Anie Writes: 2020

To the HFLC Class of 2020: An Open Letter

Kids,

I would not even pretend to have a full understanding of what exactly it is to be like in your shoes. 18 years ago, in the most overrated place one could be in, I got to wear a cap and a gown, walked the stage, received my diploma and shared the moment with my family as my fellow seniors and I concluded our final year in high school. My behavior was very remiss seeing that I was a convoluted drama queen with more teenage angst than I could’ve ever handled. But even when I acted like I didn’t care about my high school graduation, the truth is, I cared... more than I care to admit to be honest. I’ve kept it in the farthest back of my brain, yes, but it was a red-letter moment nonetheless. And from my heart of hearts, it is something that I wish you got to experience as well. College could be an utter blur but high school stays with you indelibly. High school is after all the place you go to learn what sort of person you’d like to be. That’s why there’s no getting around the fact that things ended the way it did. Commencement is a monumental event, this much I know, and that, graduates of 2020 deserves this moment, even if some of you have winged through it without a care.

To our little kindergartens, sixth and tenth graders, understand that missing out on school and on these experiences is warranted. However, this unceremonious occurrence will not curtail your years in HFLC or the lessons you’ve learned inside and outside its classrooms. Know that this school year has been nothing short of esteemed learning and growing. In spite of the postponement and the ongoing wave of craziness, know that the HFLC faculty and the administration are proud of all of you. Right now, life kind of sucks. But the thing about being human is that we invariably hang onto hope, that sooner or later, things will turn out better. While the world seems so foreign to all of us right now, believe that this won’t be a wasted year…. because even in the midst of the unexpected, we all can learn something. Find joy, embrace the ‘slow’ and continue learning unique lessons in this social distancing and isolation season. Congratulations!

Stay inspired,

Miss Anie

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, by Anie Ordillo

The Suddenness of Everything

Quarantine Life, Week 3

It was already two o’clock in the morning. Sab and I were very much awake like it was only seven p.m. We’re quite dead set on overseeing the virtual instructions that this school year has been reduced to but the suddenness of everything has thrown our daily routine a little off. We’ve fixed ourselves a cup of instant noodles and played Only You on Netflix. I was keen on starting Crash Landing On You but Sab is never a fan of watching with subtitles. We've passed the opening credits of the movie when her phone rang. We looked at each other, bewildered. She was determined not to answer the call but her hand accidentally swiped the phone and a muffled voice can be heard from the other end.

“Beth?” she said as she picked up the phone.

It was her younger sister. She called to tell Sab that their sister-in-law just found their brother lying unconscious on the floor by the bed. Chaos ensued on the other line and any sense of order diminished as everyone made haste to take their brother to the nearest hospital. Then, Beth hung up. Sab was already in tears as we held hands and prayed like we’ve never prayed before.

……….

I met Sab in 2010. I’ve just wrapped up my first year of teaching at the school my Mama founded and that summer, she dropped by to submit her CV at the office. We passed each other at the hall with a quick, polite nod and ten years later, we’ve become great friends, crazy roomates, kindred-spirits and bona fide soul sisters. Sab is currently our school principal and has stuck with us through thick and thin. She is Proverbs 17:17 personified having seen her fierce loyalty firsthand… no agenda, no ulterior motives whatsoever, just a life-giving friendship.

……….

We sat in silence, stomachs fluttering with dread. Then, her phone buzzed. My friend curled up into a ball, covered herself with a blanket and started to cry quietly. That early morning, their family suffered a devastating tragedy, the very sudden passing of her younger brother, from acute pancreatic hemorrhage. He was in his thirties. One day, Julius was just telling Sab his plan to butcher the annual pig when she comes home for the summer break in their hometown of Natividad in Pangasinan, and the next day, he was gone. It is so surreal to grieve a sudden loss in these pandemic-blighted times. Sab and her family did everything they could so she can come home for her younger brother’s funeral but the circumstance just won’t warrants it.

I know the reality of life. I never presume our longevity is without limit but today, I am reminded of its haunting fragility and how breakable we are.

Over the weekend, her brother was finally laid to rest. Sab joined her family via Facebook Live and immediately after, she went to start working on her online classes the same day.

“Does it still make you cry?” I asked naively.

“My tears won’t bring his life back. So, there’s that,” Sab said wistfully.

Her words brought me to when I lost Mommy (my grandmother in actuality, the woman who raised me), to pneumonia in 2012. Eight years later and that loss still stings because one can never really move on. We can only strive to find and create a new normal. But the grief stays, it just becomes bearable and blends to the background of our lives, like a music playing from another room.

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, by Anie Ordillo

In Ahh Life, Being Human

In the Time of Social Distancing

Quarantine Life, Week 2

Three weeks ago, life was hectic. Any teacher can say that the end of school year is one of the busiest, if not, stressful times of the year. Finals, events, performance tasks, grading—the home stretch is a knockout blow. To put it flippantly, it’s tiring. I’ve known that in my brain for a while but as soon as March arrives, I can feel it a lot more in my nerves. But even then, I was more than ready to wrap up the rest of 2019-2020 school year and go full steam into school year 2020-2021. I have my end of year plan intact. Then, the unexpected happened. Fast-forward to here and now, and I’m kind of smirking at myself in retrospect. I could never have anticipated the world would shift its gear and everybody’s plans would be shelved. Life has been in a slow lane since.

I miss teaching inside an actual classroom. The initial switch to virtual instructions somehow created a flurry of chaos among my students, their parents and myself. When a notification pops up on my screen, my heart raises at the thought of answering what feels like a gazillion emails from a student who can't figure out how to open the assignment. I am at my wits end when some of them missed due dates, arguing that they’re having technical difficulties or having a trouble with WiFi when they literally just uploaded a Tiktok video seconds ago. As if turning in their assignments just isn’t going to be a priority. It’s an uphill struggle, if you ask me. It goes without saying that classrooms are far from obsolete. I'm learning a whole lot from this so, I can't really complain.

And while there’s no denying the severity of the crisis that’s upon us, for an avowed, lifelong introvert like me, this period of quarantine somehow yields some positive consequences. The current demand of staying home and reducing social interaction is nothing short of spectacular, as though it’s some kind of manna to me. I'm also reading again. The Sisterhood by Bobbie Houston was given to me as a Christmas gift from my sister. Just few pages into it and I’ve learned handful of insights that completely redefined my own while being instantaneously stirred up to be a force for good within my own community. Quarantine life gave me an opportunity to tick few boxes off my to-do list and I’m learning a great deal about time management. Most days though, I look out my window and tell myself that something good may yet come out of this time. One can't be overly hopeful, you know.

23Comments

, by Anie Ordillo

In Ahh Life, Being Human

Quarantine Life, Week 1

Perhaps I was way overconfident when I thought to myself, “that will never reach us,” the moment the news of Coronavirus first broke out in 2019. Then, sometime in January, China prepares for a lockdown. I was not so presumptuous as to say that for me, that won't just happen. I felt monumentally positive that Philippines would not get to that point. Now, I’m here, on self-quarantined in my home. The entire Luzon has been on an enhanced quarantine for a week now. Angeles City is still Covid-Free, thank God, but I’ve heard police now have the authority to question and even arrest people if they don’t abide by strict isolation and quarantine orders. A 24-hour checkpoints in all entry and exit points of my home city have been set up and just recently, some of the barangays even handed out a quarantine pass to every household in procuring necessities. How on Earth did we even get here?

Schools across the country have also announced short-term closures just as when we are about to finish the school year. It was a good call to say the least but when the announcement was read out, I can't help but feel a serious sense of trepidation. I thought about all the extra efforts our students and the rest of my colleagues have put in the hours of rehearsal the week before. We were a day away from our benefit performance that has already been postponed. I thought about the cancellation of the fourth quarter examination. I thought about our annual ball that the intermediate and junior high school students have been excitedly looking forward to. I thought about our kindergarteners, our sixth and tenth graders whose respective graduation and moving-up ceremonies are still up in the air and to know there is a slight chance that it may not happen is just absolutely heartbreaking. I also thought about the rest of our students who equally put in all the hard work and somehow lost the opportunities to finish out the school year strong... their lives are seemingly on hold after we were placed under an enhanced community quarantine as the government tries to contain this outbreak. I am not alone in this experience. Around the world, teachers still have responsibilities and even bigger worries. Some of us are navigating new technology and having to do training on online teaching during this crisis. We are worried. Our access to Internet might be unstable but we our doing our best to check in, to continue to carry on with the school programs and be a resource to parents the best we can from a distance.

Sab and I are still making handouts and assessment tests for our selected online classes via Edmodo. We finally got to use the facial mask sheets that we’ve been meaning to use from the Christmas holidays (don't worry, it hasn't expire yet). The laundry baskets are finally empty. I still read Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo because I have nothing but time now. I can even blog again, imagine that! Mostly though, I am counting down the days to when this whole quarantine period is over and this pandemic reach its end. I’m imagining my students setting foot in our classrooms again, bugging the crack out of me. I am hopeful.

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, by Anie Ordillo

In Ahh Life, Heck Yeah Teaching

The Whirldwind Ride That Is Teaching

“Miss Anie is a bitter woman because she doesn’t have a love life!” said a ninth grader I reprimanded for concealing a note during a weekly quiz in 2015. And believe me, that even sound harsher in Filipino. It may have been nicer too if it was said to my face instead of lashing it out on other students who, quite frankly, have nothing to do with the entire shenanigan. I called her mom to discuss the incident and a week later, that student transferred to a public school.

I’ve been called a lot of things since I started this profession; it almost feels like I’m walking on eggshells in a watered-down field where everything I do would either be wrong or never enough. This is teaching, I tell myself. I make an uphill climb every day knowing full well that this is what I’ve signed up for. Sure, I teach small classes in a private school, it can't be that bad, right? Oh, how I wish that was the case. Teaching small classes sounds easy. It has its perks but it can also be surprisingly tricky. In a small class, I am presented the opportunity to teach my students as individuals and to see them progress and grow is incredibly rewarding but as soon as personality clashes, kids picking on each other and they simply don’t get along, a small class can be a nightmare too. When interpersonal problems are magnified, things can be downright frustrating – throw in parents’ involvement into the mix, then you'll have the perfect blend of drama on your plate!

For the most part of my career, I’ve met parents who are respectful and who wholly believed in my contribution to their child's school growth but there are also those who are not. Others would even have the audacity to tell how I should manage my class. I've been astounded to see how some parents would readily defend their child when I tell them about behavior incident in class and on certain occasions, some of them even see me as the enemy. I can't tell you how much this weakens the partnership between teacher and parent. If only parents would step back and get a good look at the whole landscape before challenging what we have to say about their child, the teaching world could be a slightly better field. Believe it or not, teachers also want the best for their students too, as parents do. We are on the same side. It wouldn't break a bone for you guys to partner with us.

Our job is hard enough without being immersed to constant scrutiny and being unfairly judged on our student’s performance. Teaching and all that it entails is amazing at best but I never thought I'd ever want a break from it every once in a while to maintain some sanity. I don’t want to push this passion over the edge and inadvertently turn what I love into something I don’t. If I’m going to teach, if I’m going to make teaching all that it can be, I want to do it right. I want to do it with a smile on my face. I want to always have that warm and fuzzy feeling I get every time a student understands a lesson I taught or when little boys remember to wash their hands after using the toilet. I don’t want teaching to be forced. That is what I promise to myself.

1Comments

, by Anie Ordillo

To the HFLC Class of 2020: An Open Letter

The Suddenness of Everything

In the Time of Social Distancing

Quarantine Life, Week 1

The Whirldwind Ride That Is Teaching

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