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LearningCurve

My Schooldays: Anthony Thanasayan: 'The toilet was out of bounds'
28 Jan 2007
SUMITHA MARTIN


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Anthony Thanasayan, 46, is the president of the Malaysian Animal-Assisted Therapy for the Disabled and Elderly Association (Petpositive). Born with spina bifida, Thanasayan has long been a voice for the disabled.

I ATTENDED school for only three years, from Standard Two to Four, at the Anglo-Chinese School (ACS), Klang.

I did not get to have a full life, like a normal student because my disability, which made me walk with a limp, prompted teachers to be over-protective. The canteen and school field, where I wanted to play football, were thought to be too "dangerous" for me.

Another place I did not get to see was the toilet. I think it was because the teachers were afraid I would slip and fall, so I would wear several layers of underpants and ease myself in them and my pants would be soaked by recess!

My grandmother would come then with a change of clothes and everyone would make fun of me.

While in Standard Four, my leg gave me a problem and I had to suddenly undergo an operation. Three months later, I was forced to use a wheelchair and school authorities told my parents to send me to a school for the retarded!

I was stuck at home and would spend hours looking out of my window upstairs, at crows flying by and at the ACS and Methodist Girls School students walking by my house.

I started learning through the television which became my window to the world. I also listened to shortwave radio, in particular, the many foreign programmes, which helped me learn English.

When I was 26, I sat for a TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) examination and scored something like 597 out of 600 points.

When I look back at my schooldays, I have a lot of regrets and anger.

I thought that languishing at home was the way it had to be for a person with a disability — I never questioned it.

My family also never bothered with my education despite the fact that my mother was a teacher.

I am the second oldest of four boys. All my brothers, who are able-bodied, were more fortunate — they received a Form Six education.

My brief schooling however gave me a few good memories. One of them was of a teacher called Encik Sultan who taught me maths which I hated.

One day, when the bell rang at the end of the school session, I couldn’t finish my sums because I didn’t know the answers and I began to cry.

Encik Sultan, a big-sized man, left everything he was doing and sat himself on a tiny chair next to me, and went over the sums, one by one, over a period of about 45 minutes. I was very touched and surprised by his kindness and suddenly, I wasn’t so afraid of maths.

Missing out on school made me very clumsy in my interaction with others.

Fortunately, today, I have addressed this and am happy and settled.

The horrible thing though is that many disabled children are still going through what I did 38 years ago.

I think part of the reason why society — the public and the authorities — cannot accept disability is because a large number of adults never went to school with a disabled person.

This is a fortnightly column.
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