I know..I am 2 days late. But well, late better than never!

Unlike mother’s day and Christmas, teacher’s day is very quiet and subtle. In fact, I have to be reminded every year, always through my students’ wishes. Then, my church elders invite all the teachers to stand during sunday service and lead the congregation to pray for us.

Only this day, it knocks my head hard to remind me that I am an educator. It is a day that I reflect what I have done well and not, and what I could have done better in the following years. The students’ wishes often give quite a good clue. Mmm..

I must say, I have always been a lousy student and still am. I don’t send SMS nor bake delicious scone for them. I have to learn from my students of how to appreciate my teachers and lecturers. Some of them have impacted my life more than others. Unfortunately, none of them are in Singapore. So that makes a perfect excuse for not visiting them.

Recently, my mom told me that my primary school teacher has cancer (last stage). Though I am still afraid to see her till today, I felt sad for her. I know she does not want her students to know about her situation and thus, I am not even sure if I should pay her a visit when I go back to Penang.

She is one of the most unforgettable teacher, so unforgettable that we still ran away from her if we saw her from afar just a few years back.

She was a teacher who always pushed us to strive for A, and I mean 90 and above. If we score lower than 90, we had to get our parents to sign on our test papers. That was not the worst, after all, my parents understood how hard it was to score 90 and above for every test. But the humiliation came from being chased out of the classroom and , we had to pull our ears and do squat-stand for 50 times in front of other classes. 100 times if we scored less than 80. (see..I can still remember her rules vividly)

By the time we finished 50, we could hardly stand and walk.

Mind you, we had test EVERYDAY on different subject each day. Primary school….:(

One more NO-NO was bad handwriting. There was a left-handed boy in my class who wrote his 0 clockwise. I remember seeing him being canned on the butt each time he was asked to write the 0 on the blackboard. He had OK handwriting I think but relatively bad compared to the class standard. His exercise books were always thrown out of window or into the dust bin.

And guess what, he is a doctor today…from Cambridge some more.

She is the only one who impacted me SO MUCH that I used to wake in the morning feeling nausea before going to school. My classmate vomited his breakfast…we were stressed out for 3 years in primary school.

She made me stand in the class and scolded me in front of everybody just because I told my English teacher that I did not want to represent my class in elocution competition.

When the class did not win 1st prize, I was asked to stand and be scolded again. Reason being, our class could have won 1st but because of me. -_-

Nonetheless, she stretched our capabilities and built a solid strong foundation in every subject before going to high school. While others were struggling to adjust to high school, the transition was pretty easy for us. I am sure we have learned to manage stress better.

It has been 14 years since we left primary school. I hope she knows that she has contributed to who we are today. I know that we have done her proud…I hope..

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