But Teachers’ Day or any month dedicated for teachers is not for all of us.
The day is supposed to fall on the fifth of October, following the World Teachers’ Day established by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1994.
Be that as it may, when I think of teachers whose day is commemorated this month, I think of a particular group of teachers—those who teach in the elementary and in particular those whose services are under the public school system. This is not to diminish the role of these teachers as I do not wish to count out how special other teachers instructing on any level and in any system. I am rather reminding myself what the task of this particular day is—to remember them.
I wish for the world to ask on this day, what have we done for them?
I want the world to see and remember what we had, from the inception of all kinds of schooling, embedded in the roles of these teachers and what assumptions and expectations are to be summoned from those roles. In the process, I want to clarify what achievements have they accomplished that we are now acknowledging, because in the end, any improvement on this varied population of teachers will invariably affect the recipient of their works, their pupils.
History vouches for the distinct and heavy roles we attribute to our public elementary school teacher.
In 1934, the Department of Public Instruction through its Bureau of Education issued a Teacher’s Manual on Health-Teaching Activities for all teachers. I found one of these materials in the National Library way back. It was signed by then Director of Education, Luther B. Bewley.
The manual was for Grade II level but taking its details and the language used and relating it to the present conditions, one can only be amazed how rigorous the production of education materials then. You are confronted with a language in English that college students at present may have difficulty understanding.
In the foreword, for example, one important message to teachers was how to make the work or activities cumulative. All throughout the instruction, the pronoun used for teachers was third person, female. Professions then, especially teaching was heavily gendered. One can conclude that male teachers would never have been placed in grade II or even the higher primary grades; they would be assigned to the intermediate for the industrial arts classes or given supervisory positions.
The manual enjoined teachers to make twenty 10-minute lessons on health education, with units on safety in going to school and preparing for the first day in school. Part of health education then, was the monitoring of weights of pupils, which then would ask teachers to use weighing scales. The manual was practical though when it mentioned how, in the absence of weighing scales (this was 1930s), the teacher could observe and ask pupils about their health conditions.
Under one unit, the teacher was to conduct inspection at the start of classes. There was a command for teachers to inspect for clean hands and nails. Most interestingly, at this portion, something was underscored: Do not touch the children during inspection.
In 1925, the same Director of Education, Luther B. Bewley, released an Elementary Home Economics book, described as a “Textbook for Girls in the Intermediate School of the Philippine Islands.” This was for teachers in fifth, sixth and seventh grade. Again, the details inside the book were noteworthy and one could not help but be interested in the end result the instruction was made for.
Going through the contents for the Grade V, for example, one encounters the following subject matters: Personal habits in the kitchen (dress, towels); Sweeping and dusting (care of dust cloths and brooms); Care of floors; Kitchen fire; Cleaning the kitchen table; Kerosene lamps; Household pests; Setting the table; Table manners; Table services without a servant; and, ending with how to bake cakes.
Were we training trainors to train future slaves?
The lessons for the sixth grade focused on Home Nursing, with greater demands from the teachers to be almost health workers. Then for the last grade, it was back to being a wife with the final lessons on Housekeeping and Cooking.
The fact is ever since the Americans introduced public education, the subservience of the woman and the repression of the teacher, usually female, accomplishing that training for the oppression of girls became the recurring and persistent theme in our society.
It was therefore fate accomplished that when the 50s, the 60s and 70s came, the teachers were burdened with tasks that went beyond teaching and bordered on exploiting them. Social events in their respective towns became their responsibilities. Participation in fairs and exhibitions were required. Part of the unsaid in all these events was the absence of subsidies for the teachers when they stepped out of classrooms.
The respect accorded these teachers was inversely proportional to wages and securities given them. In days of dangers and times of difficulties, these teachers were all the time looked up to as able to protect their pupils and their classrooms. They stayed in schools even when storms were raging; in times of distress and accidents they were the first to be questioned and blamed.
Then when election time came, they were there first in the voting places. A society on a standby for any flaw that it was ultimately the source of was ready to negate the presence of these teachers. The same vicious society ultimately urged these teachers to subvert the democratic process. When they refused and, in a thousand and one instances, they did, these teachers were mocked, hurt, and even killed.
To them belongs this Teachers’ Day.
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