Animo education

I asked my son Roel, a teacher at the Alternative Education Department of La Salle Green Hills, to share his insight on being a Lasallian educator. This is what he wrote:

Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals formulated in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly, the fourth is Quality Education. Its primary aim is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all.” One may look up targets and indicators employed by various entities to ensure this goal is met by 2030. If one prefers, one may even engage in perpetual discussions on how perennial issues involving lack of classrooms, training of teachers or increased emphasis on particular subjects as the ideal method to bolster our country’s efforts to provide quality education for all. Frankly, it is at times difficult to be optimistic when confronted with recurring dilemmas.

But as I entered the grounds of La Salle Green Hills about a month ago on a sunny Sunday afternoon, an hour before the graduation ceremony of the school’s Alternative Education Department (formerly known as the Adult Night High School), I felt a sense of reassurance.

As stated in the school’s website, for more than 40 years LSGH Alternative Education “is the manifestation of the De La Salle Brothers’ mission to provide Christian and quality education to our marginalized brothers and sisters…16 years old and above,” and “with the conviction that everyone has the right to education,” deaf learners are fully integrated in the department. In addition, a recent partnership was established with Mandaluyong City’s Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) to allow persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) to finish secondary education, a section of which I most recently taught online.

My reassurance has been palpably cultivated for the past four school years as I’d meet 12th grade LSGH night school students twice a week, either onsite or online, for 21st Century Literature classes.

It has been through the feistiness of students such as 23-year-old Annabelle Capones, encouraged by her employer to pursue studies in LSGH while still attending to her responsibilities as household staff, as she consistently argued her point while we discussed the overarching themes of Mary Oliver’s poetry, that I was shown a stern embodiment of Lasallian drive.

With financial struggles leading her to find a home in LSGH, class president Bella Mier’s unparalleled tenacity only permitted herself a brief moment to express the rigor of my assigned creative group work on literature during the martial law era, right before delivering an insightful and artistic presentation. The pride she innately radiates, despite confiding experienced prejudice from day school students, allows her to shrug off any such potential burdens as trivial. The mark of a true Lasallian.

Both initially nervous in the face of colossal expectations stemming from becoming a part of infamously stereotyped Lasallian culture, Ricaya Bariata and Rachel Lomibao’s antics carefully balanced with meticulous work, reciting well-devised metaphor poems rooted in perplexing quests for The One, reeked of that renowned green-blooded passion.

Hans Sioson and Denise Villorente, young deaf learners who gracefully transcended the challenge of studying alongside hearing students, were among the most active in discussions, never hesitant to present their own deconstructed archetypes through poetry. They were indeed embodiments of how a Lasallian’s voice is necessarily substantial and brims with zeal.

As I watched these students take the stage to receive awards for academic excellence, the valedictory address of unassuming yet ever-undaunted Jonard Allen Jagolino provided a stark message – these particular Lasallians learned too soon that dreams come with a steep cost, recounting his acceptance into De la Salle University but having to momentarily consider pursuing higher education elsewhere due to unaffordable reservation fees for official enrolment. But already having recently secured a full scholarship, his journey as a Lasallian, like the rest of his batch seeking to continue allowing their reaches to exceed their grasps in order to redefine the status quo, has only begun.

Among the many proud parents and sponsors that day, my reassurance was also secured by the always calming presence of Associate Principal Rey Ducay, whose hearty welcome on my first day into this distinct Lasallian family continues to resound in my heart. I found time to exchange pleasantries with academic coordinators Bernadette Nolasco-Mosura and Roy Daz, whose sturdy helping hands never seem to tire, and Communication Arts teacher Jordan Jarabelo and TVET-TLE coordinator Junelyn Domingo, both of whom bear unmistakable glints in their eyes and smiles which always seem to seek out the weary in a timely manner. All this is anchored on school president Br. Edmundo Fernandez FSC, whose exhilaration at the seeds of critical thinking being sowed through literature is never fazed.

These students and colleagues will always remind me that in witnessing each Lasallian claim their well-earned diploma that day, including 74-year old Leticia Flores – the department’s oldest graduate to date – goals, no matter how lofty, are perhaps better met one student at a time.

I was blessed enough to have been a Lasallian student all my life, which inevitably entailed witnessing countless athletic events inside packed arenas. But it was on that day in the St. Benilde Gymnasium, amidst the proud voices of the graduates of the La Salle Green Hills Alternative Education Department singing the alma mater hymn with fists raised high and bright, when I was reminded what Animo is truly about.

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