Sunday, July 04, 2010

there's not much to hate

Except for those who have witnessed the incident one early afternoon, I have never shared this to anyone:

I remember being told by a teacher, no less than inside the classroom, in front of my classmates, that I would not succeed in anything I would do. It’s too early to tell but what I can clearly share is that this teacher now is a drifting unemployed mote.

Yes, I have my own share on the plate of the bitter pie but, as far as I can remember, not in such scale. I cannot stoop that low when it comes to broadcasting a person’s fate, a dark fate that is—just for the heck of it.

Especially that the statement came from a teacher made it all the more striking. My own mother is a teacher and I couldn’t picture her saying that to a student, especially someone who’s a few years away from plucking a course in mind for college.

This account was posted in Facebook and what a number of responses I got. It turned out I was not the only one assaulted with scholarly omens.

I’ve had a similar experience... with my high school principal, no less.

I’ve had teachers (mostly in high school) who would belittle me.

Di naman ako inapi like you, but I do remember when my other classmates were ‘upgraded’ to “one potato, two potatoes” and I was stuck in “bird’s fly bears don’t” workbook dahil di ako magaling magbasa or something.

Alarming, really, to learn that in different regions of this country, in places where knowledge, self-assurance and competence are fortified, some working men labeled as teachers ironically pull these very things away from a student.

In my case specifically, this teacher of mine would always find the littlest mistake in all the things that I do, in a not-so-constructive way. “Why did you draw this with a black ballpen?” he asked with a frown. In my mind, I could’ve illustrated it with watercolor, you know.

He could point that out, especially that most of us in class passed the assignment in pencil, but I could also point out that there were no provided specifications or rules. The instruction simply said copy this instrument. Good thing I didn’t have a camera right then and there to take a picture of it.

No matter what explanation I had in my defense, it was my fault, assuming he hated the fibers of my existence. Fine, my mistake, let’s move on.

The succeeding encounters did puncture my buoyant floaters. Luckily, I was able to forget the dramatic saga altogether and graduated. I followed, though not that easily, the path I wanted to trek on, and found my steps towards a few triumphs. As for those who responded in the Facebook post, I pondered on their names and, wow, there are far from quacking ducks. In fact, they’re the few people I highly regard.

That’s why I’ve always loved this statement from my college teacher/mentor: “You gotta love haters. Because they push you to do even better than you thought you could.”

This time, I don’t think my high school would like to talk more about success already.

2 comments:

gillboard said...

there's this quote i kept:

'i love it when people judge me negatively...

especially when they are wrong.'

GLIP said...

i've seen so many look inwardly and see the light that they have after being exposed to the darkness that the outdoors overwhelmed them with. ang maganda pa d'un, they managed to shine their light for others to see.