My mother was a teacher

My mother was a public school teacher. She may have gone into labor right in the classroom; she certainly referred to her students as her children. This did not sit well with me. As a highly-anticipated only child, I did not like the idea of having several dozen siblings. My sister was considerate enough to let me have 12 years as the only child, arriving just in time to relieve me of my parents’ unremitting attention so I could have my adolescence in relative peace.

So teaching was the first profession I was ever aware of. It seemed to me a noble calling. Having been raised by a teacher I always had an affinity to teachers, seeing them as extensions of my mother. This may have accounted for my being considered “a good student” in grade school (high school was an entirely different story). No doubt some of my classmates abhorred me 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.

My mother had a reputation as an excellent teacher, slightly fearsome in the enforcement of standards, but fair. Her students seemed devoted to her — they frequently hung around our house after school, sometimes with their mothers. True, many of them were her co-teachers.

I don’t know if this sort of extracurricular fraternizing is condoned these days, but it seemed perfectly natural in the Seventies. 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.

There are terror teachers; my mother was a terror parent. Who was also a teacher and a fine one, so imagine the havoc she could wreak. If my grades did not go up from the previous quarter’s (If they’d ever gone down World War III would broken out), if my grade did not confirm her estimation of my abilities, she would ask for a parent-teacher conference.

I never flunked a subject in grade school, but my mother had more parent-teacher conferences than parents whose kids were actually failing. A less than sterling academic record was considered an insult to her, my mother’s, abilities as a teacher and a parent. The only subjects in which her teaching skills were impotent were PE and Sewing—the first because I am a natural klutz, the second because we both loathed sewing.

She did not understand why other parents seemed so cavalier about their children’s report cards—that is, not meeting with their children’s teachers every quarter. She did it, and she had a job, secondary jobs, and a household to run. I wonder how she would view the state of education today, and the effect of absent OFW parents on the children’s development. If she were teaching today she’d probably regard the situation as apocalyptic.

Strangely, I’ve never had the slightest inclination to become a teacher. I’ve always preferred to work alone; I do not have my mother’s rapport with people, and I never liked kids, not even when I was one.

However, being the daughter of a teacher is something you can’t shake off entirely. I considered it my responsibility to help my seatmates with their schoolwork. During study period, sometimes during recess, I would discuss the lesson with them. One of my seatmates had difficulty reading, so I would ask her to read her homework to me. After a few sessions I concluded that hers was mostly a self-confidence issue.

So I did what my mother would do: I wrote a note to my seatmate’s mother.

Dear Mrs. _____,

I think your daughter is a nice person and she could learn to read better if she had more self-confidence.

Best regards,

Jessica

Clearly the author’s upbringing precluded any challenges to her own self-confidence.

My seatmate’s mother responded with a note thanking me for my concern. Her stationery bore the seal of a trial court; I had just proffered educational advice to a judge.

My mother was very proud of her annoying, advice-dishing ten-year-old. She had the note framed.