Bullshit personified

Warning: This is a shitty entry. If you’d rather have a feel-good article, read no further.


Dr. O didn’t list it as a requirement in the class syllabus she gave us at the start of the semester. Neither did she mention that it was important when she encouraged us to write and publish an opinion piece on the new bill on bilingual education. Not even during the long months we met every week did she say something that would have given us a hint that it was necessary. But after our group had fulfilled all the class requirements and we were ready to party, it was then that she announced in class that the only way for us to have a grade of one is to get published, and that only one among us has made it — Pao.

Damn! Magpapa-publish lang pala, uno na?

Why then did we have to conduct an in-service training? Why the hell did we have to do interviews, surveys and class observations and find out the needs of the teachers of a public school the existence of which we did not even know about until three months ago? Why the hell did we have to spend a lot of money, waste much of our time, exhaust our energy, and go through weekly meetings, brainstorming sessions and planning when all we needed to do lang pala was flip through files of studies, sit a couple of hours writing a one-page opinion piece, email our output to a broadsheet, and presto! — UNO na?

Oh! Before you go thinking that I’m merely sour-graping, let me tell you this: that isn’t my way. I know when I deserve something and when I don’t. And right now, I am not saying that I deserve a grade of one. But I dare say that if no one in my group deserves it, then Pao deserves it much less.

I don’t have any problem if she’d choose to give Pao a bonus grade for having his work published. Maybe, he deserves it. But uno? No way!

Yes, Pao may be the brightest student in class. He can easily outshine anyone. He is smart, intelligent and articulate. And he is a fulltime student. It helps too, that he has a knack for befriending teachers (a skill I lack, and never bothered to acquire).

Still, I maintain that he doesn’t deserve a one. Why should he? As the leader of his group, he has failed big time. Their in-service training was not quite good — our bitch of a teacher said so herself (They made a big mistake of hiring a professional as a speaker in their training when it should have been one or two among them who did the talk. Now, who should the teacher grade, the speaker whom they hired?) Even before they concluded their in-service training, their group was already divided into two — with him on one side, and the rest of the group on the other. And to top it all, their documentation/written output was still not ready when the original submission date arrived.

So where did Pao’s grade of one come from? It could not have been from the in-service training, which, we were made to believe all throughout the semester, was the main requirement in class.

(Oh, I forgot! He got his opinion piece published nga pala! Patawa naman o! Kukunin ‘yung grade niya sa extra work na pinagawa ng teacher? Extra, kasi hindi naman bilingual education ang description ng class! And ha! Ha! What’s the fuss nga pala about his opinion piece having been published? Was it a major article? Was it a literary piece? Neither. So what’s the big deal? It’s not as if it’s so difficult to have something published. I should know, because I happen to be in the publishing industry.)

And, as if the racket of a news about Pao already assured of his top marks — long before his group drafted and submitted their written output — still wasn’t enough, the piece of vermin sitting on the teacher’s desk further elicited my group’s annoyance when, as we were submitting our output on the day of submission, she suddenly realized that there are specific things she wanted to see in our documentation (Oh… let’s just say she simply forgot to tell us beforehand, OK? I’m sure it was an honest mistake on her part).

So needless to say, she extended the deadline to another two weeks. However, one week to go before deadline 2, she again realized she wanted us pala to follow a certain format. (Now, of course it would be too bad of us to think she’s stalling things so that her favorite student’s group could catch up, so let’s just think she’s really forgetful, shall we?)

But damn… damn… damn!

I’ve been trying to justify her actions since her announcement; I’ve been trying to see things from her perspective to understand the whys of things; but until now I still think that we (my groupmates and I, including Pao’s group members) were unjustly treated.

To this date, I still feel I've been cheated.

Maybe if it were just the grade we are talking about, I would not have cared one bit. I’ve grown matured enough to know that grade isn’t everything; that in fact, it doesn’t mean anything in most of our endeavors. But the issue isn’t just about grade. Neither is it about Pao. It’s about a teacher who thought she could subject her students to her whims and get away with it. It’s about favoritism and power play.

Oh! I may never be a genius like Pao. But dammit, I know bullshit when I see one.