

To start the game? We had an ancient (but efficient, and considerably fast) way of communicating among ourselves. Paper passing. Fast. We wrote messages to every other members, and we start the game, by slipping under the desks, unnoticed. And START CHASING! during the paperpassing process, we had picked the druglords and the cops. So let the Chase begin!

The end? It ends when we hear screams from the "Higher Power". Or when the rumblings downbelow gets a little too loud Or when the giggles and laughter underground gets too loud and got "detected", hence tipping off the Higher Power to take actions.

Gosh. I dont remember how we're able to do that while the teacher is teaching in front of the class. I don't remember being punished/caught playing that underground cat and mouse chase. *grins*

Other students were nice enough to tolerate the constant giggles and put up with the constant rumbling going on underneath their desks. Thats what I call fun. You might not get the whole idea of how its played. But it was the best!
...
Of course, just like present day, there were those wellprotected ones(read: spoiltbrats) around too. Being constantly threatened with "I will tell my mum! You'll know!" makes us do more of what we did. Seeing a tear roll down her cheek, we can expect to hear that bloody phrase being
blurt out from little beloved daughter's mouth. And we were supposed to be scared? Not one bit. Well, I wouldnt say that we were such a bully last time, but heck, who cries all the time
and threaten people with Mummy?!

We made her cry one fine day, think we threw her mechanical pencil into the dustbin (*gasps!*) kekkekeke..and as expected, mummy came to the rescue a couple of days soonafter, and
guess what, we expected that, and we somehow made her mum chase after us, across the field, wearing her bloody highheels! Loud hair, Massive sunglasses, she looks like a scary monster to me. Laughed as we ran. Big bullies! We worked so fine as a team (guess thats were we were instilled the word "teamplayer" in our lives).

It was from little games like that, that we learn how to become a better person.

Those were the days. Never fail to make me smile whenever I think about it.