i have this particularly annoying teacher this semester who has a penchant for glorifying himself in terms of teaching style and method, and proudly asserts that we ought to differentiate him from the rest of the pack because, he says, he not only imparts knowledge, but he imbues these learnings with the school’s thrust — which is the incorporation of the ‘gospel’ in classroom discussions.

with his distinct and thick waray accent, he starts the class each time with the same spiel: ‘ibahin nyo ako, ibahin nyo ako, meron akong record‘ — then he proceeds to checking the attendance — in 30 frigging minutes mind you — because he likes to interject, every so often, and brandish his so-called ‘distinct’ teaching style.

at first, i was intrigued and amused, and i entertained the idea that perhaps, he was different — that he was unlike the unthinking, incompetent kind.

but soon enough, i found out that indeed, he was different from the rest — fact is, he is worse.

for two weeks, we had to dissect the vision-mission of the university, discuss it in detail for four meetings, each having an hour and thirty minutes for every session — and it was just so, so boring — not to mention irrelevant and a total waste of time.

don’t get me wrong, i agree with the rationale of incorporating the school’s general thrust in the course of individualised learning, but having to skim through the entire document, and meticulously dissecting each phrase and sentence?

that’s verging on obsessive-compulsiveness on the part of the teacher on the one hand, or it could mean he was just too damn lazy to jumpstart the semester with pertinent and relevant lessons, on the other. tsk tsk.

to my recollection, there never was a single classroom discussion where he shared the latest nor the most apt technique in deconstructing and reanalyzing complicated stories. he merely blabbers for hours on end about how the generation now has forgotten the values of the time past, or how we, his students, ought to respect him for three reasons: his being our titser, his being matanda, and his being propesyunal.

naturally, in my head, i have already conjured of a hundred ways of reconstructing einstein’s relativity theory, or plot out the assumed location of emilia earheart in the bermuda triangle.

but it gets worse — because this time, he wants us to shell out twenty pesos and buy any item from the tabo (a superficial endeavor for fostering genuine appreciation to our own wika, if you were to ask me), and eat the entire thing in front of him.

first level of rebuttal: since when were teachers (college teachers, mind you) empowered to dictate how our school allowance will be spent? sure, twenty pesos is twenty pesos, but we need to look beyond the monetary aspect and uncover the arbitariness of the imposition — does he really have the right to demand that his students buy puto and cuchinta and nibble them down in front of him?

second level of rebuttal: how does this exercise facilitate and foster a genuine appreciation for the national language? this, in itself, is a pathetic excuse for genuine education, and it is this juvenile approach, plus a mindset which prods him on because he thinks of himself as a demigod in the classroom, which is the reason why genuine learning is stifled, and students are shortchanged in terms of getting what they rightfully deserve.

‘ibahin nyo ako, ibahin nyo ako.’

sir, iba ka nga.