“I will never throw rubbish on our path, or on her lawn; or around her premises... and since health is essential to beauty; I will never speak nor do anything, to spread disease, germs in any place, where teachers and pupils meet together…”
In our lives, there are lines of songs that if sang, would spur thousands of meaningful pictures in our minds. And like the song, “This is my School,” there are a number of words and lines that bring us back to the times of memorable classrooms and classmates, crushes and blushes, candies and chichirias, cartoons and play cards – the thousands of memories worth reminiscing in our years of innocence. Drinking our milk on early mornings; playing bato-lata, dakop-dakop, and langit-lupa with our playmates; and bullying our classmates (and vice-versa) – these are some of the simple but memorable parts of childhood.
Yet, it has become true to this generation that we have almost forgotten the lessons, ways, and teachings of the past. The more we put our entire focus on the future, the more we are inclined to turn our back from the little yet significant lessons of the past, and how these memories have molded and taught us. We oftentimes see those memories of innocence insignificant as we face the more remarkable memories of college life. But amidst the belief of many that high school is the best part of schooling, we should all realize why the “innocent” part of our schooling – the grade school years – could be the best and most memorable of all.
If Negros Oriental State University (NORSU) requires a daily dance exercise in the morning, everybody will surely laugh and may not be able to execute the dances well. Some might not even move at all when their crushes start staring at them. But did you know that you were once a cute and playful child who actively danced the macarena, dayang-dayang, and Hawaii five-O every morning?
You may not remember it but during our elementary years, we experienced our first dances at school. We usually groove to those years’ popular tunes that some of us have even competed with the rest of our classmates. These things may remain funny memories of our innocent years, but these taught us one important tidbit: that stretching our bodies every morning will promote good health and will keep us away from sicknesses.
Innocent as we were back then, we have not fully understood why we had to dance every morning. And now that we’ve cracked the answers behind it, why not strut it out and dance the boogie once more?
How many of us can recite the old and new version of “Panatang Makabayan” these days? How about the “Panunumpa sa Watawat ng Pilipinas”? If you ask your classmates now, I’m pretty sure some lines would turn out incorrect, and they would end up scratching their heads. And you might just scratch yours, too!
During flag ceremonies every morning, we were taught to give allegiance to the flag by reciting the Panatang Makabayan, while raising our right hands.
Do you think you can still recite the lines? If you do, do not only reminisce the past through the lines but do recite them heartily. If not, let’s all make it a challenge to do so.
Our home is our first school. It was at home where we were taught with the basic forms of learning in many aspects, such as our personality, hygiene, attitude, and a lot more. On the other hand, in school, where we interacted with other people of our age, we are being taught to apply and test how good we do with the lessons we acquired at home.
One of those seemingly stressful yet fun activities of “application and testing” was the monitorial work.
In grade school, if you have studied in a public school, a ring of a bell was a signal to dance. Dance? You have read it correctly. Hoping to greet our teacher with a sleek floor the next day, we used to dance to the sound of the husks on the floor while doing a boogie. We do not just do that! Oftentimes, we were taught to sweep the classroom floor, to wash the dishes, to garden, to clean the blackboards, and more.
These infamous daily routine were traditionally assigned by grade school teachers to students and were usually scheduled to every row of the seats, starting from the first to the last.
Surely, these childhood school chores have taught us not only the importance of cleaning our surroundings and enhancing it, but also the importance of internalizing the value of being tidy and neat all the time.
Before we learned trigonometry and algebra, the theories of philosophy and psychology, and the art in literature and communication, there are four letters that have embarked first on our childhood brainstems. These are the letters G, M, R, and C. And if you do not remember what these letters stand for, you might ask your grade school teachers about it NOW!
Good Manners and Right Conduct. It was in grade school that we were taught to say these words. But merely saying it does not necessarily spell what it’s all about.
GMRC (or values education for some) covers a vast variety of interesting topics of human relations: honesty, politeness, respectfulness, trustworthiness, humility, goodness, even friendship and camaraderie which have all become the sole reasons of harmony in our community.
Yet, if we look at it, these childhood lessons acquired and taught to thousands have slowly faded away. Corruption is rampant. Sexual harassment is rising while drug trafficking, addiction and many others have mounted up in destroying many young people’s lives.
Seeing the whole picture, we realize how many people have lost their lessons of the true essence of the letters they once uttered in childhood – the GMRC – and what they really mean in this divided and crisis-stricken world.
In reviewing these four lessons of innocence, we have learned two things: the importance of looking back to the past and the importance of remembering the wonderful and meaningful lessons of childhood and innocence, no matter how insignificant it may appear. After all, the fact remains that looking back to the foundations of our innocence is the only way to fully take a step towards accepting our present and enlivening our future.
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