Looking at these young children graduate from sixth grade, vie for scholarships, interviewing to be noticed and recommended, brings out a ton of memories. Do you remember when you were at that age? What was going through your mind? Were you well off, or was your family barely making it? Was it a foregone conclusion that you were going to attend SAS high school, or did you have to stop to reconsider your family's financial situation and decide whether to stop going to school altogether or to work for somebody so that you can continue ?
We were going through various circumstances, each to our own particular situation. The one thing we had in common probably was the tremendous desire to go through high school and be done with it. Did you have to face the specter of a public school high school education? Or were you a shoo-in to SAS?
I knew I would not be attending Public School. That thought sounded foreign to me. Ever since kindergarten I was a SAS student. My parents had me attend SAS in town, not one of the Barangay schools. I would have had to attend San Pedro Elementary had I been relegated to attend the Barangay Elementary School. Fortunately, my parents lived in town when I began to attend school and so there I was, attending Miss Somera's Kindergarten class. Our classroom was in the convent, a room between the biology laboratory and the first landing going up to the convent proper. The infirmary was close by and we could hear the voices and whimpers of little babies as they were checked by Mother Gottlieb - but that is another story.
We were graduating sixth grade from Miss Laguardia's class. Young, bright, brash, cocky, we were feeling our oats. We were ready for high school. We had so much talent we were going to be the cream of the high school crop. There were no offers for scholarship assistance. We were very dependent on our parents, grandparents or guardians, whichever the case may have been. I knew Mario Laguardia, a classmate, was Miss Laguardia's ward since Mario came down from the Mountain Province to earn his way through school. The same with Sagon Pagaduan.
Graduating from sixth grade was the fulfillment and reaching of a milestone. Imagine going through Kindergarten through sixth grade? Seven years of painful growth... pedagogic, affective, and attitudinal... Bloom's taxonomy be blasted or Maslow's hierarchy be damned. Going to school under the watchful eyes of those nuns and priests was no picnic. And the school was gender segregated. it was no wonder there weren't more homosexual men from our batch... having stayed away from the fairer sex while growing up - but then again, that's another story.
We were going through various circumstances, each to our own particular situation. The one thing we had in common probably was the tremendous desire to go through high school and be done with it. Did you have to face the specter of a public school high school education? Or were you a shoo-in to SAS?
I knew I would not be attending Public School. That thought sounded foreign to me. Ever since kindergarten I was a SAS student. My parents had me attend SAS in town, not one of the Barangay schools. I would have had to attend San Pedro Elementary had I been relegated to attend the Barangay Elementary School. Fortunately, my parents lived in town when I began to attend school and so there I was, attending Miss Somera's Kindergarten class. Our classroom was in the convent, a room between the biology laboratory and the first landing going up to the convent proper. The infirmary was close by and we could hear the voices and whimpers of little babies as they were checked by Mother Gottlieb - but that is another story.
We were graduating sixth grade from Miss Laguardia's class. Young, bright, brash, cocky, we were feeling our oats. We were ready for high school. We had so much talent we were going to be the cream of the high school crop. There were no offers for scholarship assistance. We were very dependent on our parents, grandparents or guardians, whichever the case may have been. I knew Mario Laguardia, a classmate, was Miss Laguardia's ward since Mario came down from the Mountain Province to earn his way through school. The same with Sagon Pagaduan.
Graduating from sixth grade was the fulfillment and reaching of a milestone. Imagine going through Kindergarten through sixth grade? Seven years of painful growth... pedagogic, affective, and attitudinal... Bloom's taxonomy be blasted or Maslow's hierarchy be damned. Going to school under the watchful eyes of those nuns and priests was no picnic. And the school was gender segregated. it was no wonder there weren't more homosexual men from our batch... having stayed away from the fairer sex while growing up - but then again, that's another story.
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