My Mum Has Been A S’pore Teacher For 33 Years & These Were The Sacrifices I Saw Her Make Daily

This Teachers’ Day, Give Your Teachers The Gift Of Respect

I grew up as the eldest child in a family of 3 girls. My childhood was a typical Asian routine – the trinity of tuition, piano classes & school CCAs – rinse and repeat.

My mother – who is a primary school teacher in Singapore – made sure of that.

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This is my tribute to my working mum of 3 — plus 2 rabbits. My mother, who raised thousands of children and helped them survive PSLE, and continues to do so today.

A moment of mischief

I never realised the sacrifices my mother made as a teacher, until I sat in her classroom for the first time.

Lugging a bag full of Year One textbooks, I trudge into my mum’s classroom with heavy steps after a long day at school. To siam the uncomfortable gaze of unfamiliar classmates, I set up shop at the back on a spare table.

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As I drift in and out of focus while staring blankly at my jotter book, mischief strikes.

A kid raises his hand to answer a question, but makes a snide comment about my mum in front of the entire class.

Silence in the classroom

The noisy class of 40 grows restless at his cheeky answer, and I wait with bated breath for my mum to react. She is overwhelmingly outnumbered.

My mother stays silent, surveying everyone like a hawk.

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I hear a mechanical pencil drop and roll on the ground dramatically, as the tension hangs heavy in the air. She maintains eye contact with the class in absolute silence, for a good 10 minutes.

There’s an occasional awkward cough, and the sound of shuffling feet but the uncomfortable atmosphere remains.

My mother, a powerful woman, commanding the attention of forty 7-year-olds in a classroom — plus one. Me, an outsider, now privy to a completely different world.

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This is a lesson in respect — for the adult in the room, for the sanctity of the classroom, for each other’s learning journeys.

You do not speak out of turn in her classroom, and you respect the time we have during class hours. Most of all, you respect your teacher.

She is a teacher who could strike fear in the hearts of her students with a single glare, and yet is well-loved and respected by all who step into her class.

Strict routines & unseen sacrifices

I was always envious of the attention she showed to her kids in school. The kind of ‘attention’ I received was for imperfect test scores, or if I decided to pon a lesson.

This usually came with a stern admonishment or punishment. She was tough on her kids, but she was tougher on me.

Most of all, she was toughest on herself.

She stuck to a strict routine of a 30-min morning run in the park before reaching home to make breakfast for the family.

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Driving to school by 6.30am, she would help at least 3 P6 classes survive the demands of the day, then return home with endless stacks of scripts to mark.

All this was followed by residual housework, making dinner, washing & hanging up the laundry. Finally, she would catch the 6.30pm Channel 8 news before a Korean drama dubbed in Chinese to multi-task while marking papers.

Teach, mark, sleep, repeat.

June holidays aren’t exactly restful

June holidays were spent setting PSLE Prelim papers. The entire family would chip in to help her scan in the diagrams formatted on Microsoft Word for her scripts.

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Not to mention remedial classes for her students in the week leading up to July.

This would leave us a 2-week window to go on her long-awaited annual family trip, where she would be excited to sight-see or just get away from the humdrum demands of her job.

She loved travelling abroad — my mother embodied wanderlust before it even existed.

For every child is a gift

I recall that Children’s Day was also a family affair.

No less than a month before the occasion, she’d start planning what presents to get for her students. We would help her comb through shelves of fancy pencils and stationery, hunting for gifts at Bras Basah Complex.

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She had hundreds of children, but she always selected the best gifts she could afford.

Discovering Taobao was a life-changing moment for her — she would browse for hours on our iPad, picking out exact designs they liked.

Every class had different students, so each gift was catered to their preferences.

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Her folder of sticker sheets was never empty — always stacked with decals of trending cartoon characters. She knew exactly which students preferred Minions and which class was obsessed with Marvel’s Avengers.

Benefits are hard-earned & well-deserved

Her school isn’t exactly far from our house, but she would drive to work everyday, hauling heavy stacks of scripts and equipment for her science classes.

To attend the 6.30am assembly punctually, even 10 minutes of extra sleep would be a luxury.

As the years passed, and new rules kicked in — MOE school parking shifted to a paid system because it was ‘not fair’ to civil servants that teachers enjoy such ‘privileges‘.

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Adjunct arrangements shifted to per-hour freelancing rates. Junior teachers switching careers after serving their scholarship bonds, citing heavy workloads and long working hours.

I still think we owe our veteran teachers a few benefits, for the hard work they put in.

But I also get that times are changing, respect for the profession will get eroded over time if we don’t value our educators.

School begins at home

Our teachers dedicate long hours to ensure every student graduates with a clear understanding of the subject matter and intangible values, like respect, empathy & perseverance.

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Education must begin at home. Training a child to listen, to greet our teachers, these are small steps we can take to show teachers that we’re all on the same page.

As parents, choosing not to automatically side with your kid all the time, can help foster a culture of respect for educators.

Trust the experts, and with your help, they’ll be better equipped to lead your child towards a better path.

Good Morning, Cher!

We often forget that our teachers who stand in front of us in the classroom everyday – from nurturing pre-school educators, to polished university lecturers – are actual people too.

They place aside their ‘real lives’ at home, to share the best years of their lives with us. We don’t have to know their stories, but we should respect the profession for what it represents.

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Exceptional educators don’t teach for themselves, but for the greater good.

33 years in education, 200,000 PSLE science mock paper scripts marked & returned, close to 5,000 students of every race, religion & background over the years, and my mother continues to wake up at 6am everyday to do the same thing over again.

And she’s not alone.

This greatest gift we can give teachers today is our respect.

And we don’t have to wait till Teachers’ Day to shower them with this. A sincere “Good Morning, Cher!” before every lesson will surely make their day.

Featured image adapted from Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash.