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Police and Criminals
(or How I Began Teaching English at The Age of 6)
(or How I Began Teaching English at The Age of 6)
1. I began teaching English at the age of 6.
Well, sort of.
Well, sort of.
2. When I was a kid, my friends and I played a lot of games as normal kids would have.
One of the games we played was police and criminals. It was very simple, there was a group playing police officers and there was another playing bad guys.
One of the games we played was police and criminals. It was very simple, there was a group playing police officers and there was another playing bad guys.
3. As police officers, you tried to catch the criminals and the criminals' job was not to get caught. We didn't even use any toys as weapons and, in a weird form of solidarity for those who don't have any toys at home, we just used our hands as imaginary guns.
4. The game was of course conducted in a mix of Indonesian and Javanese. But I was strangely determined, at that age, to add a certain elegance to the game by using English phrases. And that's where the miseducation began.
5. Most of us had not gone to school and only few were already in primary school. Nowadays, kids are insane because they seem to know more English words than me when I started junior high school.
6. But this particular story happened at a time and in a place where knowing and having the courage to say 'Yes', 'No', and 'Thank You' already made your parents so proud and hopeful that one day their precious child could potentially work for NASA and bring honor to the family.
7. By then I had already watched a lot of movies because both my parents were addicted to watching movies, a passionate indulgence my brother and I carry on to this day.
8. Because I could neither read nor understand the subtitles, I relied solely on my own logic to associate visuals and sound with certain meanings. And this was where things could get really wild and interesting.
9. As a self-appointed ambassador of the game, I felt the need to inject cool English phrases whenever we played police and criminals.
10. And I thought the best thing to start was to know what to say in English when a police officer catches a criminal and asks him to surrender. In other words, I was looking for the English words for 'Angkat tangan!'
11. Now I know that native speakers usually use 'Put your hands up!' for 'Angkat tangan!' . But back then, there was no way my 6-year old Indonesian ear could recognize those words.
12. What made it worse was that those criminals in the movies were following, at least in my assumption, a certain code that probably said: 'You are weak and not a bad-ass criminal if you immediately put your hands up when a policeman tells you to do so.'
13. And my eager observation told me that usually those bad guys only put their hands up after the police eventually screamed, 'Now!!!'
I noticed this repeated pattern and proudly concluded that the English word for 'Angkat tangan!' was 'Now!'
I noticed this repeated pattern and proudly concluded that the English word for 'Angkat tangan!' was 'Now!'
14. As soon as I arrived at that triumphant conclusion, I felt the immediate and strong obligation to share this particular knowledge to my fellow players.
15. The parents of present-day YouTubers, vloggers, and internet celebrities might still be in schools or dating at that time, but I had already influenced my friends using nothing but a convincing and persuasive public speaking skill in someone's backyard.
16. Before long, we ran around in our neighborhood and yelled 'Now!' at the top of our lungs when we caught a criminal.
17. I can totally imagine that some of our mothers at that time would probably think aloud while cooking in the kitchen: "Bocah-bocah iki dolanan uopo kok ket mau noa nao noa nao wae? Gek sing ngajari kuwi sopo?"
18. I do not know where most of my childhood friends are right now. But during some sleepless nights, I occasionally remember this episode and pray that they find it in their hearts to forgive me for teaching them that wrong thing.
Enjoy your Sunday everyone.
Enjoy your Sunday everyone.
