This article was originally published in the Feb 2003 edition of The LaSallian, the official publication of De La Salle University as my monthly column as editor.
When does a teacher end and a pupil begin? Some say the boundary is merely the four walls of our classrooms, where teachers enter as tutors, and exit just as well; where students come and go unchanged, with new textbooks and filled notebooks, and yet, ever adamant. Others say the perimeter is drawn on that one fateful day (at the end of every term) when seemingly, teachers play god, as jury, or judge and students await conviction. After which, both part ways with each only a fragment of a memory in the other’s mind. Still others say that one doesn’t simply end and the other begin. Both must always co-exist.
When Julia Roberts portrayed a penniless prostitute winning the heart of the wealthiest and most eligible bachelor in Beverly Hills, it was not only sales that boosted up but hopes as well. Every other girl was saying, “I could be pretty woman”. And if it were not for the fact that we don’t have a Beverly Hills or a Rodeo drive, and much more, wealthy, ignorant and driverless men in coats calling out for help in the roadside, we would have pretty women lining up and waiting along Taft. When she played Julianne in My Bestfriend’s Wedding, the girls were suddenly eyeing and weighing up their male bestfriends. But when she played Miss Katherine Watson, the middle-aged, unmarried, unorthodox professor in Mona Lisa Smile, I wanted to be a teacher.
This is not the first time that I have been inspired by a movie. But this is the first time that I have considered the academe as a probable profession. Whether it was the setting of the movie, the exceedingly impressive college women, or the fact that Julia Roberts is one brilliant actress, the movie, in more ways than one, stirred me.
Watching the film, I am reminded of a teacher I had back in first year high school. She had the same uniqueness, the same passion, devotion, and commitment to her students not only for the present but for their future. Our first encounter was unforgettable since it had been a shock or a quite a blow on my part. Seeing her with a mass of papers in her hands, I had offered help. She gave me the strangest look, laughed and told me that I looked too skeletal to even carry five pounds of paper load. “Fine! I hope you roll down the driveway.” I didn’t say that of course. What I did though was tell everyone I knew about the incident. By the second week of school, she was as notorious as can be. Devious. So, who’s laughing now? I had felt smug about it.
She was a religion teacher, young, beautiful and full of spirit. I tried to deny the fact that I was enjoying her class, even anticipating the lively discussions. She always found ways to amuse the class even at the cost of her humiliation. She constantly asked me to recite, to read aloud and by the end of the quarter, I had the highest grade in class. Did she know I started the rumors and was this a part of her plan of vengeance? I never found the answer.
From late afternoon talks to birthday parties, I finally realized I found a friend. Our 12-year gap seemed unnoticeable, concealed by her eagerness to help me achieve my dreams and my willingness to let her. She believed in me and yet I never did.
Now, I ask, where is that magic? Where is the connection between students and teachers? Is it lost because we are older now, that we are finally adults and that sometimes we feel that we know more than they do? Or maybe it is because we call them “professors” and the name adds a certain weight, a seeming barrier that we are unable to penetrate. The older we get at the University, the more “professional” our relationships with teachers become. I am not saying that we should all go out, party, and start calling each other ‘pre or tsong. I am only hopeful that somehow we can remake the magic, that when we enter our classrooms, we do not only see a face, sometimes even nameless, but instead a mentor, a likely friend, someone ready to help us reach even the unreachable. I could only hope that when our teachers see us, we are not only a blurry of class records and a tally of student absences but ready minds and hopeful souls.
So, when does a teacher, as mentor truly end, and we, as students come into being? When we say “end”, we mean the exit from our lives, the conclusion of the syllabus, the granted independence. When do they hand out our grades and exit gracefully leaving us in euphoric bliss or in hopeless tears? And when do we start closing that door and forgetting their existence? It’s simple. They don’t. We don’t. Both must always co-exist. If not for one’s self, for each other, for the dreams, for our dreams and the fervent hope for a future.
(To Miss Lourdes Tarrosa, the best teacher I ever had, my mentor and my friend, I still thank God for a precious blessing. I am grateful and forever will be.)
Friday, January 31, 2003
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
With Honors [Archive]
This article was originally published in the January 2003 edition of The LaSallian, the official publication of De La Salle University as my monthly column as editor.
I’m not used to sharing my personal sentiments to the open. This time, I shall make an exception.
Few were those destined for greatness. Too few, in fact, that the rest of us become shadows or lame silhouettes of futile attempts to make it to what everyone came to call the “top”: top of the class, topnotcher, top of the firm, top of the corporate ladder, you complete the rest. Whichever “top” it was always seemed better than anywhere below. It had become an epitome, a silent, yet known paradigm to complete the essence of one’s existence. You had to be somewhere or be someone above the ordinary. Even being anywhere that fell the slightest inch above anything or anyone became acceptable. As long as you had those whom you can look down from “above”. Sinful, yes, yet relieving.
***
I was raised ambitious. Then again, who wasn’t? I woke up to the overwhelming challenge of becoming someone, of becoming a “name”, a figure no less than extraordinary. It all began with stars, not those that blanket the dark, vast sky, not even those that shine in the spotlight, but those little stars drawn on the palm of your hand. Kindergarten. My sister came home with a palmful of them. I, on the other hand, constantly tried to master the art of drawing stars with my left hand, always in vain. (I was never ambidextrous.)
The stars became A’s, then of excellent’s and superb’s, until the challenge grew to be with honors.
Now, let’s backtrack some more. Remember when you were five and your teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grow up? The answers were always: I want to be a doctor so I can cure the sick; or I want to be a teacher and help my students; or I want to be a nun and serve God. Now that you’ve grown “up”, what do you say when asked the same question? I want a five-digit salary, insurance, and pension. And you call that honor?
So, here’s the complete picture: We work our butts thin in grade school, torment and deprive ourselves of some of the youthful luxuries in high school, and turn down free concerts and spend U-break in the library come our college years. The reward? An eight by eleven thin roll of paper spelling out WITH HONORS. (At least in the some lotteries, you get to win a trip for two to Hong Kong!)
***
Life’s fate for us now seems to be determined by our course cards, our TORs, and the four-paged resume we still try to convince ourselves as genuine and “all true”. Why do you go to class when you would rather pretend to be sick? Why do you feel guilty of missing class even if you have unlimited cuts? Why can’t you settle for a 1.0 in RELS or INTROSO? We all have our petty excuses, oblivious to the fact that we are slowly consumed by a false notion of the measure of excellence. Excellence is equated with high grades, with 4.0’s, gold medals, and Proudly Lasallian pin ups. Who cared how you achieved these? You were already at the top and no one was stopping you. But somehow, in our hungry pursuit for success, we forget the inevitable. When you’re at the top, there’s no place to go but down.
At one point, you begin asking yourself, what does with honors mean exactly? Does it assure me of a good job, a decent pay, and a happy life? Does it serve as my one-way ticket to heaven too? Or would have my life been the same had I lived it as I would have wanted to? If God were to add an eleventh commandment, I strongly doubt it He’ll make something like, “Thou shall not fail Accounting”. Don’t get me wrong here. I spend my share of study hours on my desk too and even if it meant getting cozy with my calculator, I willfully refused untimely temptations. But not everything is about grades, course cards, Makati jobs, and salary premiums. Your honors do not measure the kind of person you are or the kind of life you deserve. It may get you the free car you’ve been coveting since freshman but the guarantee stops there. Who you are and what you will become will still lie on your very being. You are molded by your morals, principles, and values, not on the gold medals that hang by your living room.
***
I once came upon a film which starred Brendan Fraser and Joe Pesci, the title of which (as you may have already noticed), was With Honors. Talk about originality, huh? I hadn’t really given the movie much thought since I was then too young to appreciate good movies other than cartoons. I came to remember the movie when my co-editor and I debated over our column title. Our other editor in chief wanted to christen our column “Debit and Credit”. You can just imagine the war that it almost initiated! We didn’t want a name that highlighted our soon to be profession, we wanted something that somehow inspired and stirred us. As in the movie, Joe Pesci had said of Monti (Fraser), “…he will graduate life with honors”. And so, I say that honors is not only achieved in the classroom or during graduation, not even on the badges from the PMA. Honors is what you get for simply being a good friend, for being selfless and praying for others, for wasting your time lining up just to be registered for voting, for keeping your faith, and for the little things you didn’t think mattered but meant a lot to other people. These honors in life (though impossible to pawn) are worth more than the heaviest goddamn medal Recto can ever sell!
I’m not used to sharing my personal sentiments to the open. This time, I shall make an exception.
Few were those destined for greatness. Too few, in fact, that the rest of us become shadows or lame silhouettes of futile attempts to make it to what everyone came to call the “top”: top of the class, topnotcher, top of the firm, top of the corporate ladder, you complete the rest. Whichever “top” it was always seemed better than anywhere below. It had become an epitome, a silent, yet known paradigm to complete the essence of one’s existence. You had to be somewhere or be someone above the ordinary. Even being anywhere that fell the slightest inch above anything or anyone became acceptable. As long as you had those whom you can look down from “above”. Sinful, yes, yet relieving.
***
I was raised ambitious. Then again, who wasn’t? I woke up to the overwhelming challenge of becoming someone, of becoming a “name”, a figure no less than extraordinary. It all began with stars, not those that blanket the dark, vast sky, not even those that shine in the spotlight, but those little stars drawn on the palm of your hand. Kindergarten. My sister came home with a palmful of them. I, on the other hand, constantly tried to master the art of drawing stars with my left hand, always in vain. (I was never ambidextrous.)
The stars became A’s, then of excellent’s and superb’s, until the challenge grew to be with honors.
Now, let’s backtrack some more. Remember when you were five and your teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grow up? The answers were always: I want to be a doctor so I can cure the sick; or I want to be a teacher and help my students; or I want to be a nun and serve God. Now that you’ve grown “up”, what do you say when asked the same question? I want a five-digit salary, insurance, and pension. And you call that honor?
So, here’s the complete picture: We work our butts thin in grade school, torment and deprive ourselves of some of the youthful luxuries in high school, and turn down free concerts and spend U-break in the library come our college years. The reward? An eight by eleven thin roll of paper spelling out WITH HONORS. (At least in the some lotteries, you get to win a trip for two to Hong Kong!)
***
Life’s fate for us now seems to be determined by our course cards, our TORs, and the four-paged resume we still try to convince ourselves as genuine and “all true”. Why do you go to class when you would rather pretend to be sick? Why do you feel guilty of missing class even if you have unlimited cuts? Why can’t you settle for a 1.0 in RELS or INTROSO? We all have our petty excuses, oblivious to the fact that we are slowly consumed by a false notion of the measure of excellence. Excellence is equated with high grades, with 4.0’s, gold medals, and Proudly Lasallian pin ups. Who cared how you achieved these? You were already at the top and no one was stopping you. But somehow, in our hungry pursuit for success, we forget the inevitable. When you’re at the top, there’s no place to go but down.
At one point, you begin asking yourself, what does with honors mean exactly? Does it assure me of a good job, a decent pay, and a happy life? Does it serve as my one-way ticket to heaven too? Or would have my life been the same had I lived it as I would have wanted to? If God were to add an eleventh commandment, I strongly doubt it He’ll make something like, “Thou shall not fail Accounting”. Don’t get me wrong here. I spend my share of study hours on my desk too and even if it meant getting cozy with my calculator, I willfully refused untimely temptations. But not everything is about grades, course cards, Makati jobs, and salary premiums. Your honors do not measure the kind of person you are or the kind of life you deserve. It may get you the free car you’ve been coveting since freshman but the guarantee stops there. Who you are and what you will become will still lie on your very being. You are molded by your morals, principles, and values, not on the gold medals that hang by your living room.
***
I once came upon a film which starred Brendan Fraser and Joe Pesci, the title of which (as you may have already noticed), was With Honors. Talk about originality, huh? I hadn’t really given the movie much thought since I was then too young to appreciate good movies other than cartoons. I came to remember the movie when my co-editor and I debated over our column title. Our other editor in chief wanted to christen our column “Debit and Credit”. You can just imagine the war that it almost initiated! We didn’t want a name that highlighted our soon to be profession, we wanted something that somehow inspired and stirred us. As in the movie, Joe Pesci had said of Monti (Fraser), “…he will graduate life with honors”. And so, I say that honors is not only achieved in the classroom or during graduation, not even on the badges from the PMA. Honors is what you get for simply being a good friend, for being selfless and praying for others, for wasting your time lining up just to be registered for voting, for keeping your faith, and for the little things you didn’t think mattered but meant a lot to other people. These honors in life (though impossible to pawn) are worth more than the heaviest goddamn medal Recto can ever sell!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)