Musings while I'm on my way to the comfort room

I have known Stella Maris as a rich school where the rich students study; where most of the students have never taken a PUJ; where students seldom eat kwek-kwek; where most of the students' shoes have never stepped on muddy and rocky road; where students speak the language of iPhone, iPod, iPad, Twitter, etc.; where students most of the time do things their way; and where the sons and daughters of business tycoons, top government officials, and the elite study.

Now I'm one of the teachers of Stella Maris, handling Araling Panlipunan. Never have I thought that I will, one day, be teaching there. Not even in my dreams, nor in my beautiful nightmare, as Beyonce puts it.

So far, my teaching experience in Stella Maris does nothing to change my view of the school. Stella Maris, as I've known it before, is still a rich school where rich students study.

At times, I feel that I am betraying myself. As a student, I was an idealist. I used to style myself as a conscientious individual, one who is aware of the plight of his countrymen and one who will one day roll his sleeves up and help those who are in need the most; one who is, in short, going to teach in the public school.

Yet I am here now, enlisted to serve as a teacher of students whose families are a million times richer than the ones found in public schools. This is, frankly speaking, not the life that I want to have.

But I realized that this is, in fact, a great opportunity for me to let my dreams and aspirations come to pass. As Kipling says in his poem If, "meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same." And treat triumph and disaster just the same I did.

My students now will soon become owners of business establishments, entrepreneurs, public officials and bureaucrats, and even some of them will become politicians. If I can make them acutely aware of the problems of the society and teach them that to whom much is given much is expected, then I have already triumphed in my own little way.

Barely a month from now, my fourth year students will be graduating from high school. Did I succeed in making them students who are conscientious ? Did I and the rest of the teachers succeed in making them aware of their crucial role in the society?

Only time can tell.