This is a re-post from my old blog.
Besides tutorial center,
our company also has a preschool and a grade school. Last Friday, a mom asked
me if our formal school offers subjects like Filipino and Sibika, subjects
taught in Pilipino
(Tagalog), our native tongue.
So, I answered ‘of course’
as we follow the curriculum of the Department of Education. She smirked and
said something about Tagalog subjects
being irrelevant since they wouldn’t be used when a child grows up and that we
should concentrate on a child’s English proficiency.
I was outraged. It took me
an enormous amount of self-control not to tell her that that’s what being educated is all
about, knowing THYSELF, thy culture and therefore thy
language.
Just because I’m an
English teacher doesn’t mean I’m turning my back on my native tongue. I love it
as much as I love my country. I looked at the woman in front of me and answered
as politely as I could that our school tries to train students to be
intelligent and responsible future leaders of our country. I don’t know if that
was the answer I should have given, but it was the best I could come up with at
the time.
I felt sad about the whole
thing.. I do believe we should love our language more than that woman did..
No comments:
Post a Comment