For those who have graduated from studying, most of us will agree that the happiest part of being educated is high school. High School occurs when we were starting to see life at a different angle - we grow up into adolescence, we begin to question the status quo, we start to meet more friends (and get attracted to the opposite sex), etc, etc.
Of all the years spent in high school, I find third year that most delightful of them all. In spite of such subtle subjects like Algebra (the third one in a row beginning first year!), Geometry, and Chemistry I felt quite alright in that year. After finishing second year - the year that I hated most - coming to third year and in the second-from-the-top section was bliss! Most of the teachers were good as well as most if not all of my classmates. Of course there were moments when the class becomes 'kolokoy' ('silly') but deep inside we were all humans, we were all equals. There was also the absence of pressure which the top section was never spared of.
Nowadays I have doubted if it's really beneficial to rank class sections. Looking back in my junior year, I remembered how passive we - all sections except the top - have all become in terms of organizing and participating in school events. So evident was our apathy that my friend and batchmate Jonathan de la LLana wrote an article in our newsletter entitled "Wake Up, Third Year!"
We may not necessarily remove sectioning in our schools, but schools must ensure that students, regardless of their capabilities, are provided with equal opportunities to shine. Enough with the practice that top sections should monopolize every school event be it the Father Rector's birthday, Intramurals, or Quiz Bees.
Speaking about third year, I won't forget Ms Irene Ambagan, Algebra and Geometry teacher, who made the best out of us who were then struggling in her subjects. I was told that she is critically ill. May Jesus the Great Teacher be her strength and consolation in this time of need.
As a kid I thought San Juan De Letran was a man dressed in a cassock-like attire as illustrated in my father's high school diploma. It's only when I studied in Letran that I learned who this man was. According to the Student's Guidebook, Letran was named after St John the Baptist, one of co-patrons of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. In Letran's chapel, to the left of the altar table is an image of St John the Baptist - dressed in camel's hair with a belt around his shoulder as described in the first parts of Matthew's and Mark's Gospels.
A straightforward and humble man, San Juan de Letran is one of my favorite saints. Strangely, I haven't found a day to honor him the way I remember St Anthony of Padua on Tuesdays or St Rita of Cascia on Thursdays.
The man illustrated in the diploma, by the way, is St Vincent Liem de la Paz, a Vietnamese priest who studied in Letran in the 18th century.
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