and secretly called me “teacher’s pet.” Secretly, because if I’d known they were calling me that I would’ve told the teacher.
Worse, I would’ve told my mother, who would’ve immediately made an appointment with the teacher, the head teacher, and the principal of St. Theresa’s to discuss how to inculcate proper manners in their students. We’ll go back to this later. My mother had a reputation as an excellent teacher, slightly fearsome in the enforcement of standards, but fair. Her stu- dents seemed devoted to her—they frequently hung around our house after school, sometimes with their mothers. True, many of them were her coteachers. I don’t know if this sort of extracurricular fraternizing (soror- izing?) is condoned these days, but it seemed perfectly natural in the ’70s. In fact, my mother would casually tell her students’ mothers, “Ay naku mare, medyo mahina ang utak ng anak mo at may katamaran [My dear, your kid is a little slow on the uptake and rather lazy].” Then they would laugh, and within hearing distance of the child in question. Under the current code this would be denounced as a violation of the student’s rights and self-esteem, but my mother’s brutal honesty had good results. Her pupils, she pointed out, became doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, managers and expats. She taught them to exercise their strengths, mitigate their failings, and accept themselves for what they were. It’s a kind of clear- eyed appraisal we lack in this digital age, when technology enables and empowers so much mediocrity. From hanging out at my mother’s school, I spent a lot of time with teachers. One of the godparents at my confirmation was the school librarian, Tita Charito. Often, while waiting
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