School Thermometer

One of the best things I remember about my primary school. - the yellow thermometer I get to read every day.

It was hung at the top of the staircase. I never understand why I so was taken by it. I would go and read it every day, even though knowing that the mercury would not go too high up or go too low. But I wanted to think that one day it would go below zero and we would have snow in Sibu.

May be it was our exposure to a bit of science in Year Three that really got me interested. I love drawing flowers and name the parts of the plants. the teacher Mr. Tiong was a good teacher, few words, full of facts and we remember what he said. We all did well in the tests he gave.

Running upstairs to read the thermometer was quite risky as we would never know if Mr. Wong the Headmaster would be there waiting with his cane. He was very strict and he did not have a high threshold of sound. If we made a sound which was above his level, he would cane us. So we had to really respect the stairs so to speak.

Most of us were caned by him, for one reason or other. Mine was for English mistakes. But it was good for me because I was well taught by him and by the time I went to secondary school, my English was perfect.

The good thing about that thermometer - no matter how much the boys suffered from the caning, they never vandalized anything, especially the school thermometer. If it had been today, anything breakable would be broken, even chairs and tables. I am so proud of my school mates.

Sixty years later today, I can really say I learned a lot of maths and science besides English, because we really had good teachers. Praise God of Methodist Primary School.