Schoolbag with rollers (June 27,2007)

Schoolbag with rollers
By: Maria Reylan M. Garcia

It was the first day of school and one fifth grade boy was happily dragging his brand new schoolbag with rollers. It was his first time to have a schoolbag with rollers. This was his parents’ gift for being the top one of his fourth grade class a year ago. His father had to spend extra hours in the factory to earn something extra to buy that school bag with rollers. The smile on his face was certainly a gem of warmth. When he arrived at their local elementary school, he parked his handsome bag-on-wheels, greeted classmates and sat on the ground under the shady tree waiting for their first subject teacher. Yes, the boy who had that new schoolbag with rollers is one of the many unfortunate students who didn’t have the chance to sit on a desk inside a furnished classroom. But still the smile on his face didn’t vanish; it remained intact, what was the reason? Was it the thought of having a new bag for school gave him all the reason to continue smiling?

A simple scenario from a wide phenomenon, that fifth grade boy was one in the several unlucky ones of the 11.9 million enrolment turnouts for public schools. The unlucky ones, I should stress out dearly. I won’t have any pinpointing sessions unto whose fault why these elementary pupils are suffering. I am not directly involved in these matters, so I can’t judge whether the government, the Department of Education to be exact, had done their best or slacked the way off this situation. What the statistical data revealed to me, (according to the Fact Sheet of DepEd as of February 2007) and what the media has been propagating I see a neutralizing balance of positives and negatives.

The Department of Education Fact Sheet of February 2007 blurted out that 1:35 is the teacher-pupil ratio of elementary schools, and 1:39 for secondary schools. That perhaps would be, under my vulnerable assessment, still good enough for an effective class discussion to take place, regarded that the classroom area remains constantly proportional to the ratio too. Although, the variable of students increase, seeing as things are, it’s still under a proportional ratio. Another uphill is the augmentation of resource materials such as books and computer access, even to the far-flung rural areas. Mostly popularized by known private sponsors who goal to help this underprivileged pupils with their pursuance of academic learning. The negative side of this battery of an idea is with the relative number of classrooms to the students. Documentaries and news reports reveal the pitiful reality of some students having to sit inside their classrooms like sardines forced in a tin can, of some students having to use the school’s basketball court for classrooms, worse, of some students going to a school with delaying evacuees caused by a natural calamity.

I’m confused. Too young, I suppose. I’m too young to comprehend all of this and weigh the status of my country’s educational performance. Stating out the plus and minus, made me not decide on what conviction I would give. I would either clamor from the government’s lack of preparation or salute them for their innovativeness. How hard I try to understand, I really can’t. All I can picture out in my mind is the lingering sweet smile of the fifth grader, who despite the situation still pursued to wake up early, kiss his parents thank you, and bearing in his heart the flaming determination to finish school. Right now I take this right to be one sided. If one is really agitated to receive formal education, he’ll not let this inconveniences hinder his path to success. So what if you can’t sit on a desk and have the basketball court as your classroom? We have no choice, that’s the reality; we have to live with it though how cruel or vain it may be. Just see the at-leasts of things. At least, I got to sit and listen to my teacher. At least, I got to have a place to shelter me as I study. At least I’m at school. No matter how we try to clamor and persecute others on these hassles, we’ll just waste our saliva from wailing on the streets, we’ll just waste our time from popping our brains out to think of the solution. I know, we must alas think and do of a way out of this problematic maze. But, if this thinking and doing would prevent us from receiving the education we yearn in the first place, would you take that risk?

Some might say I’m very clear about my theory of being one sided. Some might even conclude that I never had a point for I never went to a public school until college, so I won’t understand. But and yet, I see a number of professionals and experts at their fields who graduated and pursued their successful careers with the past of suffering form this imperfect schooling preparations our country endured and endures. If they survived, better yet succeeded, with such lacking benefits and privileges, why can’t the children of today? I’m a supporter of change, I’m a restless idealist. So would I settle for mediocrity of my country’s offer of education? No, I won’t. But sadly I can’t do much right now. I have decided that I’ll be fully effective and hopeful if I’ll not let die this smoldering flame of change in my heart and actualize it if I have the control over things; if it’s my generations term to take over the running of this country. I’ll just study well and most importantly be aware of the flaws and blemishes including the checks and correcto-mundos of the leading generation today. Keeping these in mind, I may now how to start the change if it’s my time.

With all of these facts and figures, all of these hearsays and news, all of these mumbo jumbos of our educational system, my age and generation can’t do much but to sacrifice and continue studying. Because as they say if there is suffering, there is joy in the end. If in case we might have not found that joy, we probably have the idea to attain that joy. We’ll do it our way when we’re in charge. Right now, my lips are zipped. No major prosecutions or praises from this mouth. Education, they say, starts from observation and actualizes in application. So that’s what I’m going to do.

Soon, I’ll be able to talk to that fifth grader. I’ll ask him his memories of the very first schoolbag with rollers he had. I’ll ask him how he put up with smiling after being deprived of a classroom. Soon will be the time when both of us shall have the country’s state in our hands. Soon will be the time after we have studied to the fullest and did our part during our youth. Soon will be the time when we’ll set wrong things right and right things remain right.

It was time for the fifth grader’s first subject; he stared at his new schoolbag with rollers. He hushed to himself some thoughts. He wasn’t smiling because he had a new schoolbag with rollers, he was smiling because he was there, listening to his teacher.

Thus it was the reason for his smile.

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