On my way this morning to the Land Transportation Office in Antipolo,
I was tuned in to DZMM. One of DepED's assistant secretaries was on air,
talking about tuition fee increase in private schools and teacher-student
ratio. Education has always been a social issue close to my heart for I believe
that it is still THE way to a better life, a way out of poverty to still a
fourth of the country’s population. That statement is loaded, I know. But you
see, even if a "labandera" works herself to the bones, her chances at
a better life are almost nil unless she changes jobs. But how could she if she
did not even get to high school? Luck plays a large part on her success
because she has little resources and few opportunities to chart her own destiny
however much she wants to.
It's a small triumph that public school teachers now earn more than
what private school teachers on average do. Not that it benefits my children
because not a few competent teachers in their school have opted to be public
servants. This, despite the class size and, I would imagine, more challenges that
go with teaching at a public school. They move perhaps because the government
pay is a little higher and also because they are assured of tenure plus benefits
they would get upon retirement.
I heard that average class size nationwide is now 45 students.
Although it reaches 50-60 in Metro Manila like in Batasan, Quezon City.
Ironically, however congested one could argue that area is, still, isn't it in
the neighborhood of Congress? The country's education problems are right smack
in the very place where some of our PDAF-pocketer, now beleaguered, lawmakers hold
office. Shame. More shame and wasted taxes could be expected in the coming
months as more than half of the senators get questioned for allocating funds to
ghost NGOs and getting hefty kickbacks in the process. An erosion of trust in
the Senate is in the offing as fresh rounds of investigations start rolling.
Got sidetracked there, now going back to my main discourse, if you
will. I experienced for two years how it was like to study in a public
school. I spent grades 5 and 6 in an elementary school in Libis. You know
Eastwood? Yup, that's near where that school still stands today. I came from a
pretty good middle-class school before that, a Catholic school where I
faintly recall having a classmate who gifted a teacher with a sofa set for
Christmas! And I had a classmate who gave me a bunch of pencils, such a treat
for me then. Most of my classmates had gold earrings, nice watches, beautiful lunchboxes,
and other pretty stuff I kind of envied. And many were fair-skinned and had
shiny, white, well-tended teeth. I only had two sets of uniform which had to be
washed every day, and whose hemlines fell awkwardly above my ‘bony’ knees on my second
year in that school. I couldn’t remember if sometimes I was given money as baon, but I recall that the canteen was
big but I couldn’t buy most of what it sold. Oh, also that school was where
‘white’ priests (not all were Americans) would come to the classroom before the first Friday of the month
so we could confess our sins and partake of Communion during the Holy
Mass. Girls wore a white version of the powder-blue, belted dress, that was the daily uniform, every First
Friday. So I actually had three sets of school uniform, but one was used once a month only.
I was thrilled when I would get chosen to say the readings or the Responsorial Psalm. It was my deep voice, I guess, that my teachers liked. My biggest
takeaways from my stay in that school were: being prayerful, learning to speak
English and write essays both in English and Filipino. I had great teachers
there.
After fourth grade, I had to transfer to a nearby public school. It
was a 10-minute walk from the apartment my family lived in at the time. I
won't forget my first day when the class adviser called me up to the front
and made me introduce myself. I hated having to speak in front as I was really
shy and nervous. When I was done saying my name, where I lived, etc. (I don’t
exactly recall what I said), the teacher burst into an applause, and asked the
class to clap for me as well. They clapped because I introduced myself in English. Oh, that was a big boost to my low
self-confidence! That first day had so much to do with how I fared in my
academics from then on. I surprised myself, I got second honors in grades 5 and 6 when I almost flunked in first grade! Then Congresswoman Nikki Coseteng awarded me
the silver medal during the graduation rites.
I was a nobody in the private school I came from. My most
significant accomplishment there was being a contestant in a declamation
contest, though I didn’t win. But things changed in my fifth grade upon moving
to a public school. I took a big leap of faith in myself, studied hard, and
became diligent in everything, including cleaning the floors and sinks of the
school. I am not exaggerating when I say that I cleaned the floors of my
classroom and the adjacent hall with rags washed in a basin filled with water, which
I would fetch (several times) from the first floor, and deep cleaned the crevices of the communal
sinks at the school grounds near the vegetable garden! Good thing, we were not
made to clean the restroom or I would have done it without any thought as well!
My memories of my stay in a public elementary school also include being a
“canteener.” A “canteener” is the one assigned to pick up the food tray from
the school canteen, containing assorted food items to be sold to the class. Canteeners and cleaners are scheduled and
rotated amongst the students by groups. The group leader, if I recall
correctly, takes the lead in selling the food (boiled bananas, peanuts,
pansit/noodles, rice cakes, bread buns, and the likes) and handing the money
to the canteen with a tally of what was sold. Such was life in public school
back in the late 1980s. We were lent books that were so old, they really smelled. I did not feel any less in that school, I
felt the opposite, in fact. At least I always had baon and all my personal stuff were on par with my classmates'. I had a bag stroller, and that was pretty amazing then. My takeaways from my two years in a public school:
grit and a bigger ambition to rise above my circumstances.
I end this abruptly (sorry) with these two great quotations:
Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin,
is the
great equalizer of the conditions of men,
the balance-wheel of the social
machinery. - Horace Mann
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| Image grabbed from the internet. Just the kind of thinking our politicians need. |
