Inspirational teachers.

Saturday (yesterday, Sept 1) was Teachers' Day in Singapore (but marked in the schools on Friday).

I suppose my English language proficiency and curiosity about words and their etymology was greatly helped along by three excellent subject teachers I had: Mr L. Duckworth in primary school, Miss C.L. Teo in secondary school, and Mr Thomas Khng in pre-university.

Sunday Times writer Toh Yong Chuan wrote a touching tribute to an English language teacher of his, Mrs Sim Mun Hoon, today ("Happy Teachers' Day, Mrs Sim, and thank you," Sept 2, page 33). I'd like to reproduce his piece here, as a tribute to my own inspirational teachers:

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Schools mark the day on Friday, but Teachers’ Day came early for me this year.

Three weeks ago, a primary school classmate sent me an e-mail saying: “I am planning to meet Mrs Sim, our English teacher from Birkhall Primary School. Are you keen to join us?”

I had not seen my teacher for 31 years, and said “yes” without hesitation.

So on National Day, we went to the old terraced house in Faber estate where Mrs Sim Mun Hoon lives with her husband in retirement. I took along my report book in case she needed proof that I had been her pupil.

I did not know what to expect. Would she chide me for not staying in touch all these years? Would she approve of how I had turned out in life?

Mrs Sim did not recognise me right away, but she smiled broadly when I pointed to the Primary 6 page in my report book where she had written: “Play less and concentrate more on your school work. Try harder in the PSLE.”

She did not notice that in the “conduct” column, she had graded me “Good” for the first term, but only “Satisfactory” for the second. That was as good as saying “Please cane him”, because my parents gave me a sound thrashing for letting my behaviour deteriorate.

But the stern words and tough discipline jolted me to work hard for the rest of that year, and I managed to do well enough to get into Raffles Institution in 1982.

I came from a Hokkien-speaking family and was always more comfortable with Mandarin than English, but Mrs Sim did not laugh like some of my classmates did when I mispronounced English words. Instead, she would make me repeat a word again and again until I got it right.

A word I struggled with was “chicken”; I kept saying “ji-ken” because “ji” is chicken in Mandarin.

Mrs Sim had her own way of helping us expand our vocabulary too. Instead of telling us the meaning of new words, she would make us look them up in the dictionary, memorise the meanings and be prepared to be called upon to write them on the board. It taught me not to rely on handouts, and to look for answers myself.

My schoolmate and I spent two hours with Mrs Sim, chatting about her former pupils and her new-found love for reading on her Amazon Kindle. We grumbled about falling discipline in schools and the rising cost of living which has eroded her pension.

I learnt new things about her too.

She was 37 years old when she taught me in 1981, and her husband taught in a secondary school. She juggled her job with running the home and taking care of her two children then aged 12 and 14. It was so tiring on some days, she said.

If only we knew. Would we have behaved better in class, I wonder.

Birkhall Primary -– despite having a name right out of an English period novel –- was a kampung school and most of its pupils were from poor families living in the nearby Queenstown and Tanglin Halt flats.

Our school activities included going to the Queenstown library to read or borrow books, or catching spiders in the overgrown lalang near the Queenstown prison walls, or going down to the canal to catch longkang fish.

Recess time was divided into two – swallowing two fishballs in one minute, and spending the rest playing one leg, hantam bola or soccer for the boys, or zero point or five stones for the girls.

There was a memorable visit to the beach, where the boys argued over whether to pee in the bushes or the sea.

And while Birkhall may have been a kampung school, it produced a Senior Minister of State (Heng Chee How) and an awesome school band that ranked among the top three in Singapore in its heyday.

The school was so much a part of my childhood that after my family moved from our one-room Stirling Road flat to a three-room flat in Rochor when I was in Primary 3, I refused to go to a new school and preferred making a 40-minute bus journey twice a day.

We had a good education in a run-down school, because there were teachers like Mrs Sim who cared about us more than we knew.

Sadly, Birkhall Primary closed down in December 1983 because of dwindling enrolment. In 1984, Mrs Sim was posted to Jin Tai Primary School where she remained until she retired in 1997.

I asked Mrs Sim if she ever wondered how her pupils turned out. She nodded.

“How can we thank teachers like you?” I asked.

She replied: “As long as you grow up to be responsible adults, that is enough.”

As I stood to leave her home, she reached out and held my hand. “You are doing well. See you soon.”

Her eyes welled up. Mine too.

Teachers are the heart of our education system, and the best of them make a lasting difference.

Teachers’ Day is a good occasion to remember those who taught us well. Make the effort to track down one of them and say: “Thank you.”