Do you buy into this Teacher’s Day? Are you even convinced in your heart that the day is a happy for teachers?
Not if you base it on the sense of importance this grand-teacher of all teachers, the Secretary of Education, gives to her teachers. She announces the readiness of the country for school opening on Monday. But we know better.
Months back, a former student of mine posted in his Facebook account photos of teachers—mostly young ones—busy preparing in the reproduction of modules. Don’t ask me what modules are. You will have your own definition and the other education officials will have their own.
The photos came in a series: a teacher was working on a pile of papers on the table. Another teacher was seated arranging sheaves of papers and dark cardboard that, I thought, would serve as cover for the materials. There were other teachers sorting a heap of files: two were crouched on all fours on the floor. The last photo showed them at the corner of that room eating. A chair served as a table on which two viands were placed.
They looked happy. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company. That was a mistake because if I called that scene heartbreaking the apologists for the god-forsaken educational system of this country will tell me I should let them be—happy in their simple life.
We know of course that for every school in the barangay, far-flung, isolated or near the central school, there is a coven of education officials feasting on food that is never simple.
I should know. Having been invited to workshops, writeshops and consultations for many years, I have my share of the most fabulous reception ever accorded a guest.
In this dustbin of memories are kept three tales of woe and embarrassment of riches amid the visible penury of the location. Let it be said that I was part of the embarrassment.
I will arrange them according to the level of guilt I felt after I accommodated my gracious host.
Two happened in far-off islands and one in a town close to Metro Manila.
After we were finished with the lecture, which was followed by a sumptuous lunch, we were informed that we would have a tour of the place. The guided tour went on for hours in a slow pace. The organizers made sure we would make it back to dinner at dusk, when the needed light and shadow would be perfect for their ceremonial. Upon our return, we could hear distant sounds. Then we saw torches blazing. The ground was on a soft incline and as we descended close to where the buffet table, we passed by boys with their drums and young girls dancing and singing. Two education officials performed a grand duet and we soon were crowned.
The second event was more subtle. It was a consultative meeting on peace. We wanted to listen to the school teachers how the lack or presence of peace had an impact on education and on their works as teachers. The speeches of the mayor and other city officials were effusive; they had nothing to do with peace. Lunch came. I looked around and tried to find my space at one of the two long tables. But an official approached me and said we would eat in another place. We then were asked to climb up the stage to sit at a “presidential table,” laden with the bounty of the sea and other food sources. The elevation of our location was not the only marker of hierarchy: we had a lechon. We would eat looking down upon teachers and their plated lunch.
I decided to come down to my embarrassment and the embarrassment of the host.
What about that peace consultation? The teachers begged us not to hold the meetings in their place as they feared for their lives. The next consultation was then scheduled in a resort in another town of another province, across the sea.
The third was the most fantastic of them all. There were two of us lecturing that morning in what was supposed to be a huge gathering of school officials from a particular region. We were dressed in what is still known as smart casual. When we entered the town, there were men —teachers in barong—posted along the way, giving direction. As our van inched closer to the site, young pupils were there waving the Philippine flag and the flag of our lecture sponsor, an embassy in Manila.
We were informed the school was expecting no less than the Ambassador to come. There was no miscommunication; there was an assumption. By the time our van was parking in front of the hall, we knew we were underdressed. Badly underdressed. Outside, we could see two young ladies in their balintawak skirt and kimono top, with garland. We braved the scene and got down.
No one was really interested in our talk. The officials were there finishing their conference; the teachers around were all tired after days of preparation. At the hall, each post had lanzones cluster dripping down from it. Teachers were asked to cut whole branches groaning with the said fruit, and nailed them on the posts. Below the lanzones were other fruits.
Lunch was complicated. Huts were built to serve as food booths: one was for noodles and soup; another booth was for freshwater fish cooked in different ways; the third booth was for meat dishes; the biggest booth was, you guessed it, for lechon. The biggest hut was for dessert and drinks. The whole banquet could feed more than a hundred guests.
Inside our van, on our way home, the teachers had placed two 5-kilo sacks of special rice for us, and more fruits. My thought that day was about empires and how they depended on slaves.
Lesson learned: Forget those bouquets, skip the tacky notes. These teachers do not need the fanciest of blooms and the trite tributes. They just need one thing: Respect. Respect from politicians who always think teachers are not doing enough; respect from government officials who are paid more for doing less; respect from presidents and deans who luxuriate in their air-conditioned towers while their teachers swelter in badly designed learning spaces; and, yes, respect from students and parents who, in the present dispensation, think “online” is a matter of Internet connection.
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com
Image credits: Jimbo Albano