WHEN Bee Boon Feong (pic) heard he was being posted to SMK Convent Pulau Tikus, he declared it the best wedding present ever.
Teaching in Kelantan at his first posting, the Penangite was set to marry another government schoolteacher, who was coincidentally also from Penang.
“We had applied to be transferred home and my soon-to-be wife got her transfer first but mine was rejected. I appealed and on the day before my wedding dinner, I got news that it was approved,” Bee recalled.
The English language teacher had grown up on the mainland of Penang and attended SK Assumption and then, SMK St. Mark.
After completing his further studies at a teachers’ training institute in Kuala Lumpur, he was posted to a co-ed school in Kelantan.
“I was the only non-Malay in the school but the people there were very nice. I taught there for six years but was eager to come home,” he said.
CPT was his next posting then and three decades on, the school is still his home. Bee has taught thousands of students since he first clocked in on Dec 1, 1992.
Students remember him fondly and many ruefully regret giving him a hard time – something he, in his natural unassuming nature, writes off as girls being girls.
“When I first came, those girls were very cheeky. On April Fools’ Day, one whole class disappeared! I came to class and it was empty; not a single soul inside! I had to go around, all over the place to search for them,” he shared.
In another more recent incident, Bee returned to his parked car to be greeted with a surprise.
“It was Teachers Day sometime before the Covid-19 movement control order in 2020. The girls had taken sticky notepads and pasted messages all over my car!” Bee said with a laugh, adding that the messages, thankfully, were complimentary.
When the 59-year-old first arrived in CPT, there were a handful of other male teachers but they had all either retired or left, leaving him the last man standing for more years than he can remember.And as the only male member of the teaching staff, and one of only two men in the entire school – the other being the gardener who left last year – Bee was the man to turn to for very specific tasks.
“When there are problems with the electricity, they call me. Also, sometimes when they have heavy things to carry.
“Once, many years ago, there was a flasher outside the school so I had to go and see what I could do,” the father of three said.
Now with CPT closing its doors for good, Bee is thankful for one thing: that he will get to retire with the school he has spent more than half his life working in.
“Usually, the school term and the SPM end at the end of the year, but because of the pandemic, things have been pushed back.
“I will officially retire on Feb 1, a day before my 60th birthday. But I think I’ll still come back and be around until the exams are over. The company of the students and the teachers... that was the best part. I’m going to miss it.” – By ANDREA FILMER
