The seven-year itch
They came into my life in 2007. Since then, our ties have been unbreakable.
By all means it is a love affair that I have ventured myself into for seven years now — with them. But unlike the amorous kind that sometimes, according to a psychological term, becomes characterized by dissipating happiness after seven years, our love affair is solid. Yes, for seven years now, I am carrying an affair with my students — and we all love the relationship that we share.
Our relationship started one auspicious day of September 2007 in a classroom on the third floor of Gulod National High School, a public school in my barrio of Gulod in the city of Cabuyao. Some teachers of the school invited me to conduct a lecture on newswriting and features writing. The students and I hit it off right away that I found myself “adopting” the school and its students who wanted to learn to write. That one-day lecture has now become a seven-year itch, which we continue to scratch using our love affair with words.
So, every Sunday, since 2007, the students and I see each other. Our classroom is, to borrow the words of Hemingway, a clean and well-lighted place. Our room on the third floor is very conducive for creative exploits. When my students train their eyes to the east direction, they see the Bundok ng Susong Dalaga overlooking the peaceful brown waters of Laguna de Bay, with a few motorized bancas dwarfed in the middle of the lake. Westward, their imagination is made more pregnant by the vast rice fields — verdant green during planting season and golden during harvest time. On a clear, clear day, the fields seem to offer in their palms the ridge of Tagaytay. And even on a Sunday when it is overcast, we see in the south the resplendent Mount Makiling. Just by staying in the room, the students never run short of their muses to guide and inspire them in their writing pursuits. We have never left the room since then, except only when we gave way to the evacuees of Ondoy who used it for almost five months in 2009.
In a way, my students — from Grade 7 to fourth year high school — and I are part-time lovers. We don’t see each other every day. Only on Sundays. Thus, we call our group the Sunday Writing Class. Yes, our love for writing is the Mighty Bond that keeps us together. There are Sundays when we meet from 10 a.m. to 12 noon. There are Sundays when my lecture extends to 2 p.m. As I tell them, you cannot teach a writing class in just one hour. With passion burning in their hearts, they religiously attend the class, even if it means additional expenses for their parents for their tricycle fare because most of the students live far away from school. On a normal Sunday, the population of my class is about 40 students. But there are Sundays when I lecture to 10 or 17 or 23 students only because the rest cannot come to class because they do not have the P15-fare money.
A few members of our Sunday Writing Class are already college students who return to class because of their genuine love for writing.
Every student comes to the Writing class armed with a pen and notebook. More than that, they come to class with very fertile imagination and rich database of what is happening around them. I conduct lectures on local and international current events and make them write their own editorial. In the classroom, I make them watch award-winning classic Filipino films and Oscar-winning movies and guide them to write their own review. Sometimes, I bring them chocolates and ask them to compare and contrast in writing the different brands. Come summer time, yes we also have classes during their summer break, we pick Indian mangoes from different trees in school and I ask them to write a “food article” based on the mangoes they consume and the bagoong that they bring to class. We listen to music in class; then they write their impression of the songs and the artists. I give them my books and let them review them. I bring to class photocopies of classic and contemporary short stories and we discuss them.
One time, with the permission of the school and their parents, we did a Laguna road trip for their travel writing exercise. I let them interview embroiders in Lumban and woodcarvers in Paete. I asked them to write poems as they view the Alligator Lake below them as they sat comfortably in the bleachers of the National Arts Center in Mount Makiling. We entered centuries-old churches in Pagsanjan and Pakil and studied their artworks and architecture. We even went to a cemetery in Cabuyao where they delivered their “eulogy,” which they wrote on the spot.
And come Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Christmastime, they write the most beautiful essays — in both English and Filipino — that are heartwarming and thought-provoking. We laugh a lot in class. We also cry.
Last month, we had an exhibit titled “My Collage, My Story.” My college good friend and GMA-7 reporter Jiggy Manicad and my BFF and STAR travel writer and chairman of the Cinema Evaluation Board Christine Dayrit came to the opening of the exhibit to cut the ribbon. Nadine Gaton, who used to be the students’ adviser in their school paper and now Department of Education supervisor for the CALABARZON, also came to witness the momentous event. The students were just thrilled to join the group exhibit.
It brings me so much joy to always learn that many members of the class win in writing competitions in the district, provincial and national meets of campus journalists. I don’t take credit for it. They are their own person and the talent is solely theirs. I am always happy for their academic accomplishments but I am never remiss in telling them that medals, though they are bragging symbols of one’s scholastic aptitude, are not enough to become a human being. More than anything else, I teach them what emotional intelligence is all about. They have a lot of that, too.
Some Sundays we don’t write. We just talk and talk. I give them the floor. I am always genuinely interested to listen to them. I hear stories laden with love, angst, devotion and aptitude. I always hear them talk about their dreams. They are not rich kids. But they are very rich in their imagination and part of their “imagineering” is how to better their lives in the future. I always support them.
My Sundays have become partly non-negotiable because of my students in the Sunday Writing Class. It’s been seven years. Yet still, we all feel the mutual itch to be with each other every Sunday.
(For your new beginnings, e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com.
I’m also on Twitter @bum_tenorio and Instagram @bumtenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)
