Ma'am G, how could I thank thee?

Ma’am G, how could I thank thee?Let this be one of the ways.

I first met Ma’am Lourdes Gamutan, who is affectionately called Ma’am G, when I enrolled in her Literature 1 (Philippine Literature) class. My friends heard so many terrifying stories about her, so that when they learned it was Ma’am G who would be handling the class, they dropped the subject. They transferred to other Lit 1 class handled by an ostensibly more lenient teacher. They persuaded me to follow them, but persuaded me in vain.

Naïve as I am, I stayed with Ma’am G’s class. My friends warned me of an impending doom. Like anything impending, their warning is still impending. I didn’t regret that I stayed with Ma’am G’s class. But my friends did regret their decision to drop out of her class. They shouldn’t have transferred, they told me later. I found out that their teacher was even worse. At the end of the semester, I got 95 from Ma’am G. Their teacher gave most of them 80.

Ma’am G is really generous when it comes to giving grades. I proved this for the second time when I enrolled in English 2 that Ma’am G handled. I think I got 94 or higher in my English 2.

But it was not the high grades she gave me that I will remember Ma’am G the most. Rather it was her antics, which remain as fresh in my mind as when I first heard them.

If other teachers dismiss their classes without praying, Ma’am G, being a Dominican lay herself, took the opening and closing prayer seriously.

“OK, let us pray,” she would often say. And if she would see a student clutching a book or bringing a bag or holding anything, she would say, “Put it down. When we are about to pray, it should be total surrender.”

When she prays, however, I wonder if she’s serious at all. I remember one of her prayers went something like this: “Dear God, thank you for the blessings you gave us. Thank you that we are human beings. Thank you that we are not cockroach. Thank you that we are not frogs. Kokak…kokak…kokak…”

I think she is. The only difference is that, unlike most pious men and women, she prayed to the Lord in her own comic way.

No one dared laugh when Ma’am G said as funny a prayer as that, for it certainly would disturb her. And when she’s disturbed halfway through the prayer, she wouldn’t hesitate to start the prayer all over again.

Ma’am G—if she’s not showing her deadpan humor—can sometimes be very frank. One time, there was a graded recitation. There were more or less five students sitting in front of the class, waiting for their turn. Ma’am G called the attention of one woman who was slouching. “It’s not pleasant to see a woman slouching,” she told the hapless woman. “Sit properly.”

In the middle of my presentation, I was likewise stopped by Ma’am G. “Don’t pan your head too fast,” she told me. “You look like a wall fan. Do it slowly.”

When someone mispronounced a word, she is quick to correct the mistake even if the one talking is not yet done. “It’s better to correct it immediately,” she would say, justifying her interruption. “It’s what I call instant correction.”

But it’s not all mistakes that Ma’am G always sees. She knows, too, if a person has a talent or not. Once at the end of our English 2 class, she asked me stay for a while. When everyone else had left the room, she told me if I am willing to join the school paper. Ma’am G is the adviser of the school paper.

“Yes,” I told her. “I am, but I cannot because as a student assistant scholar, we are not allowed to join other organizations aside from ours.”

“Ay, sayang,” she said. “You have a talent in writing pa naman.”

I never joined the school paper, yet I continued to write.

Perhaps more than her antics, I will remember Ma’am G as someone who knows how to nurture a promising youth. And I can say I am one of those promising youths Ma’am G has nurtured. I am what I am today partly because of her.

P.S.

This was published in the Learning section of the September 6, 2009 issue of Philippine Daily Inquirer. Click here.