Teachers...

Today we celebrate Teachers’ Day. I am sure everybody has someone that has taught them something useful in life. Be it “official” teacher or just anybody with no teaching qualification. To these people, we wish them Happy Teachers Day. We show appreciation to them for what they taught us. We must be thankful to them. Show our respect to them for the rest of our lives we must.

Talking about teachers, reminded me of my school days. As with many others, we have our favourite teachers and our least favourite, or shall I say, hated teachers. Some students, be it boys or girls even were “infatuated” with the teachers. Looking back, how the teacher was affected and impacted on how we students like a certain subject and to the extend how what was taught stayed in our head, not just “masuk telinga kiri, keluar telinga kanan”.

Over the years, some teachers remained forever etched in the memory. One Indian teacher was so good; I owed to him my ability to solve mathematical questions and also my understanding of the chemistry world. Biology was one of my least favourite subject yet due to one moment of madness in class, where a few of us were thrown out of the class by one teacher, led to my obsession on Biology resulting in a surprising distinction. I owed it to him for kicking me out and stirred me to action. An English teacher who taught us maths, shared with us his passion for football and football pools. He called us his hooligans and he supported a “shit” team (forgive my language, that what I told him exactly), Middlesbrough. Through him, I started listening to the BBC World Service for the football results. Those days, with no internet, no satellite TV, we have to rely on the shortwave radio. There I was, every Saturday evening, radio to my ear trying to make out what is being said through the “hissing” of the shortwave transmission. To date, BBC World Service is still my source of information by choice, albeit now through the internet and satellite TV. Bye bye the shortwave radio.

If all the stories are to be written here, I am sure it will be a long entry. So long, I may end up running out of space in this blog. Enough to say, throughout our lives, not just our student days, we will meet people who will teach us something that will leave a significant mark for the rest of our lives. Like them, hate them, they are our teachers. We will forever be indebted to them. Happy teachers’ day everyone.....

P.S.
Everyone is a teacher as well as a student. We learn, we teach every day. Keep an open mind. Open all communication channels to receive as well as transmit.