TEACHER OF MINE

I watched with a heavy heart as the woman in green baju kebaya walk away from us. I smiled at her but deep down inside I felt like I was falling apart.

“Hi. I’m Ms. Aziratulshida. I am your English set teacher.”

She asked us to call her Ms. Azi. From the very first day I entered her set, she remained so sweet and demure. She carried an air of exuberance and I often felt at ease around her. Nevertheless, the early days in her set weren’t exactly the best times I had with her.

My treatment to her was markedly different back then. I was more than a bit arrogant to her. Often times, I liked to point things out crudely in her class. I was then unaware of this but later I found out about it from the counselor. Ms. Azi had lamented to her and strangely when I was told about it, I didn’t feel at all angry. Instead, I agreed that I had always been too proud of myself and needed to change the way I behaved. So, later in the afternoon I went to see Ms. Azi and apologised to her. As bubbly as always, she took time to paint a very serious facial expression before finally told me in a robot-like voice that almost made me laugh, “Apology accepted.” She then told me it was nothing. But she did advise me to watch my conduct and stop being condescending to other people. She said half of the time we probably don’t realize it but that’s why we need to think about what we’re going to say before we actually say it. 

So I guess that’s how our relationship began. I was aware she gave me more smiles than usual after that day. While in her class, I would always try to be nice and watch my conduct. Sometimes, I’d rather choose to be silent when I knew I should speak up because I was afraid I might accidentally offend my teacher.

And so, the relationship that we shared in the years that I knew her was one pockmarked with rare but short feelings of anger and dissatisfactions. There was one time when I thought Ms. Azi had unfairly given different treatments to me compared to the other members in my set. She was able to speak very amicably with others but when it came to me, she sort of became aloof and the conversations we had had always sounded unreal and too guarded. Perhaps it was because both of us were trying to be careful. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings anymore and I was pretty sure that she also didn’t want that to happen. But as time went by, I knew I had somehow made it into her book of favourites.

Our improving relationship had enabled me to open up a lot of things to her. I often confided in her my day-to-day problems; the issues that I faced in my debate team, troubles that I had with some of my fellow batchmates who resented the fact that I speak English every day, problems that I had with some teachers etc. Ms. Azi was open-minded and kind and she always gave me good advice. Sometimes, I could feel my problems eased a little just by talking to her. I was truly jovial with the relationship that we shared. I hoped she would stay with me until I left school.

But sadly, it was not to be. At the end of my fourth year, she told us she was leaving. She’d earned an approval letter from the administration to transfer somewhere else. I was utterly miserable that she was moving away. It wasn’t just me but the whole Set A, the set she had been teaching since we were in Form 1, was also dumbfounded by her decision. She told us she had reasons of her own as to why she wanted to go out from this school. But her greatest reason was she wanted to achieve her dreams. She said she had to consider herself and her dreams though it really pained her to leave all of us behind. After all, we would be in Form 5 next year. She felt that she must be there to help us cope with the much greater problems and issues that we were going to face as well as the stress of sitting for SPM next year. She said she really knew us inside out. 

One day during the last week of the school term, she assembled all of us together. We took some pictures and right after that, she gave us what was to be the last “nagging” from her. She told all of us to take care of ourselves and as she addressed each of us in turn, she mentioned our problems and urged us to quickly fix them. She mentioned our achievements and praised us for them. It showed how she always followed what we were doing and paid good attention to each one of her students. She told me of how proud she was of the progress that I had made and the changes she saw in me. 

A lot of us cried that day. I cried too, when I could no longer hold back the tears. But I was ready to let her go. Like what Ms. Azi said, she had her own plans and she had to go for it. She couldn’t wait for us forever. If she did, she would still be stuck here when all of us left school...and then, what’s next? I guess Ms. Azi made the right decision when she decided to stay on the path that she had chosen for herself. Even though her leaving hurt us as much as it hurt her, she knew we would be all right. Somehow, she had lit a fire in us, an interminable faith and a love that would be forever blossoming. You’ve taught us well indeed, Ms. Azi.