June 11, 2005
School Opening Blues

By Jasper Almirante/ Bulatlat
Bulatlat.com

For 22 million elementary and high school students on June 6, all roads lead to schools they temporarily left last summer. For the coming school year, they are expected to learn from their underpaid, overworked teachers. They have to sift through pages of textbooks, outdated as they are and rare as they come.

In the coming months, however, students should make themselves accustomed to the decrepit classrooms and consider themselves lucky to have antiquated facilities, since other sections and neighboring schools have none at all. For those who are able to get chairs, they sit in class wondering why this is the situation and how long they can endure all this. Their attention veers away from the teacher’s lesson, focusing on what the future holds for them.

In the afternoon of June 6, they may hear that their teachers are going out of the classroom to join protesters in Mendiola demanding a change in the country’s educational system. From there, the students will realize that on June 6, all roads may lead to schools, but progressive students and teachers are treading a different path that leads to the seat of power.

Salungguhit literally means to underline; figuratively, to underscore or highlight.

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