“Sabi nila high school life, high school life, basta sa’kin college life!” quipped Earnest as we were discussing high school memories over dinner at Moomba. After a year of planning to meet, four finally decided on a date.
I didn’t count on Mariza contacting me, much less talk to me. All I can remember from her on high school is the phrase “you touch my hair, and you’re dead”. She still has great looking hair. And all I can recall of Earnest was she being the loud-serious type, and Erly as the silent-serious type. Me.. I was a wallpaper.
I had two favorite teachers back in CI, the one in geometry and especially the one from journalism. I was given the chance to crawl out of my wall by our journalism teacher when she read my autobiography to every class she held. I was so surprised students from other sections I didn’t even knew approaching me complimenting me on my piece.. and they knew my name.
We tried rationalizing why our batch didn’t get much “bonding” relationship as compared to the previous year’s batch. A good catch by Earnest on how lucky current students are with the current niceties in technology and how favoritism by teachers created walls among classmates, especially on our batch.
Being a (former) teacher instructor myself, that made me ponder a bit. Our highschool is a small community-type, which is the same as the school I used to teach at. Unlike at university, where each faculty had their own rooms, my highschool and the school where I used to teach at has one room serving as faculty room and so teachers are given the chance to interact more and talk about stuff other than their lesson plans.
It will then be easy for teachers to fall on the favoritism strech. Teachers gossiping on which student is best, and who are the punks, likely fall on the trap. Even just overhearing the talk.
Is isolation a solution? I could hear Earnest saying “nah, ugali talaga nila yun”. 
It was so great seeing Earnest, Erly and Mariza again after 18 years. Rediscovering friends was great joy.
Filed under: Personal
