The algorithm didn’t teach me to dream. My teacher did — Ahmad Ibrahim

JUNE 17 — Let me tell you about the best classroom I ever sat in. It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t wired to the cloud. The blackboard was cracked, the chalk was dusty, and the only thing “interactive” was the teacher’s ability to throw a piece of eraser at the back row with terrifying accuracy. Sometimes it was a paper aeroplane!

That was primary school in Ketereh. A small rural town. Simple extracurriculars by today’s standards. But here’s the secret the tech bros don’t want you to hear: It worked.

We ran until we were breathless. We staged concerts where we forgot our lines and laughed it off. We debated topics we barely understood, but we learned to speak, to listen, to think on our feet. Nobody gave us an iPad. Nobody gamified our attention spans. We had a teacher who looked us in the eye and said, “Try again.”

Then came MCKK. A potent mixture of studying and playing, as you put it. And that’s the exact phrase that stuck with me. Potent mixture. Because learning isn’t a zero-sum game between exams and life skills. The great teachers knew that. They gave us sports to build resilience. Concerts to build courage. Debates to build logic. Not as distractions from education — but as the very substance of it.

And here is the remarkable thing: Even after we walked out those gates, the relationship didn’t end. That is the mark of a true teacher. Not someone who fills a syllabus, but someone who fills a soul. The letters, the phone calls, the occasional visit home. They shaped us. And then they stayed.

But these days I’m worried. Judging by the reports coming out today, something has changed. Maybe it’s too much technology. Maybe it’s the relentless pressure of standardized testing. Maybe it’s parents treating schools like factories that produce university admissions. Whatever it is, the potent mixture seems to be separating. The studying has swallowed the playing.

We hear about teacher burnout. Teacher overload. About students staring at screens for seven hours straight. About extracurriculars being cut because “they don’t affect the grades.” About a generation that can swipe before it can shake hands.

Let me be provocative: The problem isn’t the technology. It’s the abdication.

We’ve handed over the sacred work of human formation to algorithms, dashboards, and metrics. We’ve forgotten that a teacher’s job was never just to transfer information. Not just about disseminating knowledge. Google does that for free. A teacher’s job is to see you. To push you. To catch you when you fail and say, “That’s okay. Now try again differently.”

That doesn’t happen on a Zoom link with 40 muted microphones. It happens in a small rural school in Ketereh, where a teacher stays late to help you with a math problem you’ve failed five times. It happens at MCKK on a muddy sports field, where a coach teaches you that losing with grace is harder than winning with arrogance.

So, this Teachers’ Day, let’s stop the performative gratitude.

Don’t just post a “#ThankATeacher” graphic. Ask yourself: When did I last write to my teacher from primary school? When did I last tell them, specifically, what they gave me? When did I last ask a current teacher how they are really doing — and mean it?

Our teachers shaped us. They taught us that exams expire, but communication, thinking, and resilience last a lifetime. They taught us that success isn’t a score. It’s a character.

And here is my worry: The current system is burning those very teachers out. We celebrate them one day a year, and ignore them the other 364. We demand they be social workers, psychiatrists, data entry clerks, and content creators — all for the salary of a mid-level administrator.

That is shameful.

The best tribute to our teachers from Ketereh and MCKK isn’t a card. It’s a change. It’s demanding that our schools restore the potent mixture. It’s telling policymakers that more screens and more tests are not the answer. It’s telling ourselves that the most important thing a teacher ever gave us wasn’t a grade — it was a belief that we could become better.

So, here’s to the teachers. The ones with cracked chalk and tired eyes and boundless patience. The ones who taught us to debate, to run, to sing off-key and not care. The ones who stayed in our lives long after we left their classrooms.

We must celebrate Teachers’ Day. But more than that — we must defend teaching.

Because the algorithm didn’t teach me to dream. My teacher did. And that is a debt no technology can ever repay. Not even AI.  

* The author is affiliated with the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy Studies at UCSI University and is an Adjunct Professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.