TANJAY CITY — As a fourth year high school teacher and adviser, plus the additional graduate studies, no one can ever plainly say that I am not seriously busy.
That is the reason why I had little time to check the written outputs of my students so I brought them home with me as I am used to. After eating my dinner with my three kids, I started flipping the untied bundles of paper, ‘autobiographies’, and started to sigh deeply for I couldn’t imagine finishing about 250 hundred stories in one night, although some were not that long.
I was about one third of my activity when I was stuck in one of the autobiographies of my students: a life story where I did not expect to have happened to a happy-looking face worn by this student, and this steeled me in my chair. In her autobiography, she narrated that her mother had left her since she was five years old, and that she has missed her so much. She also shared that she gets jealous every time she sees her classmates cajoling with their mothers or perhaps making a bargain of their allowance to fill their cellular phones with e-load. She added that she has prayed so hard that one day she would have the chance to finally meet her mother. In their meeting that she envisioned, she said that she will hug her mother tightly and beg her to stay.
I was so touched that I didn’t realize tears falling down my cheeks, staining the other papers due the melted ink that came in contact with my tears. I was so stunned of such a pure heart she possessed. There was no sign of hatred or agony. In fact, she continued by saying “I will not ask my mother why she had left me. All I want is to see her and tell my classmates that I, too, have a mother”.
I was flabbergasted for a few minutes trying to recover myself from melancholy. Then I continued with other autobiographies. I stopped, and then again I read another heartbreaking story of a male student. This student, whom I had asked frequently in a calm and friendly voice why he had to take a grand vacation from my class, has a different story.
Although there were times I got angry to students whom I refer to as “students with behavior hypertension” or SBH, this one was someone different. He reasoned out in a calm and respectful way that he kept on being absent from class as it was his job to help feed his younger siblings. And that on those days he was absent, he would heap sand and gravel and fill around at least 30 sacks a day.
I was moved and found myself completely sobbing with his story. It was 2 a.m. when I stopped because I was filled with sorrow, pity and remorse. Sorrow, because I can only help them a little but not much; pity, because at his young age, he knew nothing but burdens of life which we subtly call “sacrifices”; remorse, because I am guilty of judging students because of their behavior, and thus, was determined to fail them if their academic scores warrant, without wanting to know the deeper cause.
I had read all the biographies and I can assure you, there were many other stories that somehow awakened my obstinate self — being an idealistic teacher. I hope that this will also be a reveille to teachers who, like me, reject practical considerations.
Charmaine Gio Rubio
