Friday, August 20, 2010

Montessori is so sabaw... :/

Every saturday, i keep in touch with my best friends Jonathan and Mark Malabanan through phone calls.
During those 30 minute-1 hour calls, we talked about our separate lives- my stay in Ateneo, who
my new friends are, what kind of education i get there("Is college hard, ate Irish?" Mark once asked me),
how are they doing in IJMCP without me and most of all the latest news and gossips from my old
Alma-mater. Sadly though, i couldn't help but feel depressed about the current
condition of Montessori. Montessori certainly changed a lot since my classmates and i left
... in a bad way.

As the weeks progressed, all the news about Montessori from my best friends grew worse and much worse.
Montessori sounded like it lost much of its' good, old excellence and care for its students that i once
enjoyed. "Palala na ng palala ang Montessori, parang nagiging wild na
talaga ang mga studyante dun..." lamented Jonathan after he told me the news of HS students like Ashley, NR,
Dave, Darwin and Hannah slashing wrists. From the way he lamented, i felt nothing but pity for Jonathan, Mark
and their other siblings(Emerson, Clarisse and James) for being in a besmirched, bleak Montessori.
Montessori is getting worse in both the academic and social fields.

One of the first news i heard from my best friends is that most of all the great teachers- sir Ian,
sir Manto, t. Anna, sir Ernest, etc- left because of meager salary(i couldn't blame them for leaving coz
they only receive less than PHP 10,000 a month- much smaller than what my current teachers earn every month),
poorer facilities and the wild, disorderly, raucous attitude of students there. So they were eventually
replaced with inexperienced, newlygrad teachers who were hoodwinked with the thought that Montessori pays a higher salary than
other private schools in San Pablo, it's well air-conditioned and it has students who were highly intelligent, meticulous, observant
neat, truthful, energetic, sociable, sincere, obedient, respectful and independent(aka MONTESSORI acronym-LOL)
who will enlighten them as well as shower them with affection and love. But poor them, instead they faced
life dealing with riotous, troublesome "Montessorians" who treat them with little or no respect nor
consideration, sleepless nights preparing lessons or events and worse of all, a scanty paycheck that they
often receive so late. I remember one time, Mark told me that they had a teacher who told them the reason
why she chose to teach in Montessori. She thought that Montessori was a really great school with
wonderful students, but instead it was the opposite of what she expected. She and other faculty members
felt so deceived and cheated as they began to teach in Montessori. Some teachers can't take
the madness of IJMCP anymore that they resigned and went some place else. All the remaining teachers don't
have the motivation to teach students well- out of the physical, mental and psychological exhaustion they
faced in Montessori. I couldn't blame them as well if next year they'll have a huge Montessorian
exodus the way sir Ian and all the others left the school.

Aside from the state of academic calamity the school is experiencing right now, Jonathan and Mark also
kept me well-informed about the current personal(and troublesome) lives of highschoolers in Montessori.
There were exposes, scandals, melodrama(ala xoxo, Gossip Girl) as well as the plain, stupid mischief made by guys
like Raymond, Mamay(Anthony), Dave, Jawo, Ervyn and all the others. All of them were just as shocking
as well as hilarious. As of August 7, 2010, Jonathan announced two new, love triangles: Raymond Ortega and
Hannah Cabrito(and Miguel Alfonso) and the Twinkle-Jawee-Jey love triangle(OMFG!!!!). Raymond recently hooked up with
Hannah(since Miguel also sumakabilang school din), and Jonathan also told me that may nangyayaring kababalaghan(ang ganda
ng term nya ah) between the two.
Jonathan told me that there's something happening between Twinkle and Jawee(
naging sila... since last year pa!!!), then Jey butts in along(coz she had a crush on Joey), then Joey left Twinkle and hooked up with Jey. But it was okay with Twinkle,
coz she was glad that she can focus more on her studies and keep her grades higher than last year(Yay, Twinkle!!).
If that kind of thing happened with me, Xurt and Wendy(since recently Wendymonia is implying that she crushes on Xurt-OH MY GULAY).
I think i'll celebrate coz i might be able to get B+s or shiny As on my grades, if ever i'll cry, i'll just
cry it off, get my beer stein from JR, fill it with Heineken and drink it out(then i'll probably blurt out in
Cantonese until im sober-the opposite effect on uncle Rocky). Speaking of Wendymonia, Mark often overheard
Muje teasing Wendy about Xurt(especially during the cooking fest)- ah ah, porket sumakabilang school
ako, ginaganyan na nila ako!!!! Then Mamay professed that he has a crush on Wendymonia(bagay sila).
The Jawo got a wart on his forehead so he became a "unicorn", Raymond threw water bottles on a tricycle
driver and Kassel is still in love with Michael Jackson.


Siiiiigh, im so glad to be where i am right now. I thought if you were in college, you would rather go back
to your highschool life, but looking at the way highschool is at the moment, i can't help but
think i would rather be in the comforts of (airconditioned) Rizal Lib studying for my
math 1 long test than face the taunts and pandemonium of Montessori life. I only hope that someday, life in
Montessori will be as happy and wonderful as Ateneo for both students and teachers alike. If only people
there will push some more magis, cura personalis and some awesome stuffs like vending machines, wifi-ed
campus, flatscreen computers, larger libraries with comfty chairs and some Harry Potter-ish magic then it would be really
fabilioh. ;)