Three Memorable Years at the Cognitio Matriculation Evening Institute (1964-67)                           

Yu Fong Ying

 

I reached one of the peaks of my teaching career before I was permitted to teach.

If you consider that a boast, so be it. I really did. The years were 1964 to 1966. They were the last two years of my three-year university days – too short and gone too soon alas. In 1963, I was a greenhorn undergrad financially at a pinch, neither sparkling enough to gain a scholarship, nor so poor as to receive a bursary. My father would rather I follow in his footsteps and become a merchant. He knew some knitting tycoons such as the owners of Lee Kung Man and Chun Au, household names beloved by the citizens of Hong Kong for their trusted products.

But I got a distinction in English Literature in my ‘A’ Level (advanced level, AL) in the GCE (General Certificate of Education) examination, thanks to my mentor Mr. Patrick O’Flanagan, an Irish teacher with thick horn-rimmed glasses and a green suit. Armed with that and three passes, I gained admittance to the University of Hong Kong, then the pinnacle of achievement for a lad whose sight was set no higher and wider than Hong Kong. It was said that one had to beat 80-90 per cent of same-age candidates to walk through the portals of the university.  A teacher who loved to puncture the egotism of the young wryly observed that it was not so much any profound knowledge on our part, but rather the poor performance of a sizeable chunk of the other 80-90 per cent, that got us in.

In my AL years in Wah Yan College Kowloon (1961-63), I ‘did’ Macbeth and plenty of poetry, under the stern but kindly eye of Patrick (for so he would have me call him once I entered university). I also got some help from a Wahyanite classmate who went over to DBS (Diocesan Boys’ School) to study matriculation. Wong Hin Shing and I shared notes; his were the copious handwritten notes of Mr. Thomas Lee, a free spirit and much-loved teacher. Those notes were written in elegant English. He also introduced Hin Shing and therefore me to A.C. Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy

My father paid for my tuition and gave me a little pocket money. I had to fend for myself in other ways. The complete works of Milton, Pope, Keats, in their august hardback Oxford University Press editions, sat grandly on the shelves of the university bookshop, whose manageress watched me with suspicious eyes whenever I pulled one pristine volume out to caress and skim. I would love to have my own copy rather than had them out from the library on borrowed time.

It was one of the open secrets of the university in those days that a considerable number of students, once inside the great hall of learning, skipped classes and went teaching in schools, to pay their way through college or to live in style. I was a regular, simply because I wanted to spend the maximum amount of time on campus, to get the most out of this precious opportunity. I attended classes religiously; worked for clubs gaily. I was used to the frugal way of living, but I needed money to buy at least some of those tomes of poetry and drama and prose and annotated selections and recommended anthologies. I was no stranger to teaching. During my school days, some parents of classmates kindly engaged me to tutor their other children. I intended to earn my keep by teaching too. A good step to take, all considered, would be to teach in the evening.  That step I took in the second year, after some tutoring in the first.

Someone introduced me to Mr. Cheung Chun Kwok張振國, the founder of Cognitio College文理英文書院 and friendly headmaster of the evening institute on the Hong Kong side. Ms. Cheung Wai Bing was the head on the Kowloon side.  I knew little about the institute other than that it was staffed by like-minded idealistic staff of the day school, and that it offered the matriculation curriculum. I was living in Mongkok then, and Jordon Road was not far away. I boldly took the job to teach AL English Literature, first at Lower 6, then at Upper 6, having passed it myself merely one year ago. It was my first up-front teaching job.

I had to study Macbeth again in the first-year “Lit. A” course and as luck would have it, Macbeth still clung onto the AL syllabus in 1964.  Having just left him, I received further tuition about that ruthless despairing general to last me several years of teaching, in tutorials given by a beautiful modest tutor, Anna Wang (later Anna Kwan-Terry). Macbeth became my favourite play.

Into the classroom I must have brought my enthusiasm for what I had learned, cultivated as it was by various influences besides the genius of the Bard. It was a small warm class of just over ten students. Most of them were of my age or older, adult students in other words. Most of them working. I can still manage to murmur name upon name:  Antonio Almeida, Ng Wai Kit, Ng Wing Biu, Joseph Hung, Leung Kwok Yiu, Choy Fook Ming, Lai Boon Lap, Agatha Wong, Mak Yin Ling, Wong Lai King, Ada Ho, Rosalind. Class started in the evening and went on past ten o’clock. The teaching was mostly of the chalk and talk variety, in a minimally furnished classroom with strong reprographic support.

The experience was unforgettable. Not unexpectedly, I learned as much from my students as they from me -- their diverse backgrounds, work experience, diligence, aspiration, personality, struggle. For them, it was a precious chance to knock on the door of the one main university in Hong Kong to demand entrance. The Chinese University was formally constituted only in October of 1963, the year before the students and I met.

Eight students in the group passed the subject, one with distinction. It took only two AL subjects to matriculate. With more suitable subjects at the same level, they could qualify for entrance, and seven did, six going to Hong Kong University either in 1966 or 67, one to the new Chinese University. All completed their degrees, in Arts or Social Sciences.

Most of the students fared well professionally, as far as I know. Years after, two went on to gain PhD degrees in the UK. One of those two became a professor specializing in the teaching of English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; the other did her dissertation on Chinese naval history and became a corporate executive. Another completed a master’s degree. A student became the principal of a secondary school in Singapore. Two joined the Inland Revenue Department, one of them retiring as Chief Assessor. Yet another joined the Labour Department and became a lawyer in the course of time. Two joined the police: one became inspector and one reached the rank of Senior Assistant Commissioner before retirement.  A student became the principal of a school for the deaf, and one continued to pursue her career as a librarian.

We went our separate ways around 1966, 67, but the sense of camaraderie was strong while the group lasted. Some brought to me tales of high drama I knew little about in my own world: rejection by her convent if she went to university, lack of fit with Hong Kong society coming back from the US, frustration at being rejected by HKU, ambition to make a name in the commercial world, problems of teaching in a large class, and so on. A few of us became good friends, at least one I call a close friend to this day.

I went on to finish a bachelor’s degree in English in 1966 and became an English teacher. I stayed on in the CMEI one more year to teach the new Use of English. In my full-time job, without a formal educational qualification, I was a ‘permitted teacher,’ and have been ‘permitted’ to teach in schools and universities ever since. I have been at it for forty-five years now.

Those evenings in the CMEI, especially the two years teaching literature, stand out as a peak of achievement that I have not often scaled since. Looking back, I see that the part-time job turned out to be much more than a means of pocket-lining to meet my needs. For an impressionable rookie, it was teaching of a strangely new and intense kind. It was teaching to adults.  It was teaching under difficult circumstances. It was teaching that aimed high.  It was teaching with a social purpose, to reclaim lost opportunities. It was teaching that was enabling, enabling intelligent, purposeful working men and women to prove themselves academically.  It was teaching that had a sense of continuity and satisfaction.  It was teaching with and for the love of the subject.

While distance might have lent enchantment to the view, I still cannot get over the wonder of it even today -- the urgent students, the mutual learning, the confluence of influences, the difference it made to some people’s lives. It certainly lent a reassuring hand in guiding me to the teaching career I was destined to follow. 

Unlike Macbeth, I learned to look forward to tomorrow.

(Postscript: 

With fondness and regret, I remember Leung Kwok Yiu, a respected student whose life and promising career were cut short by illness.  I thank all those who have commented on the drafts. If there are any errors of fact in these reminiscences, they are due to my faltering memory.  With joy, I thank Joyce Kwong, Karry Lai, and Dawne Lo, former tutees from Vancouver, for suggestions that improve the language of this essay.)

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This article first appeared in Cognition Matriculation Evening Institute 1951-1995 published by the Cognitio Foundation in 2011.