JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Abe Florendo who was my editor at TODAY asked me to contribute an essay to a book he’s putting together. The subject is Teachers. My mother was a public school teacher. Here’s a snippet from my essay.

Paakpaak. Sculpture by Leo Abaya.

My mother had a reputation as an excellent teacher, slightly fearsome in the enforcement of standards, but fair. Her students seemed devoted to her—they frequently hung around our house after school, sometimes with their mothers. True, many of them were her co-teachers.

I don’t know if this sort of extracurricular fraternizing (sororizing?) is condoned these days, but it seemed perfectly natural in the Seventies. In fact my mother would casually tell her students’ mothers, “Ay naku mare, medyo mahina ang utak ng anak mo at may katamaran.” (My dear, your kid is a little slow on the uptake and rather lazy.) Then they would laugh, and within hearing distance of the child in question.

Under the current code this would be denounced as a violation of the student’s rights and self-esteem, but my mother’s brutal honesty had good results. Her pupils, she pointed out, became doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, managers, and expats. She taught them to exercise their strengths, mitigate their failings, and accept themselves for what they were. It’s the kind of clear-eyed appraisal we lack in this digital age, when technology enables and empowers so much mediocrity.