Fifty Shades Rant

If somebody dares ask me about Fifty Shades of Grey, I would say, “Boys, this is how your mom’s fantasies would look like.” Just to destroy their lives once and for all.

In all fairness to Twilight, it had the decency to start out as original from the mind of Stephenie Meyer. But Fifty Shades is a badly written fanfiction of a badly written fiction. You can’t possibly write anymore fanfiction of Fifty Shades of Grey in the mature rating because it doesn’t get anymore in-your-face than that.
But if somebody would dare write, I suggest she (since most fanfic writers are female) take it to the extreme. Like humping while Ana is kicking Grey’s balls. Or him pulling out Ana’s nails with pliers while kissing her. I don’t know. If pain and pleasure is the name of the game, then you have to be creative. More creative and extreme than EL James could ever sickeningly dream of.

Before that book became popular, I am against the idea of book-burning, but one day while I was in a bookstore and saw a fucking table dedicated to the trilogy, I wanted to run berserk and shout and hurl all the copies at the attendants, cursing them for “honoring”  the book by putting it in the fucking entrance of the store of all the places.

The True Me

I very much wanted my students to appreciate me the same way I do. But then, given our limited contact, it would be virtually impossible to have even one meeting where we are just going to joke around. Their vitality and their joys give life to my otherwise mundane existence. They give me hope and confidence in myself. Their joys give me strength, their life give me life. And I love them for it. If only they would know how I really appreciate each of them and that the façade I have shown them in our very first meeting is just that, a façade. And that behind it is a soul that craves for life and freedom as much as they do. Then it would be my happiness. I would remember not the scores they got in the requirements I have them but their happiness, their innocence, their child-like wonder at the world. And now they made me fully realize that my purpose in the next years of my life is to take care of them, to guide them and to encourage them no matter how small our age gap may be. They made me feel that I am doing something right in my life and that I made the right decision in choosing not only as my profession but also my life.

It may sound so corny to my rational mind, but then seeing them laugh inside and outside of my classroom are the things I treasure most in my heart. It’s their life which gives me life, it’s their laughter that makes me laugh it’s their naïveté and native intelligence that  tell me that not all is lost. I don’t want to grow indifferent to them to answer their harmless inquiries with sarcasm that most of my colleagues have used to them. I would, in all my capabilities answer them sensibly, treat them maturely and to make them feel that they have a sister in me, if not a parent (because hey, I am just seven years older).

If only I could touch their lives the same way my teachers did to me when I was a student myself, then I would be happy. If only I could influence them to become teachers themselves, given their family backgrounds, I’m pretty sure that none would do so. So with that, I’ll just be here, waiting for them to grow up and realize their dreams, hoping that I may have, even infinitesimally, contributed to their well-being.

It is often said that teaching is the noblest profession and I would have to thank my students this ring in me so true.

Colleagues Rant

As for my work, well, I really do enjoy teaching. It’s the other aspects which really make me tired. I’ve always felt that I can never really trust someone. There’s no connection, really with my colleagues. I feel as if my every move is being watched as much as I want to have a quiet existence. I really am looking forward for the term exams, as I would really have time for myself. Or rather, I would have much time to do paperworks. I miss not talking with people and not have everybody have a say as to how I am going to do my work. I miss not having another eye inside my classroom. I just miss being me in the classroom. I miss not consulting with every other goddamned thing in my fucking class because it’s my fucking class. It’s my lesson. Leave me the fuck alone.

I am not physically tired. I am psychologically fed up with my set-up. I hate this. I just hate it. I’ve become their mouthpiece, really. 

Sometimes, I wish I would just disappear. Or I would wake up one day without the pressure of living. Just me and my existence.  Talking with these fucking people just drains me. Goddamnit, can you just let me do my job?

I Am Not Going to Crack

So I decided to actually write something. Just like what I was already ranting about, I just don’t get my colleagues. How I really wish this year would already end. I don’t care whether I get another year of contract with them or not but I just want this year to be done and over with. It’s just so unbearable, this stress. I have realized in the three years of my career that I really work best alone. 

I am just so happy that I am very much resilient that I am not yet on my knees crying. God, that is something which I am really proud of here in my new school. They say that it’s really difficult being here but truly, they haven’t been where I have been. I am sort of glad that I’ve had that brutal training in my previous school that I can say that being here in my new school isn’t really much of a whirlwind.

That is why I am really looking forward for this year to end. I am just fed up with them. So much mingling. My head is not in the right space this time. They are caring much of my trouble really. They contribute and make things complicated. I’ve always wondered hoe they are going to manage if we reverse the situation. I would very much like them to crack. Never have I felt that I was part of the group. I was the odd one out. They isolate me yet expect me to mingle with them. I just don’t get them. If ever I don’t get my contract extended for another year, I would actually just be very fine with it. 

Though I do not want to leave this school with the reason that I got fired. No, and that thought is the only thing that is keeping me through and for acting to keep my shit together. I will not break. I will not bow down. I will get through this and emerge successful. I will have my revenge and I will have my time. They will be put in their places. I will have a renewed contract next year and I will prove to them that I am much better than they thought. I will be in my element and I will be the best because I am. 

I will never be bogged down by these people who knew nothing of love and professionalism which make me miss my former school. Yes, the work load is shit and the pay is even shittier, but at least my colleagues, especially my team-mates in the second year have made everything bearable.  I just can’t stand my colleagues here. They’re very foul.

Happy and Contented

I am officially happy with where I am right now.

I have fewer teaching load with better pay, and my new colleagues couldn’t be much warmer. I have easily assimilated to how they do their work there. And I could say that their very positive attitude reflects how their workload is just a breeze. 

It is something that I haven’t experienced in my former school. Though I have yet to gauge the students in this new school, I can officially say that I am contented. I may have some reservations and fears of the English teachers being in my class during my period, but in general, I am happy. 

I love my new school.

For the longest time, I am now officially happy. I am now officially contented with what I have right now. The only thing remaining for me to do is to prove myself to them, that I am worthy of the teaching post I have right now.

I am going to do it right, and I am going to do it perfectly.

The politeobserver will not be in a not-so-indefinite-hiatus anymore

With the sudden turn of events like me being hired in a Catholic school once more, I will have to return to posting in this blog.

The original plan was for me to open another one should it happen that I get hired in the state university where I sent my application and my misadventures be recorded in a cheerier and looser manner in a way that I actually have to be more open as to who I really am and what I really do. However, since it didn’t happen, then I should continue writing in here to of course, protect myself and my students.

I am hoping that even if I am still teaching in a Catholic school, my experiences would be a lot memorable and happier.

Rest assured that the flow of new posts will continue, as the politeobserver is not anymore on a hiatus.

Keep thinking, be curious, continue the wonder.

Crushing on a Student

I am certainly crushing on this one student and it's fuckin not healthy.

I'm losing my mind. I know.

I met him during the school's two-day stay out recollection or retreat or whatever you call it. All of the students are divided to "flocks" and being a faculty member, I was naturally tapped as one of the "shepherds." My flock was composed of ten boys and being the shepherd, I need to facilitate the small group discussions after the big group talks.

I already know beforehand that these students came from the heterogeneous section, so I asked my colleague about them. She said that they're a good bunch and assured me I wouldn't have any disciplinary problems. And she was not that right though, one of them was a major ass that I have to sometimes answer sarcastically at his attempts to disrupt the small group discussions. Whenever he does that, I address the group and tell them to listen to their classmates share and not mock or react to anything that they say.

And whenever I do so, I notice another one of my flock to side with me, so I thought that was good. Only to feel awkward whenever he greets me when he sees me and when he gives the food during breaks. I was practically confused. I do not know whether to act amiable to him just like we were told to do, or to act like my usual snobbish teacher self. Whenever he greets though, I always managed to nod at him, avoiding his gaze. Then I found myself looking at him at the corner of my eye throughout the entire retreat.

And I fucking hate myself.

I'm crazy and I know it.

But I still found the nerve to hug all of them at the end of the retreat. It's fucking tradition. And to realize he hugged me tightest among the ten. And to realize I feel his arms around my back. With my back arching to reach his height. With me making sure I do the right hugging position as was taught to us by a priest when I also had our retreat when I was in highschool goddamit, I’m losing my mind. More fucking awkwardness.

And I fucking hate myself all the more.

I still see my flock at the school grounds sometimes (it's not a big school), and we, of course, say a friendly, "Hi" always. But he doesn't. And I am craving for his attention. It was very different from the sweetness he showed me during the retreat. But still, it makes me think that maybe he recognizes that I am a teacher, therefore, we should have distance. And I fuckin thank him for that because I can concentrate.

Don't worry about me, as much as I am craving for that attention, I still have the sensibilities to veer myself away from him. Dang, of course, I value my license more than a boy.

Still...

Fuck.

I need to find a life.

I Hate Mediocre Teachers

I hate incompetent, mediocre coworkers.

Thank you very much, Daniel for putting my sentiments succinctly into this pic. 

I have this certain coworker who just avoids every work that is flung to her. To start off, one year has already passed but still, she was not able to earn my respect. She always depends on us in everything, be it in visual aids, preparing lesson plans and whathaveyou. And it also doesn't help that she dodges being assigned in the boys' section. Her reason to this was that she was traumatized by handling boys' sections during her first year of teaching. And that logic, for me, is just pure bullshit. I was as traumatized as her in my first year of teaching, since I handled the batch that she handled, but I ended up liking the boys' sections and I am now enjoying teaching another batch of boys.

Boys? I enjoy them.
I enjoy teaching them (the fuck are you thinking?).

So she's stuck there in her little world of girls' sections and I am unimpressed. Whenever I tease her into handling my boys' sections, she always reply with a defiant "no" and a shake of her head. I still remain unimpressed. Seriously, between the two of us, she must be the better one, she was the one with an M.A. degree, she should be able to manuever herself in the boys' sections. And she's an adult, I'm sure as hell that these boys would follow her, seeing that she is way older (and wiser) than I am. But no, she avoids any kind of work aside from the ones she was already assigned to. An example of this dodging of responsibilities is when somebody among us is absent or has an official function outside the school. Usually, we will have to substitute for the said person and give the class activities. So there was this one time that she is supposed to substitute, but lo and behold, she didn't come. And this didn't happen once, it happened twice, and the teacher to be substituted? Me. I was in the city's division office for a meeting and I prepared an activity for my classes. So the next day, I asked her how my students were (since the section that she was supposed to be in was my rowdiest), but lo and behold again! She said she wasn't able to go in my class! My department head said that she was the one who substituted for me. I let the matter rest, but later, I asked one of my colleagues why. According to her, they thought that my colleague already went to the class but fifteen minutes after the official time, a call from the department office told our head that there wasn't any teacher in my class, so they looked for the supposed substitute teacher, but alas, they weren't able to find her. The ending was that thirty minutes after the official time, it was my head who took over, and the supposed substitute teacher only came to the teachers' room ten minutes before the time ends. Upon coming, she was asked by another colleague if she was aware that she is supposed to substitute for me, and she said she wasn't aware and didn't see the reminders posted on my head's notices board. My colleague told her that she should be looking for notices, so as not to be a nuisance to people.

Fuck yeah.

Surely, she was a nuisance to me and my colleagues that day.

I mean, if my head went there thirty minutes after the official starting time, then it means that the quality of their work would be subpar. What am I going to do with those worksheets? Throw it away? If she was so responsible, she should have felt apologetic. But no, I didn't see any trace of it when I asked her about it the next day. And it makes me think that she deliberately didn't go to my class because, well, she feels like it.

I could have forgiven her, but you see, she's very consistent with her incompetence.

Simple Joys of the Profession

A student sent me a message through Facebook this week telling me that her class won in the speech choir competition in celebration of the National Language Month.

And snore while doing it.

She told me that the class thought that I would have been proud if I was there when they won. She added that the class was more cooperative and they attribute this success to me during our own theater presentation practices last year. She ended with thanking me for being a part of their success now.

Oh my god, a fuckin' student remembers me... *hysteria*

Upon reading this, I was elated that even if a year has already passed, these students from the only pilot class I handled last year still appreciate and thank me for their success. But upon reading and rereading the message, I became sadder and sadder.

And was in denial.

It was because I hoped that they became champion when they were still my students last year, I hope that I was their teacher who won with them, I hoped that their success could directly be attributed to me. But no, I was only one of their many pit stops before they reach their finish line this year under another subject; another teacher.

But still, I comfort myself to the fact that they thought of me during their time of success, and one, one actually found the time to thank me not only for their success, but for the improvement of the whole class.

Vacation? What Vacation? Is that food?

I have been logging in and out of Facebook lately, and I could say that the students are already damn bored of their vacation that they are so ready to go back to school.

This, for me, made me realize that the school year is about to start and I still haven't got the hang of my so-called "vacation." I mean, I'm still fed up going to school because of paper work and that so wrong advanced English classes. It didn't help at all. The students are refreshed, but I'm still stressed and fed up. Go figure. It also doesn't help that we will report to work starting the 16th. My problem is that those three weeks before classes should be spent writing and refining our lesson plans and not warming the chairs in our auditorium listening to some "expert" blabbering about what we should do inside our classrooms.

Come June and the students are refreshed, eager to learn, but I am still pissed off.

Advanced English Classes Rant

I am going to have an advanced English classes this coming Monday. And I am having mixed feelings about it.

It will be a 2-week class and the students will be attending classes in their major subjects, English, Math and Science. What I like about this is that my students will be the best students of the incoming sophomores. And I am toying with the idea of making this an almost college course. No predictable motivation, presentation, discussion and all those things that bores students in a normal situation. And I am planning to apply everything that I have learned in college about task-based teaching. Therefore, it would be the students who would be doing more work than I am, which, you see, the very reason why these techniques were formulated in the first place. That every lesson must be student-centered and students must be the ones responsible for their own creation of meaning.

But still, I couldn't get rid of preparing an outline of the topics that we will tackle for these two weeks, and I plan on making it oral-intensive. And this is because I noticed that most of our students, if not all, know English grammar perfectly based on standards-based assessments. They know the grammar forms, but they, even the best students, have difficulty in speaking in the language. So this is what I want to hone for two weeks. Apparently, a cohort told me that my lessons for these classes must be introductions of what they are going to discuss come regular school year. And that is just like cold water thrown on me, because I know that our lessons will be research paper and grammar intensive. Yes, we do have a speech program, but sometimes, it is relegated to the sideline because we need to cover topics that will be included in the summative tests. And this defeats the purpose of learning in the first place. But still, still, I am going to push through with my plan, anyway, this is advanced classes. What they must know are things which are not going to be discussed in a regular classroom.

One thing that made me pissed off with this affair, though, is the compensation. We are already spending our "vacation" by making and editing lesson plans and this added burden of teaching in summer is just a bummer. We teachers of the advanced classes will only be given $16.00, tops. Two weeks, people. Fucking two weeks. That wouldn't make so much difference in the long run, wouldn't it?

Well, that's life. Get bored with it.

End of School Year Blues

I am just blinks away from the end of the school year.

And I am fucking loving it.

 

So I renewed my contract and all, but it doesn't mean that I like the school. No, I just did that so I wouldn't have difficulties looking for another school. I don't want them asking me why I left the school for only a year, because I don't want to tell them that I freaking hate the TOO much paperwork. I need to save my neck, you see. At least if I stayed for two years, then there is the possibility that they'll think the school where I came from sucks. So, on with my 2-year stay.

I have been making my incoming absence in the lives of my students felt. Today is my last day of classes with them and most of them, well, feel relieved or sad that they wouldn't see me again given that they would have a different teacher next year.

It has been a stressful year for me. I could only count on my fingers the moments when I felt that I am happy with what I am doing. Being the natural worrier that I am doesn't help me at all either. There were days when I felt that I am not human anymore, that I am just waking up and teaching these students just for compliance and for covering the necessary unnecessary information that they need to know to be unloaded on their test papers.

Today, however, I felt that I am going to miss my students.

 

But I do not want to be stuck with them for another year, so...

Go on bastards.

Not looking forward to another school year either.

I Don't Like Observations

I wasn't able to post anything since last week.
But I am not like other bloggers who make alibis as to why they were dry for a period.

I really do not believe formal observations. I am a very big fan of it, because what you would do is to just bullshit the person who is doing the observation in class. Also, the students know that you are also bullshitting them, for they know what you really are in ordinary days.
I will be observed in my best class, but thankfully, that class has the most passive students. But I trust them, what I do not trust is myself. The topic that I am going to discuss is research and god help me with that topic because of course, the students do not know anything about it. And how am I supposed to include religion content in research? I am stressed out just by thinking about it, and to think that it would still be next week. Still, I am stressed out of my wits. I can deliver any topic, but research? Fuck, that's the first time I'll teach it. And I am going to teach it first thing in the morning. How, unfortunate can that be? Just pure shit.
.
It's not like my salary will increase if I did it well. It turned out good the last time I did it, but I am not in anyway enthusiastic about it right now.
I don't like the idea of other people nosing around my classroom and commenting on how I teach. It helps me in some ways, as it makes me see the things that I am doing incorrectly, but for me, observation is like an implicit way of saying to the teacher that you do not trust him/her, why hire the teacher in the first place?

What stresses me the most is including religion content bullshit in my lesson. Seriously, it bores the students to death. I just hate shoving religion down my students' throats, I was able to do it before, but I do not want to repeat it, especially when I am very ambivalent when it comes to religion. Especially Catholicism.

Anyway, it's already there. I just have to get bored with it.

Stupid Classroom Episode

Oh. What the fuck. I hate feeling stupid.

It feels really stupid when your best students see you inside the classroom of your worst class and you can't do anything to control the fucking class.

The reason the worst classroom became a war zone? Well, they saw the the girls from the section of my best class while the latter was on the way to the Science laboratory.
And I can't fucking believe that my worst class' way of showing off to girls is by throwing books and crumpled paper at each other.

What.The.Fuck.

I feel so stupid. Fuck.

Let me say that again, now, in ALL CAPS.

FUCK!

I feel so depressed now.

Serotonin please.

A Letter to Any of My Students

(Put name of student here),

I am feeling generous this year,so I'll be giving away some stuff to some of my students whom I think has the potential to give our society a little shake - if not an earthquake.
This is just a recording of the shows/books of George Carlin. I hope you know him, but if you don't, then start knowing the man. I am sure that you'll like the guy's ideas. He is dead by the way, but we are not quite sure if he is up there in heaven looking down at us or down in hell looking up at us. Hell, if there is no heaven or hell, then he is just there six feet below the ground making the worms happy, which I know will annoy him because he doesn't really want anybody bothering him. Majority of his ideas are basically the very same ideas which I always hold back whenever I am discussing something in class, for the reason that we are in a Catholic school. Of course, we have that faculty rating bullshit, so I'd rather not share my more radical ideas to the whole class.

Consider this not as a gift, not as a mere collection of some comedian's wisecracks, but rather as a collection of things I didn't say (but I wanted to say) in class.

Remember, "if in doubt, turn left."

Enjoy.

From your totally f***** up teacher,
(My name)

I have students who are really good thinkers that it is a shame they have some lame ambitions like being an architect. 

Still, I want to give them something to make them change their way of thinking. Consider this as an explicit attempt to veer them to liberal thinking. Why give them Carlin's show recordings? Well, I could've said the very same ideas myself during class, but you see, there are some people who cannot help but put their noses inside my fucking class, and my fucking classroom.

Well, I think I tried to insert some other way of thinking during the course of our meetings...

The "neon god" in the song "The Sound of Silence" is home, school, and church, generally the Establishment. And they must start giving this society a little shake by starting to question the things around them.

I have yet to suggest to them the inconsistencies of the teachings of the Catholic church.
I really pity my students, they are made to think that there is only one line of thinking and that is via the Catholic doctrinal perspective and I really feel frustrated that I cannot do what I pledged myself to do once I started teaching: to make my students free thinkers. I want them to realize that morality shouldn't be based on prescriptive doctrines but rather on universal human virtues.

I think I really need to transfer to a public school to be really able to do that.

But for now, I have to resort to Carlin. As much as our ideas are similar, his language is much more solid than mine.

School is Useless

School is useless.

Yes. You heard me. School is useless.

Let me ask you, how much have you remembered your elementary and high school lessons?
And how much of it is helping you now with your job?

Not really much, I know.

Another proof. Students have been taught the eight parts of speech from kinder to high school (fuck, colleges even have basic English subjects) and still, still, students do not seem to remember anything! Until now, no ordinary average person gives a fuck about calculus and how Christopher Columbus fucked up America by naming the natives "Indians".

My point. Relieve the children off the stress that school gives. Leave the teachers fucking alone and let them find another less stressing 8-5 job.

Formal education is just society's way of saving money up. Think of all the teachers that the government will pay if each student has a teacher.

It is just a very cheap way of educating the next generation of workers! But what I cannot understand is that, if they are just going to be teachers, clerks, janitors, doctors, waitresses, lawyers, bank tellers, salesman, etc, what the fuck is the use of forcing them to learn literature, grammar, arithmetic, and Science? What the fuck is the connection?

Scrap formal education. Let us just go back to the apprenticeship system. Sounds more practical to me. Let the children decide for themselves what they want to learn. You want to be an architect? Find someone who will teach you! Want to be a doctor? Find someone who will teach you!

Point is, society has forced education to the throats of the children that by the time they reach adolescence, they are just fucking fed up with studying. You cannot blame them for being bored. Why not let them to choose how they will be educated? Why not teach them to fucking stand by their own feet? Anyway, they are so proud of their dicks proclaiming how they are not a child anymore and can very well take care of themselves. Well, what the fuck are you doing sucking off money from your parents' pockets? School sucks right? So get your ass off to find your own teacher!

School Sucks!

It is so uncool from stopping teachers to be cool.

For the longest time ever, there haven't been any model for a modern teacher. Whenever we hear the word "teacher", what we see is the figure of a spinster with her hair in a bun, wearing half-moon spectacles, and that smug and uppity posture that surely irritates me.

No wonder students viewed teachers and the time spent on school as S-even C-rappy H-ours O-f O-ur L-ives. S.C.H.O.O.L.

Don't worry, kids, the feeling is mutual.

Who wants to spend time standing in front of 50+ students who are not listening to you?
Who wants to spend time checking test papers?
Who wants to spend time crafting lesson plans?
Who wants to spend time dealing with parents who do care about grades but do not care about how much their child has learned and then shout at the teacher?
Who wants to spend time dealing with the principal?
Who wants to spend their entire f****** lifetime thinking of other people? In this case, kids?

Unfortunately, that's my job.

You see, kids, I want you to imagine that 8 hours we spend on teaching.  I could have written a book or read a whole book with that time, f***, I could have even taught my own brother!
So, do not go on strutting your asses on our noses telling us that school sucks, because well, you don't need to tell us that, because you see, you came in school and suddenly school sucked.

But what I hate so much is stopping us from rocking the roll...

I have a colleague, who with other colleagues, have been asked to perform in front of the students. Sure, that colleague of mine rocked the house singing in the tune of songs the kids adored. But to our dismay, days after the performance, one of our older colleagues said that yes, some might have appreciated his performance, but some might not. And you see, there is no particular reason for that depreciation.

Were they scandalized? It's not like my colleague did a strip show.

Are they worried that the reputation of my colleague might have gotten down? I don't think so, kids are always proud of a teacher who literally rocks their world.

It's the stuff of their wet dreams, actually.

If these other colleagues of ours are so bent on protecting our reputation, it's actually surprising that they hired us in the first place. No. Scratch that. If they are so bent on protecting the kids from teachers who rock, it's actually surprising that they built a school in the first place.

*sigh*

Stopping the teachers from being cool is so uncool. Remember that.

On Correcting Formal Themes

I do not like correcting formal themes. 

No. I hate it.

I have to suffer reading 200 student formal themes and not just reading, I mean, critically reading it, because I need to help them rewrite their formal themes. The only comfort that I have is the proofreading marks. At least I am giving them some room to think what the hell are they doing wrong with their themes.

I hate it because I have to suffer correcting their grammar and punctuation lapses. You see, an essay with all the jarring mistakes takes a toll on any sensible-person. Sometimes, even I am starting to make the same mistakes that they are making, and sometimes I even question my own grammar because of their grammar.

The only joy that I can find in formal themes is when they share something about their lives. But see, it only happened during the first quarter, when we had family as the topic. But as for the succeeding quarters, I always have to endure these themes, it really makes me want to jump off a cliff. But I cannot get rid of it, as complaining about it will not make it go away. I check and copy-read them anyway. *sigh* Good thing we also have guide questions, as it gives their essays a sort of pseudo-order, but boy, don't they know how to write introductions and conclusions.

Want a sample?

"The importance of God's creation is very important..."

And believe me or not this sentence came from a student from the pilot section. God help me. Like, please.

Gays in School

I do not like hypocritical homophobes.

I just want to share.

I remember one day while I was walking through a corridor, I heard one of my colleagues say to one bypassing boy:

"Gays are not allowed here..."

I snickered inwardly. How dare him tell that to a student, how dare him do a Pontius Pilate, how dare him act so righteous.

Look who's talking. He should hear himself.

And what the f*** is f****** wrong with being gay? It equates to him saying that there is something wrong with him.

Or is he envious of that student who is enjoying his blossoming gay life at such a young age?

Come on, man, have some d*** and unfurl now, it is an open secret that you are gay anyway. Why bother hide it? It is not like I'll spit at you for being true to yourself.

What I hate is your hypocrisy. Spare yourself the worries and unfurl your colorful skirt now, I'm sure you'll feel better, and you'll earn every sensible person's respect, if not love.

The Dilemma On Teacher - Student Relationships

It has always been a dilemma for me whether i will put a student under my wing or not.

Ethically speaking, I should not, for it might cause some preferential treatment for the student.
I don't know, but most stories about good teacher-student relationship are the ones in which the teacher and the student formed a bond as friends.

Unfortunately, reality will tell us that it is rather difficult, because other people might think that you have a romantic relationship.

I am rather bored with the way I teach a lesson. I am smothered by the curriculum, or by the design that my school enforces us to use in our lesson plan.

I want to teach them not just language, but also little truths in life, like, let the gays be. Teaching them respect, I think goes a long way than teaching them grammar. Taking the issue about gays as an example, I cannot tell them to respect gays and the things that they do, if the whole system in which we live in forbids us to tell anything about gays.

How am I going to teach things about life if the system itself stops us from doing so?

I really want to fit my way of thinking to my everyday lesson. But if you are in a Catholic school, injecting liberal ideas into your lesson would be rather difficult. Not with all the observations and faculty rating sheets.

So, if I cannot do it with my whole class, I will do it one student at a time.

But you see, I have another problem: taking a student under my wing would look as if I have a romantic relationship with the said student. Add to that the perception of the students. They might think that I am playing favorites.

*sighs*

It is really tricky, you see. And I only have three months to impart something on my students. Respect. Respect. Respect.

As a teacher, you would actually see the real intelligent students. No, not the bright students, because the bright students aren't necessarily good thinkers. So I have this certain student, and I really want this student to be taken under my wing. This student doesn't answer the knowledge and comprehension questions during class discussions, rather this student dominates the discussion whenever I ask the higher-level thinking questions. You might not find this overwhelming, but when you are stuck in a classroom with brilliant but passive students, a student who actually thinks through your question and answer you will make any teacher's day.

I want to have a day with that class wherein they are just giving their ideas, contradicting each other, synthesizing each other's ideas and coming to respect each other's opinions.

How I wish these students of mine are more communicative.

And how I wish I would have that day, wherein they are really thinking intellectually, not to please me, but to please themselves and their thirst for not knowledge, but for learning.