“If I forget thee, O [Israel], let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; If I prefer not Israel above my chief joy” (Psalm 137:5-6).
In secondary school, I must be blessed to have a plethora of “maestra,” that our class considered as the cream of the crop of their era. Every one of them would be special in their own right and in an individual field of expertise. However, like in every class, there’s always one with class who’d stand above the rest.
Just like in this politically-ravaged country’s college of court justices, they may all have bright legal minds but only one is ‘primus inter pares.’ Therefore, anent your question, “Who is your most favorite high school teacher?” I must now make myself loud and clear. For even if I’d be examined and cross-examined, I have either answer: Ms. Claire Monteclaro or Ms. Monteclaro, Claire.
Ma’am Claire was first assigned as our reluctant class adviser when we were in the third year. And she ended up so frustrated but brave in declaring she abhorred us all shortly after. It’s because although we had the best and the brightest individuals, our class too included some literal eraser heads and the hardest of skulls.
With a cast of characters like us, no one could blame her definitely then. What, with a class featuring the likes of a Ramil Facurib and Elmor Nim. For even with only that pair crowding such unruly class section, you don’t just expect trouble, you’d guarantee pandemonium. Who’s a teacher who wouldn’t lose her decency if not sanity, when in the middle of a lecture, one of the boys would cry out this tone: “We don’t need no education; We don’t need no thought control; No dark sarcasm in the classroom; Teacher leave them kids alone.”
However, in our fourth year, to our big surprise, we received great news in a flash: We learned that Ma’am Claire practically begged the Admin to handle our class. Well, facts of life indeed are as hard as Pacquiao’s fists: this world is not bereft of martyrs and masochists.
Became more surprising was our final year as Ma’am Claire helped enlist, no, transformed an indifferent guy like me into a certified sentimentalist. Aside from that ‘noisy’ “Sound of Silence” we all did sing, she introduced to the class the Fab Four’s “All My Loving.” And I’d like to expose here the one truth—however inconvenient this to her may be now—by virtue and in the name of my legal rights: Only a handful among us her inner core students know that Ma’am Claire, despite her being a non-Jew, is one of the true-blue Israelites.
I’m so sorry, Ma’am, for revealing your secret finally, may you stretch forth your patience again as I greet you past your special day. I just want you to know that in loving I did you copy, especially your way of loving Padim, for I have loved Israel too for all eternity.
Here’s my warmest and ever fresh happy birthday greetings to you, Oh dear Teacher. Like the usual words I had for you for two years each time in your class I would enter:
“Better late than never.”
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