This Indefatigable Belief

And I’m so back my ‘pinas!

Working as a teacher in a foreign country sometimes makes me want to cry out in anger and in anguish with the realization of the many opportunities and the quality of education deprived from a big number of young people way back home.

Seeing how these (my) foreign students are enjoying a lot of educational materials and facilities which are most of the time, in 1:1 ratio, awakens a deep-seated sadness in me with the knowledge that way back home, there are still some classrooms that lack books and there are still a lot of selfless teachers who spend their own money from their meager salaries just to buy books and materials which will then be shared to a class composed of 60 students. A desktop computer in a far-flung barrio school, can already be considered a miracle.

Seeing how my foreign students are given all the possible opportunities to study and compete abroad with sufficient funding and support from the school and their government, awakens a seed of frustration and jealousy in me for all the missed chances and opportunities of a lot of young Filipino students who have such so much potentials (and I can claim to be one of the best group of young people in the world, given just the right motivation and training), due to the misplaced funding of the government, lack of training and proper screening of the educational work force, lousy and greedy politicians, and of a big number of Filipino teachers who have chosen to leave *cringe* not only to look for greener pastures, but because some of them have actually lost faith in the twisted system.

It is really true that sometimes, it takes stepping back a little for somebody to see what really is wrong in the whole picture. In my case, I’ve taken miles of steps away and though it might take me some time to heal my frustration over the whole system, but what pacifies and gives me peace at the moment is that my faith in the Filipino youth, in the countless selfless and dedicated teachers who chose to stay (despite of), and my faith in the teaching profession as a whole, is quite indefatigable.