Teachers we remember

Teacher's Day was on 1 Sept. I'm putting here a delightful letter from a retired teacher (not mine though), published in Friday's TODAY (2 Sept, page 26). I'll also recall some of my teachers.

Here's the letter by Ms Chan Ham Meng:

Reading “A teacher’s first love” (TODAY, 1 Sept), by Frances Ess about her time as a teacher and how she never forgets her first batch of students, brings back fond memories of the early days I spent teaching.

In the early ’70s, straight after A-Levels, I joined an all-boys school teaching the lower secondary classes. The bigger boys would tower over me and teased me with “Miss, can I help carry your books?”. I would blush, mumble my thanks and walk away quickly…

The boys in my class were really naughty. They broke the ceiling fan while playing Tarzan and I had to take two of them to hospital.

They were given a few stitches.

One day, a boy also came into class holding a cigarette tin. He told me in front of the class that he had a “present” for me. I opened it and three cockroaches ran out. I knew that my next action would make or break me, so I caught one cockroach and held it up and said “Class, this is an insect. Look at the feelers…”

Forty pairs of eyes looked up at me in surprise, and some of the boys had their mouths open. From then, I had no more trouble.

In those days, life was hard. Some of the boys would come to school with no food, no stationery etc. I remember visiting the home of one of the boys. He was unable to attend school for a week as he had to look after his sick grandfather.

I once asked a few boys why they were not wearing socks as required as part of their uniform. They told me that they had no money. I went and bought a dozen pairs of socks for them.

I taught a few more classes after that. When I left a few years later, my class somehow managed to chip in and buy me a cake with the words “Thank you for being a great teacher”. That cake was priceless!

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I think it's priceless to have inspirational teachers.

From my primary school days, I recall a Mr Duckworth. He taught English and got me to write for the school magazine.

Secondary school memories were of course more vivid. One form teacher, Mr Cheong Heng Yuen, got to know my dad who had joined the Parent-Teacher Association. I wonder if my dad asked him to keep an eye on me? Mr Cheong would good-naturedly ask me, "How's my boy?"

Mr Clive Scharenguivel taught us literature -- with much dramatic flourish. He enlivened the lessons!

Mr Chiu, our chemistry teacher, was dubbed "molecule shaker" for his habit of shaking any boy who did not remember a chemical formula. Then there was Mr Lin aka "Jap Commander". He taught Chinese, and was always barking at us boys. One April Fool's Day, some boys (I was in an all-boys school located in a gangster area) somehow managed to remove all four wheels from his car! I think they found some bricks to prop the vehicle up.

Ms Low also taught us chemistry. She was short, as in her name. One day, before she came in, we perched all the chalk and dusters up on top of the blackboard. She had a good laugh, and got the class monitor, a tall fellow, to do the necessary.

Finally, in pre-university, our General Paper and Literature teacher, Mr Thomas Khng, taught us so much about those subjects, and got us to think critically too.

To all of you teachers, thanks for the memories.