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SINGAPORE: Every school kid falls into one or more stereotypical categories in school.
There's the popular kids - half the school know who they are, there's the goody-two shoes who play by the book, there's the jocks - they spend half their time playing sports and the other half wooing members of the opposite sex, there's the brainy kids in their triple science classes, and there's the rebel kids - they spend half their time trying to break all the school rules and the other half serving detention.
The cast of "My School Daze" may be all grown up now and acting the parts of teachers instead of students, but we reckon if we put them back in a classroom, they'd very nicely fill up every category.
Three of the cast members were complete badasses who have fought, cheated or smoked their way through school. And because when there is yin, there is yang, another three of the cast members were so well-behaved they sailed through their education trouble-free. The seventh was a jock while the last two went through school in a daze.
Channelnewsasia.com rounded up the cast at a recent press conference, where they boarded the school bus down memory lane and told us who was naughty and who was nice.
The Teachers' Nightmares
Chen Tian Wen, Darren Lim and Cynthia Koh were students who raised hell in school but contributed to the education system by generating jobs for discipline masters/mistresses.
When it comes to being bad, boys will be boys and Chen Tian Wen brought both his fists along. The ex-Serangoon Gardens Tech school boy proclaimed he "had the worst results in school", played truant, and took another boy on a one-on-one fight - and won.
Darren Lim left school at the age of 15 after having been caned in the principal's office for smoking and playing truant, while Cynthia Koh brought innovative cheating to another level.
"We hated Chinese spelling," recalled the former Saint Anthony's Canossian Secondary School student. "We’d each write a set of words on our thighs, hide them with our skirt and sit in a row of five. When the teacher read a word, whichever of us who had it on our thighs would write it on her paper and the rest of us would cheat off her.
"But I wasn't really that naughty, lah," she continued. "I didn’t play truant or do really bad stuff. I may be a little rebellious and all, but I didn’t want my parents to come to school."
The Goody-Two-Shoes
The bad kids are evened out by the good kids three against three.
Rui En sailed through school with ease, going from Singapore Chinese Girls' School to Raffles Junior College (RJC) to the National Technological University of Singapore. The naughtiest thing she has ever done? A mini water fight in the RJC canteen. Her only woe? Bad Chinese language results.
"I was my Chinese teacher’s worst nightmare because I was never very good in Chinese. Isn’t it ironic right now that I’m playing a Chinese teacher?" She joked. "So this is a message to all the kids: please pay attention during Chinese because you will get your Karma when you grow up you will end up playing Chinese teachers."
In contrast, Chen Han Wei learnt his lesson the hard way. He tried to cheat on a test in Primary School but was caught by his father, who was the teacher of his class then, and was caned in front of his classmates. The humiliation caused the father-son relationship to sour for almost two years, but the incident transformed the actor into a role-model student.
"I totally changed, I studied very hard," he said. "But I was stressed because I maintained my grades at the top three positions in class all through Secondary School. I was like a tutor and I helped a lot of my classmates, I took part in a lot of co-curricular activities, and my teachers and parents never needed to nag at me.
Also on the good student list is Eleyn Kok, who was the "goody-two-shoes, wear spectacles, look nerdy, nerdy Bukit Panjang Government High prefect". Her most mischievous act was to draw graffiti on the chalkboard - just once - and got caught. "I drew some comics on the board because I was bored, and the only time I was naughty, the vice-principal had to walk past and catch me! But I was just lightly reprimanded."
The ACS Jock
The younger Terence Cao was not your typical jock (but every bit as cocky) - he did not score with the girls. But that's only because he was in an all-boys school for most part of his school life (Anglo-Chinese Junior School; Anglo-Chinese School). Instead, he spent most of his time playing sports, or gawking at female teachers.
"Boys’ school, I'm telling you, we started really early... In Primary two or three we've already started noticing if the female teachers put on make-up, and how long or short their skirts were.
"I had lots of fun, and I was very into sports – badminton, rugby, football, fencing... and there wasn’t any time wasted in boys chasing girls. I only started going after girls after Secondary Four. A bit slow but you know, being ACS boys we have it in us (to score with girls regardless of age)."
The Ones Nobody Remembers
And then of course, there are those who went through their school lives so quiet you'd hardly remember them after graduation.
Ann Kok skipped lots of school by calling in sick "because I woke up late and I didn’t want to get detention for being late", and Lin Mei Jiao was so introverted she refused to answer questions thrown at her by teachers, whether she knew the answers or not.
MediaCorp Channel 8's new family drama "My School Daze" features the star-studded cast, with its plot centring on school life in Singapore, revolving around students, teachers and parents.
Chan Han Wei plays a stuffy, traditional Chinese teacher who fails to command the respect and interest of his students, and eventually quits his profession to join his wife's (Ann Kok) tuition centre.
In contrast, Rui En plays a popular and trendy teacher who gives her students rides in her sports car. She shares a romantic relationship with freelance deejay Terence Cao.
Darren Lim and Cynthia Kok take on the role of typical 'kiasu' Singaporean parents who bombard their kid with endless courses and classes.
Catch My School Daze on Channel 8, every Monday to Friday at 9pm.
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