Mr. Irwan is a teacher who believes that every student matters. Mr. Irwan wanted to be a teacher because he believes that every child matters. When he was a student, he had a learning disability. He was very shy and had difficulties speaking and reading. He could not read until he was in fifth grade. His life changed when he met Ms. Sarina, a teacher who took him in as her own child and taught him how to read and speak confidently. Later on, his family moved to another town. At his new school, he met Ms. Lim, a Chinese teacher, who taught him numeracy. These two teachers had an impact on him and changed his life. He started to gain more confidence and worked hard to improve his reading.

Since then, he has transformed from a boy who had difficulty reading to a boy who loves to read. His mother would buy him books as presents on every special occasion. The experiences inspire him to become a teacher so that he can help children learn to read, giving them opportunity and access to knowledge and books.

Mr. Irwan teaches “life,” not subjects. He believes that “every child matters.” Equity is important. He said he wants to be the access for all of his students to the world, especially underprivileged students. He feels that it is his duty as an adult to shape and inculcate the children of Brunei. Moreover, he wants to unleash the students so that they can reach their maximum potential. He thinks that there are two things in life that are necessary for one’s needs: education and manners. Thus, he commits himself as a teacher to preparing his students, the new generation of Brunei Darussalam, with these two essentials.

He initiates new teaching techniques to teach literacy and the English language to his students and trains other teachers in the method so that it can serve as a basic principle in teaching any subject. His methods include the English narrative writing strategy of six-picture composition and colorful semantics. He also conducted action research to monitor students’ performance at the end of the semester after applying the teaching techniques. This is to prove with evidence that his methods work.

Mr. Irwan was born into a family of six children. He is the middle son. His father is a policeman, and his mother is a housewife.