Teacher Diaries: Stress

I don't accept late papers.

I know that I'm a good teacher and I love what I do but sometimes, i find myself in a dark place and I just don't care. Parang ngayon. I arrived 25 minutes late to a class i haven't attended for two consecutive meetings. I know. I know. Bad. And it's not as if they are bad kids(i feel so old). They are actually doing okay and continuously improving... that is after i failed most of them in their prelims. Haha. 

The problem is that I feel that teachers are under appreciated by the admin. We don't have faculty room. We need to pay for our parking spaces on a daily basis. We have to do extra work for our superiors that are not part of our job description. We have to deal with colleagues who have bigger egos than their actual intellect. Frustrating. So why come to work? "Sir pasok na kayo. Namimiss na namin lectures(pagpapahirap) niyo." Haha. Certainly we don't get appreciation from our superiors but when appreciation comes from your students, albeit some are messages of sipsip proportions, you get up and go to work. I know I'm new to this and my experiences so far are nothing to what other teachers have had to deal with but at this point, I now have a minute understanding why teachers always complain about how they are treated... and why despite of that, we choose to stay.

Kids

I was having a discussion with my students in a park when some kids caught our attention. It was about lunch time and they were carrying a plastic bag full of rice and vegetables. This scenario may seem ordinary at first as many would have picnics in parks and street children would often go to places like these in the hopes of getting people to take pity on them and give money or food. What struck me is when a boy who i presume as the leader of the group divided the food equally and called in the rest of the kids yelling, "kain na. Wag mag-agawan. Parehas lahat yan." He even gave out a portion of his food when his friend pleaded for more. I hate that  these kids have had to experience this kind of hardship but I love the fact that despite their situation wherein greed could take over their innocence, they were able to learn the value of sharing.

In a time when greed seems to be all over the place, it's nice to know that children with pretty much nothing are willing to give what little they have in the spirit of kindness and brotherhood. This is one of those times when i wish that more adults would act more like children.