Teacher, have a heart
Published Oct 14, 2020 04:20 pm
MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
Teacher, it’s your turn to listen. Can we make going to school more fun, less cruel?
The picture of a third grader crying because he was exhausted by the amount of homework he was forced to leave unfinished went viral two days ago. No doubt parents, outstanding alumni, VIPs as well as simple folk empathized with his frustration. We’ve all felt like that, once upon a time or many times before. But we are adults.
Sometime ago an 18-year-old coed voiced the suggestion in this space that kids in the grades should be spared from too many subjects, and by limiting the subjects there would then be less homework to accomplish in their “free” time. The coed, a sophomore in UP, further suggested that math, science, and English would be enough for children to assimilate.
Why do teachers – too many of them -- in public and private schools feel compelled to take the joy out of learning by overwhelming the little ones with their assignments, a load that even mothers find too heavy to bear! As one mom noted, with so much on her son’s plate she should be entitled to a portion of Teacher’s salary as her teaching assistant (or a tutor paid by the hour). Another mother complained that her ten-year-old daughter hardly has time to play after shower, dinner and before bedtime. The kid works even on weekends! Where is the justice in that? Even those usecs and asecs in DepEd have their weekends off.
What drives such compulsive teachers? An unhappy childhood? Unfulfilled dreams? A buried resentment against their employer? One mother opined, “If the teachers don’t overwork the children, maybe they feel useless, as if they’re not doing enough.” Whoa!
In these painfully extraordinary times, please, Teacher, let’s not give the children more reason to be anxious. Childhood happens but once, fleetingly, let’s not short-circuit it with our adult perceptions of purposefulness, ambition, success. Wait for them to grow into their teens, then you can hit them with your theories of discipline and shape them into the geniuses you want them to be, hopefully not anyone like the author of that lesson, L as in Rabbit, or the wise guy who captioned the picture of an owl as Ostrich.
Jullie Y. Daza
Teacher, it’s your turn to listen. Can we make going to school more fun, less cruel?
The picture of a third grader crying because he was exhausted by the amount of homework he was forced to leave unfinished went viral two days ago. No doubt parents, outstanding alumni, VIPs as well as simple folk empathized with his frustration. We’ve all felt like that, once upon a time or many times before. But we are adults.
Sometime ago an 18-year-old coed voiced the suggestion in this space that kids in the grades should be spared from too many subjects, and by limiting the subjects there would then be less homework to accomplish in their “free” time. The coed, a sophomore in UP, further suggested that math, science, and English would be enough for children to assimilate.
Why do teachers – too many of them -- in public and private schools feel compelled to take the joy out of learning by overwhelming the little ones with their assignments, a load that even mothers find too heavy to bear! As one mom noted, with so much on her son’s plate she should be entitled to a portion of Teacher’s salary as her teaching assistant (or a tutor paid by the hour). Another mother complained that her ten-year-old daughter hardly has time to play after shower, dinner and before bedtime. The kid works even on weekends! Where is the justice in that? Even those usecs and asecs in DepEd have their weekends off.
What drives such compulsive teachers? An unhappy childhood? Unfulfilled dreams? A buried resentment against their employer? One mother opined, “If the teachers don’t overwork the children, maybe they feel useless, as if they’re not doing enough.” Whoa!
In these painfully extraordinary times, please, Teacher, let’s not give the children more reason to be anxious. Childhood happens but once, fleetingly, let’s not short-circuit it with our adult perceptions of purposefulness, ambition, success. Wait for them to grow into their teens, then you can hit them with your theories of discipline and shape them into the geniuses you want them to be, hopefully not anyone like the author of that lesson, L as in Rabbit, or the wise guy who captioned the picture of an owl as Ostrich.