During the campaign period, debates, privilege speeches and recently, the SONA, President Marcos had stressed and sworn to return our students and teachers to school where according to him is still and will always be the best venue for teaching and learning (aside from home). The plan was to dissect the return to face-to-face classes; from August to October would be the limited face-to-face classes, while the full blown setup was to be this November.
By the time of publication, the first phase of this promise has already been fulfilled. Weeks building up to August 22, we saw the collective effort of all the stakeholders to help schools get back to form both for students and teachers – a gesture greatly appreciated by the Department of Education. The vigor shown during those times was a reflection of just how thrilled everyone was to return to the institution tasked to mold the young ones into productive citizens after two years of the blended or modular learning modality.
August 22, and the days that followed was a momentous day in the lives of the students and teachers. The sheer number of students who attended the first day of classes and their almost uncontrolled urge to get inside their rooms, meet new faces and interact with the people within and beyond the room was a great sign and testament of just how important the regular setup of learning is for everyone.
Anything done in solitude is truly a struggle, but together, one can produce the most beautiful of things, and that is what teaching is about.
As happy as we are though, there is a catch: though the President promised no more lockdowns, the full implementation the full implementation of the face-to-face classes might be put to a halt if cases of Covid escalates once more. We must also remember that the threat of Monkeypox is still looming.
We do not want to take away the joy of our students, teachers and other stakeholders now that things are slowly starting to go back to normal. Let us do our best to make sure we make it to November and from there, the end of another full year of face-to-face classes. (Jake Terrago)
