Some of you might either had once become a “class monitor” or know someone who was one. As a Malaysian, you might recognize some of the roles of the class monitor listed below.
1. Teacher’s Emergency Line
You would only see pagers being used by doctors in Gray’s anatomy, but you would never see them being used by teachers in Malaysia because here, we’ve got our own pager: the class monitor. Whenever the teacher does not show up for the class, the class monitor would be the one who is responsible to go on a hunt to find the teacher in the teacher’s office. They also serve as the messenger to send messages to other teachers in the office.
2. Books are their best friend
Books are their best friend not because they like to read them, but rather because teachers turn to them whenever they need assistance to carry out students’ books they collected during class.
3. Greetings!
It is a tradition in Malaysia that the class monitor would be the one leading the whole class to greet the teacher whenever the teacher enters the class. They act like a conductor in an orchestra full of students. It is all charming and cute when you’re in a kindergarten or primary school but not so much when you’re already in the secondary school.
4. Chalk/marker pen getter
Whenever the class was running out of chalk, the class monitor will be the one responsible to get more chalks from the teacher’s office. That, or to get more marker pens if the class was using a whiteboard instead.
5. Duty Roster Supervisor
A class monitor gets a lot of responsibilities on his/her shoulder. They usually need to come to class earlier than everybody else (although not applicable to some class monitor I know) and be on their feet checking on duty roster. They’ll be the annoying early morning rooster cock-a-doodling into your ears telling you that you need to move your bum and do your cleaning duty.
6. Housekeeping Inspector
They will get even more annoying because not only they make you do your work, but they would also tell you that you have missed the spot! This is usually the point you tell them off to mind their own business!
7. The Noise Referee
Whenever the teacher is not around, the class monitor would be given the responsibility to take good care of the class and make sure nobody is making any noise. So, whenever the class monitor hears someone making a noise, he would write the name of the person on the blackboard. No wonder class monitors have lots of frenemies around them!
