Let's begin with the teacher I love and respect the most.

IN YU NENG PRIMARY SCHOOL 

刘錦��師 - Mrs Tan Lee Song

Clockwise from left: Joseph Lee, Colin Ng, Mrs Tan, Junior, Lovina Xie, Me

Mrs Tan has always been my Numero Uno teacher - surely she has scolded me, smacked me and subjected me to child labour by carrying the class' books and running other errands and I think she owes me salary for that haha.

I remember unhappy events in my childhood very well, and I can't seem to recall anything unpleasant during that one year Mrs Tan took our class for Higher Chinese and Chinese.

I had always volunteered my coolie services for her (along with one or two other classmates) - we'd run down the stairs once the teacher finishes the lesson just so that we could catch Mrs Tan mid-way up the stairs to help her carry stuff.

The only time she scolded me in class made me really, really upset but I can't remember what she said or why it happened.

One year, we had a quiz leading up to Teacher's Day and everyone in the school got their chance to guess which childhood photo belonged to which teacher. I can still remember so clearly that black and white studio pic of Mrs Tan in her teens!

I guess I laughed a lot, or for some other reason I cannot remember - Mrs Tan called me 癲婆 or ‘mad woman' and it stuck for 14 years.

So anyway, Mrs Tan was in charge of Art (ECA), or was it Chinese painting... oops. She has now retired, and teaches Chinese painting and calligraphy in Yu Neng weekly.

I kept in touch with her after Primary 6, and we still organise gatherings once in a while. She saw me through all my ups and downs, from me being a little girl to a mother.

It gets me emotional just looking at this picture.

I love you Mrs Tan!

王春燕�師 ﹣ Mdm Wang

Mdm Wang took our class for Chinese in Primary 4. After a string of forgettable and fierce teachers in lower primary, she was a refreshing change with her patience.

She has never scolded me, and you know how kids are - once you scold them they will never look at you the same again.

I am a natural-born attention-seeker but somehow I was too pre-occupied in class to ‘curry her favour' (haha) - Raymund Tong Pak Lam who was sitting next to me was always bullying me so I didn't have the time, you see.

Mdm Wang is a very good friend of Mrs Tan's, they meet up at least once a week. So every time I visit Mrs Tan, I visit Mdm Wang too!

Friends are friends forever!

Mrs Goh Wee Lam

Mrs Goh is still teaching... in Coral Primary School now. *jeng jeng jengggg*

Clockwise from left: Joseph Lee, Humphrey Soh, Kelson Tan, Mrs Goh, Me, Mrs Tan, Junior, Mdm Wang

Mrs Goh was my form teacher in Primary 5 and 6. I thought she didn't like me. See, she said my files smelt like mothballs (my entire house still smells like mothballs plus Dettol by the way).

And I thought Mrs Goh was way too quick-witted that she can make me look like a fool even if I were to say something as innocent as I couldn't find my pencil.

I suspected my dad to be in cahoots with her - she knew that I spent afternoons singing and dancing along to Michael Jackson's Dangerous World Tour videotape and she went on to announce to the whole class (they laughed). I so hoped that I self-combusted and just died there and then.

I went home and threw a fit and decided never to talk to my old man ever again - until I needed to get pocket money from him that night. Tsk.

Come to think of it now, Mrs Goh is actually someone very humourous - I was just slower.

Her lessons were always fun and I looked forward to listening to her own experiences and stories. I also looked forward to her sarcasm especially if they were not meant for me.

There was one incident in Primary 5 when I punched my classmate real hard and I got into the bad books. Mrs Goh yelled at me to stand up, and all I remembered from there was that they took that boy's shirt off and there were marks on his back.

So Mrs Goh left me a very nice comment on my year-end report book:

It is obvious that I was, and still am not a team player

If there could be a class I want to return to - it'd definitely be primary 5H and 6H - my teachers are the best!

王美è�¯è€�師 ï¹£ Ms Ong Bee Hua 

Ms Ong took our class for Chinese and Higher Chinese in primary 5. She was possibly the youngest teacher then,had fair skinned and a nice tone, and I stuck to her like glue.

She caught the hamster fever from me and reared hamsters! Yahoo! We could bring pets to school back in those days, are you jealous now, kids?

I remember staying back in school right through to the late afternoons, just sitting in the staff room sorting out files and rearranging books, tidying the tables for Ms Ong.

Yeah she owes me a year's salary as well! I wonder if she still remembers me, I hope she does, because she remains one of my most loved teachers ever.

Mrs Helena Kweh 

She had put me as the lead in an inter-school Courtesy Campaign skit contest and I acted a hooligan (I must have not snapped out of that role yet).

Mrs Kweh is also the mother of actress Wendy Kweh, who acted in Little Shop Of Horrors.

I never kept in touch with Mrs Kweh since I left school, hope she is well!

In Ngee Ann Secondary School

I have to say I hated my years there. The only thing good I got out of NASS is the friendship I have with my buddies.

IN NGEE ANN SECONDARY SCHOOL

Perhaps I had been too spoiled in my primary school days; perhaps the teachers in YNPS knew better what they were doing; perhaps I should have pointed a gun to my head and told myself that I must refrain from doing comparisons because my teachers in secondary school are not anywhere near good.

I was put down a lot by my teachers, and one incident that really angered me was this:

Mdm M

She took us for Literature and one day, we were told to go home and write our own poem.

Mdm M insulted me the next day right in front of the whole class.

We had to queue up while she sat at her throne in the classroom, and show her our work one by one.

I kept mine till now because this incident left me with hatred so deep I still fume whenever I think about it. YES I AM ANGRY AS I WRITE THIS NOW.

It reads:

Flowers

Flowers

The colour of nature

The bloom of summer

Something of careful nurture

On that season of reckoning

Flowers put on gorgeous suits

To welcome Spring's scrutiny

Step by step march through their boots

Enter the hot territory

Flowers lose no charm in summer

But now the Energizer battery

Still proud of their name

Then comes fall

The time when flowers wither

Hearing the wind's hollow call

Petals fall swiftly to the ground

Next the winter launches

Not to seize flowers' beauty

But to test their endurance

At times when life is full of uncertainty

Mdm M said to me, "I would have given you an A for this but how can you write so well? I don't believe you and I am giving you a B. This is too good for you."

She said that out loud. I had written this right in front of my sister the night before, and I had done so in barely 20 minutes! I complained to my sister but what could we have done back then? Times were different, parents would not have complained like the ones do now.

So here's to Mdm M. You insulted me, you thought you knew better, and I hate you for that. You failed as a teacher, you played a part in convincing me that staying in school wouldn't make one any much smarter.

Mrs L

I had the misfortune of being in Mrs L's class in Secondary 2. She was the in-charge of my ECA Chinese Orchestra since the year before.

Now this is going to be messy.

I was heavily involved in Chinese Orchestra, and I was the group leader. So there was a lot of politics and that also meant that I didn't deal well with it.

The senior leaders in Sec 2 and 3 were not pleased with me (I am not bragging but it is because I was a newbie but my instrumental skills were at times better than theirs) and then some rumour got along that I was eyeing for the main leader's seat and everyone started to conspire against me.

The girls complained to who-else-but-Mrs L about the way I conducted practice sessions, the way I printed papers, the way I talked, the way I sat, the way I breathed or farted.

Mrs L was the typical ignorant - she never bothered to find out the root of the problem, she picked on me just because there were 10 against me.

My first reaction was to retaliate and speak up but she didn't like my guts.

Orchestra sessions became shouting matches between the both of us, right in front of the over 300 members.

Silly as it sounds, and yes silly it should be - she would sit at the auditorium and shout at me to either get lost or that she was firing me out of the orchestra. And mind you, she did kick me out of Ngee Ann Secondary School's Chinese Orchestra not once, not twice, but SIX TIMES in one half years.

And she went on to tell the others each time I re-joined - that I cried and begged her to let me come back.

LET ME SET THIS STRAIGHT. I NEVER EVER BEGGED HER, NEITHER HAVE I CRIED. She was the one who asked me back because the Pipa group was a huge mess without me.

And the 6th time I told I wasn't coming back because she was just making it a pain for me.

Somehow, our hatred for each other spilled right into the classroom, I would refuse to study, refused to do her homework, and even egged her to carry me up when she stormed to my seat and ordered that I stood up.

There were times when she got so mad that she couldn't even continue with her lesson - just because I refused to comply with whatever she said.

I lost count the number of times she dragged me to the Discipline Mistress (I shall talk about her in a while) and the principal's office.

Oh, by the way, I was a school prefect and I QUIT (I just stopped wearing my badge and changed my shoes back to white) in the third quarter of Sec 2.

The one time she and the DM took me to the principal's office, she was, or almost was, in tears and she told Mr Tan (principal) that I should be suspended.

Mr Tan told her, "Zhiying is a good girl" and to let me go back to my class and study.

It was like a slap in Mrs L and the DM's faces. Either Mr Tan is using the reverse psychology or he genuinely knew that I was a good student.

Prior to Mrs L being my form teacher

Post-Mrs L as form teacher

I went from top to the bottom because I lost interest in studies, why would, or should, I remain in school when it doesn't make me any smarter? And wake up early everyday to get shouted at in school, or dragged to see the DM?

I remember telling Mrs L that she will never stop hearing about me, ever. True enough!

Mrs S

The DM! I have nothing much to say about her besides that she was the most feared person in the entire secondary school. She had the complete package, the X-factor - shrill voice, huge and gouging eyes (just like those you see on Guiness Book Of World Records), eyebrows so arched that they were way above her brow bone so she looked perpetually ANGRY.

Everytime I was sent to her I felt like I was in Hades and she was the Queen of Hades.

She would've not been in my bad books had she took time to sit me down and listened to my side of the story (sadly she never did) instead of jumping to Mrs L's defence.

So there you go, my favourite, my loved and respected teachers were all from my primary school and those in secondary school were complete dirt to me.

I mean what I say.

Signed,

Maia