A belated Teacher's Day wish

A Happy Belated Teachers’ Day to all teachers!

Teachers have played an important role in the early years of my life. Some of their teachings have stayed with me and seen me through my adulthood. Good teachers are like the sun, they make students shine like stars and bring out their best in them. No wonder "You are my sunshine" is dedicated to teachers.

I’m grateful to have been taught by inspiring and amazing teachers. Of course there are some who probably see teaching as a means of living. With them around, it just makes us appreciate the good ones even more =)

I have my Primary School’s 陈老师 to thank for building my Chinese foundation. The games and competitions in class made me look forward to school everyday. I would even prepare beforehand so as to win the game the following day. It wasn’t the ice-creams that I was yearning for, but the satisfaction of winning the boys in my class haha :D

I remembered once she caught me lying in class. I lied that I’ve forgotten to bring the exercise book when instead, I had forgotten to do the homework. I preferred to be seen as forgetting to bring the book rather than to have forgotten to do the work…perhaps I felt that the latter would result in more guilt for myself than disappointment for the teacher. However, it was the other way round.

That was the first and my last true lie to a teacher.

I owed my music foundation to Mdm Tan. She has a strong passion for music. You could feel it when she conducts the ensemble and she was the one who led us to winning the silver award for one of the youth music ensemble competitions with her improvised version of “小白船” as one of the competition pieces. I had also spent my very first night out in school at the music camp she had organised. That, I had to thank my grandpa who had given the "yes" despite my grandma’s protests ;) It was an unforgettable experience and that was the time my recorder had flowed out the most saliva due to continuous playing hahaha ;D

She always drove me home after the music practice on Saturdays and she would jokingly tell other teachers I was her goddaughter. Now that I come to think of it…she could be single.

Even though I knew I was her pet student, she didn’t grant my wish to switch to playing the pianica only until I reach P6. Not sure if it was because of the lack of pianica sets or she wanted to keep the number of recorder and pianica players balanced. Or perhaps, she wanted me to focus on what I do best. To me, I badly wanted to be able to take the pianica set home for I love keyboards and somehow at that age, it was enticing to play a bigger musical instrument. But now, I realized that the pianica could have been played by many students as they are loan sets, whilst the recorder is personally owned. Euwww…...ok fortunately I didn’t contract anything from using that pianica.

Teachers that I dislike? Yes, my Primary school Maths teacher, Mr Thum, who made me do a ‘stand-and-squat’ in front of him when I had forgotten to bring my text book. Fortunately, everyone was busy doing their maths sums then. I'll always remember his surname as Mr Thumb…the one who will nail you down with his thumb, making you feel small. His thick glasses and 60s look image still stayed in my head.

My science teacher was no better. A very plump lady with a wobbly body and a small head. Maybe the body was big that the head appeared relatively smaller. She likes to eat the cream on cakes. I thought that was disgusting. I remembered she offered to help a teacher eat the cream from her piece of cake as the younger teacher didn’t like it (or maybe worried of the extra calories). That image of her finishing off the cream was still vivid in my head. Reminds me of the show "Matilda" where the fat boy was gorging on the chocolate cake.

She conducted the lesson in a slothful manner and she displayed favouritism openly in class. She’d hug her favourite students in class and worse, one of her pet students was the girl I didn't quite like. A proud girl I thought. And maybe that was why I didn’t like that Science teacher for liking someone like her. I don’t know why I ended up in her ‘hugs’ one day…probably see me so small, so pitiful. I didn’t like it…it was gross being surrounded with wobbly layers. I couldn’t remember her name, except her squishy-sqooshy body.

That said, I scored the worst in my maths and fortunately my science was ok. So teachers do play an important role in affecting the grades to some extent ;p If you can, try to like the teacher ;p

Come Secondary school, the teachers were somehow more interesting. Possibly because they had to be in order to get our attention or perhaps we were at the age where we started to assess and form judgments and began showing more interests in the people around us, especially teachers, whom we see all day.

My most feared and respected teacher – Mrs Cecil Tan, who was also the teacher-in-charge for netball then. Her presence could be felt miles away. She had that invisible power to make a class go quiet almost in seconds with her ‘fleeting’ presence. It seemed that she also enjoyed springing surprises on classes when they least expect it - especially when a teacher was not in. She seemed omnipotent, with a super mega memory for names and faces despite having taught many students over the years. Her intense stares made us shudder and I even had to prepare a script before approaching her to ask questions :D

All the Sec 1s had to go through her ‘baptism of fire' as she taught history to all Sec 1 classes. At times, she would combine 2 classes to teach and we had to carry our chairs over to another class. To teach 2 classes of 13 year-olds was I thought, something incredible. Most of us were very focused, or rather, had to be, for she would ask questions and call out anyone's name. I thought I almost fainted when she asked me to repeat my answer loudly as I sounded like a mouse…somehow, the words too seemed to be afraid to be heard by her hahaha.....luckily, she didn’t ask me if there were any gold in my mouth :D

She didn’t allow us to sit with our friends or people whom we already know. She had the eyes of an eagle which could catch our slightest gestures. She wanted us to make new friends and perhaps, get out of our comfort zone. We would spend a few minutes of self introduction before she picked someone to introduce her new friend. Maybe that was how I was trained to be able to strike conversations with strangers :)

Her class was like an animated story-telling session. Her expressions and dramatic movements tell it all. After which, we had to repeat what she had said to the person seated beside us. That has helped us remember the lesson better. No wonder ‘History’ is ‘His Story’. Though with much fear, I enjoyed her lessons nevertheless and felt relieved to have survived her lesson each time ;p I also became more conscious of pronouncing certain English words the British way such as “perfect”(pronounce as “per-fect” instead of “pur-fect” which is the American pronunciation). I was also intrigued by the twitch of her neck muscles when she uttered certain words especially those with the 'e' vowels and I've learnt my 'rrrrr' from her too :>

On the netball court, she was a tough woman. Her voice resonated across the 2 courts besides her whistle. She has a very healthy diaphragm for her age ;p Looking back, it was quite a monstrous training playing under the blistering sun and sometimes rain and under her watchful eyes. Yet, many of us rushed onto the court each time she blew the whistle for the change of players. Yes, that was despite her “get your butt off the ground”, “grrrab the ball with your fingers”, “your brains are under your feet”, “are you waiting for Christmas to throw the ball?”. Perhaps that managed to evoke our fighting spirits.

Now I don’t know where mine has gone to…sigh…

She too exhibited her super memory on court by remembering what positions we had played and the number of times we played. We were neither allowed to play the same position more than once nor deprive others of a chance to play. Now you know why I find her ‘extraordinary’?

Her charisma was something that made me both fear and respect her. She has that wry sense of humour in handling notorious students and somehow she was quick to sniff them out. To me, she is a righteous figure exhibiting fairness, justice and integrity. She's unpretentious and thou sometimes her words were a little harsh and direct, they were spot on. The values that I hold are pretty much influenced by her and maybe that's why I have no tolerance for people who lack integrity.

Well, no one is perfect. As much as she had plenty of students who adore her, there were some who abhor her. Can’t please everybody right?

I thought it was a great to be able to keep in touch with her after we left school, albeit she retired before we reached Sec 4. It felt different talking to her as a friend. Definitely I don’t need to prepare a script beforehand. Her last day in school was a sad day for most of us, almost as if the school was in mourning. Well, I would be sad too if I were her, imagine devoting my whole life to teaching. Most of the teachers in the past were passionate and committed. With her departure, the netball spirit seemed to go deflated as well and we were no longer the top school for netball.

2 teachers who made me love English – Mrs Quek and Mrs Lau. The former was my lower sec English teacher who made me love writing essays, without restriction. I wonder if some of the contents of my essays had made her worried then for I wrote stuff on homosexuality (for the story twist), miscarriage, death, accidental pregnancy etc. She too made me realize I could articulate well and read fluently. But being able to articulate well and being able to debate well are 2 different things altogether.

Mrs Lau, like Mrs Quek, was a nurturing teacher who gave us lots of encouragement and support. If not for her, I may not have the fond memories of working with my classmates during our final year for the National Day competition. There was a small group of our classmates who would rather revise for O Levels during the free periods rather than practice for the competition. There was a small disagreement but she mediated and I remembered vaguely some prefects also provided some encouragement that we should still go ahead to prepare for the competition. I always remember her perspiring a lot for she was preggy at one stage. Even though I enjoyed her literature lesson, I didn’t do very well for that subject. Sorry, Shakespeare's linggo aren't just for me :p

My E-maths teacher, Mrs Guneratnam, is an interesting character. A tiny Indian teacher with a pear-shaped head (due to the shape of her hair). We even had a song about her…but I can’t recall what incident led to the birth of that song. I hated her “mental sums” sessions, where each of us had to work on a given mental sum within a limited time. We could only sit down when correct answers were given. It was stressful…but again, it was good training. Her favourite pet line, “This is ABSURD!”, where she would make us repeat after her when the answer to a mathematical problem is incorrect. That was funny ;D

My A-maths teacher, Mrs Ng, is equally interesting. She was one of the best looking teachers then. Sweet looking with a husky voice. Well, that was a plus point for I didn’t totally give up A-maths because she’s a nice teacher to begin with, so I tried to understand her lessons. Her husky voice did pose as a problem for her as she had sore throats pretty often. Well, even mild-looking teachers have their fiery side too. She's a nice an sweet teacher if you don’t step on her toes :) Coming to know her personally, she’s quite 三八 too ;p Have met her at one of my friend’s wedding and she still looks pretty much the same despite after having 3 kids :>

There was once we even tried to ‘match-make’ her with our relief teacher, Christopher James, the only male teacher in our school at that time. Doom on him for coming to a girls’ school hahaha ;D

We played so much pranks on him and even tried to make him closer to our beloved Mrs Ng than to Mrs L. We were delighted when our plot worked where he used the same straw that Mrs Ng had used earlier. So childish ya? To think that both the female teachers were already married then. Perhaps we were piqued by Mrs L’s actions towards him, hence these acts of retaliation. Poor young fella...got himself involved in this kiddy fight unknowingly ;p

We made him drink weird coke concoction on his birthday and he made us cheered when he swallowed the the coke, upon realising that there was something wrong with the drink in that gulp he took. We planted ‘booby traps’ and scared him with toy spiders, weird items etc. I recalled the photo we took where the poor fella was surrounded by little devils (aka us). I was told later that because of this teaching stint, he had decided not to become a teacher…Oops!! But in any case, he seems to be doing quite well now, some senior post in MTV if I heard it correctly.

Another relief teacher whose name I really have forgotten except remembering her having a potato head (the shape of her head resembles a potato). She was a nice lady who taught us history and was good in her delivery. A responsible teacher unlike one relief teacher who taught us maths in Sec 2. Her demeanor reminded me of an elder sister looking after her siblings. During her short stint, I remembered composing this ‘historical’ song as part of the presentation and so much so that I’ve forgotten parts of the original lyrics of “My Grandfather’s clock”.

The reasons why Penang never became a great trading centre:

"The hopes that Penang would become a great centre and a naval base didn’t come true. 

It was too far north from the tin and spice area and trade was limited to mainland too. 

Therefore it’s unsuitable as a centre for SEA (Southeast Asia) goods and they made no profits at all, boo hoo hoo! 

When Siapore (Singapore) became a busy trade centre, Penang lost its Presidency.

Cost of running Penang toppled up. Money come! Money come!

There were many high paid officials. All were dumb! All were dumb! 

Light (Francis Light) started to tax and he made it worse that the merchants turned elsewhere to trade."

And finally, our dear Ms Leow, who had passed away a couple of years back, would be fondly remembered - her big glasses, hearty laughs and her iconic clapping action with chalk dust puffing out from her hands. A disciplinary master is seldom well-liked by students but she would be the exceptional one, at least for me.