a Happy Teacher's Day

I'm not a teacher, but I have had teachers from my schooling days, I have friends who are present-day teachers, there are teachers in the family, and I have teachers who have become friends.

 

It is a circuitous relationship, no doubt, when one transforms from that of a student to teacher to friend, but it is a relationship that I appreciate, and I'd like to think that they appreciate too.

 

Someone asked me today, in lieu of it being Teacher's Day, if I had any teachers from school that I remembered fondly.

 

It took me awhile- hey, it has been a long time and I had to think through year by year- but I'm glad to say that, yes, despite the fact that I was quite an ordinary student who never scored top grades nor won the Best Pupil Award, I do have teachers whom I remember with a quiet, pensive smile.

 

There was my Primary Two form teacher. Miss L was a sweet, caring, gentle-voiced, very patient lady who held her spiritual values high and her voice low. Never one time did she raise her voice to her students, and yet, we all followed her lead and obeyed her. She was one teacher who disciplined students with kindness and spoke to them with the understanding that behind every child's behaviour, however strange or quirky it might be, lay a much deeper reason unseen on the surface. When she was told by another teacher that a stack of graded exercise books belonging to me had been found in the school canteen, she quietly spoke to me in the empty classroom. After that, she rang The Parent and explained how it had come about, and that it was okay for a eight year old to score 97/100 instead of 100/100.

 

There was another teacher.

 

She didn't teach me directly, because I wasn't in any of her classes, and neither was I in any of the ECAs she oversaw, but I knew her by name, and I greeted her whenever I saw her on the corridors. Years have passed, today Miss Y is a Principal of a prestigious girls' school, and she has also become a friend. It was a surprise meeting her at the place I worked where she had signed up as a volunteer on a partnership program to hand out bread and sandwiches to disadvantaged families. We somehow managed to keep in touch after I left the place, and we're friends still.

 

I'm afraid my memories of teachers in my secondary school are either rather dim, or not as memorably fond as I'd like them to be.

 

But there was one.

 

She taught me Geography in Secondary One, and later went on to become the teacher in charge of the ECA I joined. Our personal encounter came the year when I wanted to leave the ECA and transfer to another one. There're a lot of reasons why I wanted to do so, and despite the fact that I'd actually reasoned to myself that with only two badges to my name coupled with an unenthusiastic attitude, it would not be an issue, Miss G thought otherwise. "You've just another year to go," she told me when I approached her in the staff room, "there's no point in transferring, just finish the year and you'd be graduating."

 

Well, I stayed- and I graduated with the glorious record of (still) two badges to my name.

 

I attended three tertiary institutions in all after secondary school. (Yeah, my education's a bit complicated) 

 

The first institution where I stayed for only three months actually had a much more memorable Principal than a teacher. Any Principal who expounds on the English Language and links it back to French and Italian at 630am before School Assembly is bound to be remembered.

 

The second institution had teachers whom I remembered, and although I wouldn't quite regard them with personal encounters, I'm glad for the memories we had. After all, teachers define the lives of students, and their individual personalities certainly defined ours. There was one whom we secretly called the Grass Lady for her penchant of eating lemongrass and alfafa sprouts. There was one whom made us do countless mind maps for her lectures on Ancient History. There was one whose voice was so soft and so delicate I fell asleep throughout most of her Geoffrey Chaucer lessons. And then, of course, there was the teacher who guided me and my classmates through a presentation for what I believe was Racial Harmony Day.

Indeed, it is not easy being a teacher. The list of tasks, the meetings, the responsibilities, the welfare of the students, the administrative work, the collaborative work, the curriculum planning, the exam paper planning, the actual teaching, the marking, marking, marking....

And so, in lieu of this being Teachers' Day, for teachers past, present and future, here's a cup of coffee, and a myriad for flowers for y'all. :)