Mr Loke Hon Loy

From SMK Jinjang

Nominated by Soh Hoong Liang

During my form 4, I messed up my additional mathematics badly. I remember it was a single digit 6 or 8 out of 100 in the exam. Learning additional mathematics was like hell for me, those differentiation, integration and linear equation totally make no sense to me. I spent a whole year learning them and even went to the tuition classes, but I were only able to answer some of the easiest questions in the exam. As a person who scored A in PMR’s mathematics, I felt defeated and disappointed on myself and started giving up on this subject. Everything has just changed when I met Mr. Loke during form 5, he is undoubtedly the best teacher that I have ever knew. Although my class was science stream, we had been receiving complains of being too noisy, too lazy and too undisciplined. Mr. Loke is one of the most lenient teachers in our school. He never punished or scolded any students as I knew. Yet when he teaches, the magic always happened - even the naughtiest and noisiest students would stay at their seats and listen to him quietly. Even the laziest student will try their best to finish the homework he gave. All these leads to just one reason, that is because we would feel guilty to disappoint Mr. Loke. He was putting in so much effort in teaching, that the students were eventually inspired and motivated by him. All of us were respecting him from the bottom of our hearts. Mr. Loke had never given up on his students. When one of the lazy students were being called “useless” by a teacher, I was surprised to know that he stood up for his student and disagree to that teacher’s statement. I remember around 6 months before the SPM, he started to give extra classes to those who are weak in additional mathematics after the school. By starting from the most basic and fundamental part of the subjects, we slowly caught up from where we lost and putting ourselves back together. Few months before the SPM, when I received my quiz result with the highest score in class, I turned to look at Mr. Loke and I would never forget the big smile on his face when he looked at me. After that, I had given my everything to prepare myself for the SPM. By learning in Mr. Loke’s classes and receiving guidance from the extra classes, I finally scored an A- in the SPM. I am truly thankful for what Mr. Loke had done to us. With good fundamental knowledge in additional mathematics, I was confident enough to pursue my study in bachelor’s degree of computer science in Multimedia University. Algebra, Trigonometry, Probability and Statistics or even Calculus subjects in my course that I was facing, had became tolerable and learn-able by a person like me, who ever scored a single digit in my basic additional mathematics. Now, I am proudly to say that I am a degree holder in computer science, doing artificial intelligence related job and having a bright future. All these would never happen if I was not lucky enough to meet Mr. Loke. I was not surprised when I heard that Mr. Loke had been holding the “highest passing rate in SPM subjects” record for years in my secondary school. After around 30 years of teaching, I heard that he might be retiring soon. I would like to take this opportunity, to show my appreciation to Mr. Loke – the teacher who changed my life and countless students’ one. Thank you for everything Mr. Loke, hats off to you.