When the Teachers have left the Chalkboard…
I think it got lost
somewhere among all those spectacular events that happened in my life in
yesteryear, but I didn’t chronicle one of my 10 final days
before we all departed 2005 - unless you’re like my friend, Patrick, who still
live in 80’s. Haha!. This day wasn’t particularly the best, but it did
give me quite a few insights that I’d like to share with everyone.
I actually studied in Bacolod during my high school years. Some of my classmates from my previous school - Chiang Kai Shek College - which is located in Manila were a little curious as to where I have been in all those years. They
wouldn’t have known the answers too had I not come back to Manila
to pursue my college degree, but apparently, I spent a thousand days in Bacolod, including those
days when I have to further my high school education.
There were many factors as
to how I ended up living in Bacolod
in the twilight years of the 90’s, and one among these is due to my hatred for
teachers. That’s right: I detested a lot of them in my school in Manila, and had hoped
that the school where I transferred to will have a better staff of educators.
They were, but I’m not too slow to point out their petty flaws and I’m quite
notorious among the bunch of teacher lampooners. Even during college, this habit nearly didn’t subside.
For 5 years, I haven’t visited the school (Bacolod Tay Tung High School) where I
am an alumnus.
It was the 21st of December,
2005 - Chrisjane’s birthday, might I add - when I revisited my high school. My
purposes of setting foot inside the school were not merely to relive my high
school days, but also to visit my high school teachers.
The now unfamiliar corridors were quick to remind me that I haven’t come back to this school for too long. Nothing remained the same. My high school classrooms were no longer how it used to
be. The library was moved. In no way does the school
resemble how it looks back when I was a student. In no time, I find it harder and harder to fulfill my first objective.
As the ominous sense of
unfamiliarity start to overwhelm, I was only left with one more thing to do
before I head outside the school’s gates: and that’s to pay my old teachers a
visit.
The search took long,
but I managed to find their office just when I was about to give up. There I
was, at the door, greeting my History, Math, Science, Filipino and Chinese
teacher, and they reciprocated with familiar smiles and a series of
questions one would ask a longtime-unvisited-friend.
The first thing I realized
about my high school teachers is that only a few of them remained. Some retired. Others died. In fact, had I come at the same
time next year, I’d probably be missing a couple more.
But that did not stop me
from conversing with all who remained. And in fact it was fun, because
suddenly my high school teachers were asking me questions they wouldn’t
normally ask in classrooms, such as how my college education went, what my
plans were, how I live by, how long I’m staying in Bacolod, how I
got around in Manila, etc. Heck, they even amused themselves at guessing who my high school
crush was, and my answer was: whoever it is you thought I “admired” or
“loved”, know that it is a past tense. It took quite a while before I
head home, and by the time that happened, I suddenly perceived my teachers
under a whole new light.
As students, especially as
high school students, we’re either always too eager to win the teacher’s
approval, or become overtly rebellious. It may be our aversion towards
their high expectations. We see them merely as a means toward achieving our
diploma, and when we had attitudes, we actually hated our teachers for telling us
off instead of reflecting on our wrongs that will eventually take its toll once we graduate.
But we forget that, as
imperfect as they can be (and trust me, in my life I saw quite a lot of
assorted kinds of flaws a teacher can have), teachers are,
as the cliché goes, merely human. They have jobs to do; wages to earn; ends to meet; stresses
to cope with; frustrations to curtail; reputations to live by; families to feed;
and principles on which to stand. Their life stories are not always a beautiful
sight. The fact that it’s severely tiring to stand and lecture
for hours make teachers deserving of at least a little commendation. While
we’re ultimately responsible for our greater
learning, they bear responsibility in laying the foundations. Even though they
may constrict us with their ideologies, we have to acknowledge that it may be
for the best of us. On what basis should we shamelessly lampoon our teacher
when most of the time we’re not any better?
So once again, I’m not
against you speaking badly of your teachers, as long as it’s founded on a good rationale. However, we should also not forget that teachers also face
the pressures of juggling life in and outside work. As we end this entry I ask you this
question: would you be happy to receive the same backlashes when you grow up?
I’d wager you probably
won’t. So start respecting your elders and take the rudimentary steps by
treating your teachers properly.
