my so-called life

i have always been a teacher.

when i was eleven years old, i can remember telling the rest of the kids in our neighborhood to drop by our house so i could teach them english or whatever it was that caught my fancy that day. to them, it might have been just a game. For me, it was a sign of things to come.

in 1998, after graduating from college, i immediately signed up as a part time faculty for the philosophy division at the Ateneo. during those three years that i taught intro to philo, philo of God and ethics, i had the opportunity to try to awaken minds that have been so used to comfortable slumber that i could literally see foreheads crinkling and eyebrows joining, trying really hard to understand what the h— the featured philosopher was talking about.

now that i am teaching at the law school, i still see foreheads crinkling and eyebrows joining — with their added nerves wracking everytime i call them for recitation.

and while the students might despise teachers like me for the brunt work they are being forced to do in class, i cannot help but think that they only see the other side of the coin.

when i enter the faculty room, i see my fellow teachers who, despite their long day at work, try to brush up on their lecture notes before going to their respective classes. i see in one corner another colleague, desperately trying to beat the deadline in checking papers — even if it meant giving up another night to just sit back and relax. i see an older faculty member in another corner, sharing his insights and tips to a younger one who, if compared to the former, is still tying to find his niche in the circle.

inside that faculty room, there are no divisions. no separate worlds. its only a group of people who take the time out of their hectic schedules and devote a little bit of themselves in all of their classes in the hope that at least one student learns something from the things they taught.

outside of that faculty room, however, the disparity is all too clear. they are your students. you are their teacher. for that time being, you are not one of them. you are a comple other.

gabriel marcel, in his article, posits that such differentiation is necessary in order for  the educator to illuminate the one who seeks to be educated. in fact, it would be no stretch of the imagination for us to conclude that that small platform on which the teacher stands inside the classroom serves as a physical reminder that fact.

and i guess, such act of distancing is necessary. it makes it easier to temporarily forget the fact there might be some of them in class who are your friends outside of the classroom. it makes the arduous task of checking papers and giving low marks (if warranted) less difficult.

at times though, you try to step out of such boundaries. and in those moments, you meet people and let them in.

some, are worth keeping and breaking those boundaries.

others, you merely want to put back the walls in.