WHEN TEACHERS BEHAVE LIKE STUDENTS

 

“When journalists behave like bloggers,” Antonio Contreras’ column head in The Manila Times sparked off the above title. His column spelled out the journalists vs. vloggers row triggered by Marcos Jr.’s incoming Press Secretary's announcement regarding the vloggers’ accreditation to cover Palace events.

JOURNALISTS VS. VLOGGERS

Journalists overreacted. But they have enough reasons to do so.

During the campaign period, Arnel Agravante, a vlogger, told his follower he knew how Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his candidate of choice, had become wealthy, New York Times reported. He said that Marcos Sr. did not steal the money from the government, but was given tons of gold by a secretive royal family. Although the so-called Tallano gold story was already debunked, even by Marcos Jr. himself, the single-minded Mr. Agravante toughed it out. Ridiculing Marcos’ critics, Mr. Agravante told the Times, “That’s what they call ‘ill-gotten wealth.’”

Jovalyn “Mami Peng” Alcantara, with 24,000 TikTok followers falsely claimed, Times reported, that the Philippines’ debt doubled to $50 billion under Corazon Aquino. When a Times reporter pointed out her error, she retorted, “So what if it’s incorrect?”

On the flip side, to his fellow so-called “journalists and “columnists,” Joel P. Salud in his PhilStar column “Vlogging Most Foul” has this to say:

“Shouldn’t we be more suspicious of so-called “journalists” and columnists” – at times even a whole newspaper company – who bear the title but never the moral code that sets journalism apart from mediocre media? Those who hurl their principles and conscience out the window at the slightest hint and smell of legal tender? Whose misplaced political loyalties get in the way of exposing the truth? Those who couldn’t tell fact from fiction?”

The self-righteous hypocrisy reminds me of my experience right after my early corporate retirement. Early because our company National Steel Corporation shut down due to the nation’s economic crisis. Since I had still two productive decades before the real retirement age of 65, my wife and I discussed our future and our three children in school.

First option: To take a job in the Middle East.

Drawback: I would leave my family during the contract period

Second option: To relocate my whole family to a foreign country like Canada

Drawback: My wife would quit her bank job plus the relocation hassles as narrated by one co-employee in my previous ATABAY article “The Story of Lulut: Our Canada Migration Bothered Me for Too Long.”

Third Option: I would stay put and look for a local job like teaching.

Drawback: My potential income would be very minimal.

MOONLIGHTING TEACHERS

We agreed and decided in choosing the third option. One day, my wife, fully tuned in to any local job opportunity for me, came upon a handful of her bank clients taking along stacks of books with them inside the bank. She came to know during their chats they were local teachers moonlighting on internet writing jobs.

Tipped off, I surfed the internet. Among a swarm of writing job websites I ran into, I picked one, applied, and became a member. The website rolled out a collection of writing jobs that I could choose ranging from a simple essay to a complex proposal for a foreign city waterworks project.

At the outset, the novelty of the whole setup – the writing job on the screen in front of me inside my home – pumped me up. Eager and energized, I took my best shot at a variety of writing jobs I picked out, not even worrying about how I would be paid since my earnings were accumulated online.

One time I took a crack at a particular job in developing a promotional program for a particular brand of basketball shoes. The program would introduce the brand in the same class as the likes of Nike and Adidas in a highly competitive global market. I got a kick out of doing the job because I love and have played basketball. Later, I read from the paper and then learned the name of the basketball shoe brand -- Under Armour – with its face today in the person of Golden Warriors Stephen Curry, widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time and the greatest shooter in NBA.

CONTRACT CHEATING STUDENTS

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Here’s the pudding:

“Millions of students are buying ‘plagiarism-free’ essays for as little as $13 – and it’s nearly impossible for teachers to prove” (Business Insider headline)

I got a taste of such pudding—not just an essay, but big time, a college term paper – the most consequential job I went all out. I worked day and night like a dog in getting through the term paper, met the deadline, and provided for the quality of the work required. A few days after my submission, I was taken by surprise -- for the first time -- my finished job was returned to me for modification.

For the first time also, I got a clear picture of the reality of the “dark side” of the job. The online company had it brought to my attention that the buyer, a real-life college graduating student in the US, directed me to simplify my complex proposal. The word “simplify” prompted me then in harboring this suspicion: his actual class standing could not match up with the quality of my finished term paper which he paid for. He could have known full well his teacher would not buy the idea that it’s his work.

The online company administrator directed me in going along with what his client demanded. I recognized that the administrator was without, if not lacking, the technical nuts and bolts of the job. So I explained to him using a metaphor: my finished product was a sports car and the client wanted me to modify it into a sedan. I said, “No way,” because the client’s demand would require a “new car” – implying a new job order and another payment.

Consequently, tagging obviously after the universal “Customer is always right” business dictum, the administrator penalized me with a hefty amount of deduction from my accumulated earnings.

Right then and there, I submitted a resignation letter. Out of my noble discontent, I notified them also my personal donation of my net accumulated earnings to the online company to promote its corporate value of social responsibility.

 A few days later, my daughter was taken aback by an overseas call from someone with a foreign accent – it was my online company. I did not take the call. My daughter told me the caller broke the good news – I was promoted to a “freelance writer” level. That was our last contact.

One morning, I was about to begin a class lecture when, out of the blue, facing the whole class, this odd but hilarious picture flashed across my mind: a teacher was reading an essay he/she had composed online -- submitted by his/her own student.

On a lighter note, let’s wrap up this article with this inverted picture: when a student behaves like a teacher.

Teacher: Okay, Mr. Genius, how about taking over the class?

Student: Okay, class, dismiss. Ma’am, you remain to clean the room.

Head still photo courtesy of Pixabay