This essay is dedicated to those who shaped my world when I was in school... (02 Feb 2003)


The other day, I sat through a sermon which struck my heart deeply. It was the 12th of January, 2003 and there was a teacher's dedication service in my church. Pastor Eugene was talking about how one can rise up to be a person of faith. I am not a person with an admirable attention span and two-thirds of the sermon escaped me. But I was deeply touched by the last part of the sermon and the indelible marks a person can make on another's life.

Pastor Eugene recounted how when he was just three, Mr. Lee from across the road would walk over every Sunday morning and knock politely on his door, asking his parents for permission to walk him to church, which was just a short walk behind their family home. And so it was - a faithful guiding hand, shepherding a little boy to Sunday school every week without fail. Pastor Eugene's friends told him, "If only Mr. Lee can see you now up on the pulpit, speaking to thousands of people in four different services." Point C of that day's sermon taught me that Mr. Lee was a Star Maker.

A Star Maker indeed. If there was no Mr. Lee, there would perhaps be no Pastor Eugene. If there was no Pastor Eugene, there would be no sermon to touch June. And without the sermon, this tribute to my teachers would have been overdue for an even longer time.

What's a Star Maker? A Star Maker is a person who touches the life of another person and leaves a legacy. The Star Makers in my life deserve to be singled out for shaping and leaving in their wake a legacy of love. They have instilled in a young girl of 10 a desire to learn. They have taught the girl what is compassion and patience. They have shown her she is capable of excelling in what she puts her mind to. Most importantly, my Star Makers inspired this little girl to follow in their footsteps to be a Star Maker.

To an 8 year-old, cross-stitching can be a traumatic experience. Especially when it is part of art class, and especially when the yellow, orange, blue and green threads tangle up as proof of one's imbecility. Mrs. Anita Cheong taught me beautiful cross-stitching and cursive writing, but one of her most important lessons was teaching me the beauty of gentle instructions and of never giving up on another person. (Albeit a distraught girl with ten thumbs for her fingers who cried herself to sleep because she was convinced a destroyed piece of sewing signified the end of the world)

And now, when my students tell me the past tense of "are" is "was", I just smile at them and ask them to try again.

If you ask me, I think the favourite game 10 year-old girls play to pass the time is "I don't friend you". Take 5 girls and 52 weeks a year and you get an interesting permutation of the number of times one can fall victim to the repetitive game. All in the name of fun, of course. Not unless you become the victim and all you wanted was to be well-loved. So it came to be my turn one day and I remember it quite well to be Thursday. Tears were rolling down my cheeks silently that day as I was upset that none of my 4 other friends wanted to talk to me that morning. Quietly, Mrs. Elaine Low asked me to step out of the class with her. Now, this was a big thing. A big, BIG thing. Mrs. Low was feared by the boys in class because she could be rather strict at times. However, all I got that morning was a very concerned and kindly "What happened, June?" I poured everything out to her. In retrospect, that incident was but a childish whine, but it took a very special person to listen to all that and not tell me "it is nothing" because it was a Very Big Thing for my 10 year-old world.

And now, I observe my students keenly and speak to them individually if I see that them out-of-sorts.

And then there were the bumbling teenage years. I don't think I was a teenager who was too difficult to teach. I was just a bit lost, a bit blur and a bit clueless about what I want to do with the rest of my life.

For the 99.99% of the population not in the know, I failed my literature in Secondary 1. That was not exactly an incentive to like the subject. Nevertheless, when you are caught between a rock (English Literature) and a hard place (Chinese Literature), the choice for someone who was once described by her Secondary 1 teacher to possess Primary 4-level Chinese is not too difficult. Besides, I loved to read. That should be sufficient admission criteria, shouldn't it? Perhaps. You need to be critical, read between the lines and know the characters walking around in the pages of the book. I had barely acceptable proficiency in any of them. Enter Mrs. Laura Ng. She was my form teacher, English teacher and English Literature teacher in Secondary 3. I think I flubbed up often in her classes - answering intelligent questions with non-intelligent answers and hardly having any impressive essays to turn in. I trundled on and Mrs Laura Ng persevered on. It paid off, Mrs. Ng. I obtained a distinction in my GCE and really grew to love the subject. Mrs. Laura Ng was also motherly - from nagging at my class to hand in work to preaching about personal hygiene and cutting our nails.

And now, I understand that bumbling students do not mean to be so and that if I persevere on, I will inspire them. Not only that, I extend to my students love that goes beyond books and academia.

Mrs. Sandra Lee was a teacher who gave me a very different gift. I could put a finger to and a description of the somewhat tangible gifts other teachers had imparted to me but for Mrs. Lee, I caught her spirit. Have you ever caught the spirit of someone? It is like catching desire and passion. It must be what people call an aura. The aura about Mrs. Sandra Lee reached out and touched me and set in motion my decision to teach. It is one of the most important, if not most crucial, gift I needed for the rest of my life.

And with this spirit, I now teach.

The 8 year-old who could not sew is now 21 and the clueless teenager is now very clear of what she wants to do for the rest of her life. Without these Star Makers, it could not have been possible. I remember weeks before the Teaching Scholarships Award Presentation Ceremony, an MOE representative called me up and asked me if I would like to invite any of my previous teachers to the award ceremony to witness me picking up my MOE Teaching Award, I thought for but a brief moment and replied no. It was not because I did not have any teachers who inspired me. Rather, I had so many teachers to thank that I did not know who to invite and answered no so as not to take up too much of the representative's time.

But if I could go back to that afternoon and that telephone call, I would ask her if I could invite four very special teachers. Four Star Makers.


Thank you Mrs. Anita Cheong for your patience.
Thank you Mrs. Elaine Low for your astuteness.
Thank you Mrs. Laura Ng for imparting a love for learning in me.
and
Thank you Mrs. Sandra Lee for sealing my decision to teach.