Carpooling Loonies
By Jinki Beldia

This and that of teaching plus a lot of coffee to go with it

Sometime in July last year, I found myself facing a class of 51 university students enrolled in Literature. My Literature class. Later that week I came face to face with 150 or more students enrolled in Arts Appreciation and Grammar. My Arts Appreciation and Grammar classes. I had to convince myself those were my classes because teaching was one thing I never thought I could or would do. When the university called and asked if I was interested to teach, I said yes without thinking. I spent sleepless nights wishing I thought about it first but it was too late. The students were just as bewildered as I was the first time I entered class. The very first question that greeted me on my first day was, “Are you the teacher?” Followed by, “Are you sure?” and echoed by twelve others in the class . When I sat on the teacher's table, they knew I was not leaving. For the rest of the semester, I was either on top of the teacher's table talking to an interesting group of 20-somethings, or in a corner studying faces.

When it was my turn to throw my first question, this was what they got: Why are you in this class? I was answered in unison with an overwhelming, “Because we want to learn Literature/Humanities…” It was the kind of answer any of us would have given at gunpoint. I told them, “You came to my class too prepared. You just gave me an unacceptable answer.” There were murmurs in the class. “Boys and girls, don't tell me you woke up this morning enthusiastically telling yourself, ‘I'm going to my first class today to learn Literature.' Because if you insist on that I'm walking out of this classroom right now and will permanently say goodbye to teaching. Don't rub elbows with me. Can't you see I'm not wearing make-up?” Another hush-hush in class. That was a moment when I could not tell if I was going to be liked or be chased with a fork around the campus for the rest of the semester. “Well?” I asked again this time with my head down, like a lover patiently waiting for an answer. A girl from the back of the room answered in a very low voice. “It is part of the curriculum, Ma'am.”

“I like you already !, ” I said beaming.

“Ma'am?” The confused student asked rather shyly.

“That's the first thing we need in this class. Honesty. You are trapped in the four corners of this room because you are required to be here, not that you chose to be here, yearning to know what Luwalhati Bautista, Sionil Jose, or Nick Joaquin have to say about this part of the world. I don't even think you care who they are, much more what they think. I know that for a fact because I was suicidal on my first few days in Philippine Literature in English back in college. I only started liking Filipino authors when it finally dawned upon me that without them, the rest of the world would never have stopped thinking we are such a disastrous race.”

I sensed the class was starting to relax. They smiled a lot. I continued, “But I am not your mother. I am not going to force you to do things you don't want to do. Don't expect me to check every meeting if you are here or not. I don't want bodies with wandering minds. I will make your life easy for you. My rules are simple: One, if you haven't read what was assigned to you, don't come to class and pretend you know something. I'm a witch, I can smell naughty kids. Two, since you are aware you don't have a choice but to pass this class if graduating is part of your goals in this lifetime, help yourself. Three, there are three things I love : Sneakers, folding my jeans and sitting on top of the table. All of the above defy what is on the teacher's manual. If you tell on me, you're dead meat. Four, let's have fun. You don't have other choice but to be in this class. You might as well start teaching yourself how to like being here. If you really can't , pretend to be happy. This is the only part where you get extra points for pretending. Five, I don't want shy people here. I want to hear voices, I want to hear whatever it is that is inside your head no matter how foolish you think it is. Nobody's going to laugh at you because if anybody does, it is only a declaration of one's arrogance and ignorance, which is not a pretty combination, I tell you. It should not bother you. Ask, ask, ask . Speak, Speak, speak. Interrupt me if you have to. That is a privilege you will never get at home or anywhere else.”

I had very few absentees among my 200 something students for the whole semester. After all, my classroom was the only place in the university where the girls could wear their favorite tiny shirts and where the guys could put their feet up without getting yelled at. My requirements did not include prejudice.

Teaching means learning. Of course, you hear that a lot from old, new, kyphotic, lordotic and smart-ass teachers but the statement is like jeans. There is a perfect fit for everyone, and mine happened to be brand new that hung on my waist, showed my navel to the surprise of the conservative lot. That was a realization that came upon me on my first teaching experience. You learn as students barrage you with questions because you have to have answers all the time. Although it took me a while to encourage a lot of them, the painfully shy ones especially, to speak in class, I succeeded in the end when I imposed the “No Talk, No Grade Policy.” This helped the grade-conscious find their voice and the rest with no choice. I found the reason why students were intimidated in class. It was simply the nagging fear of being ridiculed by other people inside the room or by the teacher herself. I set up an activity that loosened them up little by little. Discovered it while I was chasing thoughts inside my head during my coffee time in Expresso . The place was not only a sanctuary for my then coffee-addiction, it also had a huge window that allowed me to paint the sky green and the trees pink as long as my imagination allowed me to.

In all of my classes, I one day asked each one to say whatever it was they were thinking about. “Let me pry a little. I'm bored. And please include the kinky stuff.” I liked it that my students laughed a lot and it did not bother me if they were laughing at me or the things I said. I love happy people. With iced coffee in one hand, I listened intently to solos and choruses about “unbearable mothers on their menopausal years, dads who were never there, school policies that sucked, absentee boyfriends, bad break-ups, bad parties, good parties, teachers they wished never existed…” It lasted for an hour. When everyone was done I asked, “So was that difficult to do?” I got a no so I went on to tell them the same thing was supposed to happen when we started discussing about artists and their works. I wanted them to rant and rave, complain a lot and ask a lot. The next five months, I was so pleased to be dealing with students who actually had a lot to say. I would usually start my class by saying, “Let's talk.” The writings of Filipino geniuses became topics they would rather talk about, than be lectured to them. The latter would have eventually given them a license to sleep in class. If that actually happened, I would trust myself to impose another academic threat on their supposedly meaningful student lives. Sometimes you just have to be good at that.

Most of them got a hang of the ‘speak your mind' rule and their essays and test papers would include small notes consciously asking if what they wrote made sense. Yet some asked for advices—on love, family, friendship… Name it, I had it all under one roof. I had some doubts if I was indeed molding minds. But then I realized doing so is an endless process. Everytime they would come up to me outside the class and continue to ask questions, I'd know as a teacher, the lessons I taught them were still far from becoming just a fading memory.

E-mail the author at jinki_young@yahoo.com