BOBO 101: A crash course for the ‘smart’

By Herman M. Lagon

“I’m dumb,” Ma’am Michelle wrote, with a row of smiling emojis, as if laughing was easier than explaining the weight of the day. “So the smart ones should come and teach how to read, write, and count. Come to real life as a teacher.”

This is the kind of so-called “stupidity” you will never learn in graduate school — the kind that comes from exhaustion, from absorbing the failures of the system, and still standing in front of fifty or sixty children with different needs: one hungry, one sleepy, one angry, one traumatized, one addicted to games, one quietly lost in the back, and one who whispers, “Teacher, I don’t have lunch today.” In many public schools, rooms built for thirty now hold fifty or more learners, especially after weeks of suspension or learning loss. If there were a doctorate in this kind of “stupidity,” many teachers would already be summa cum laude.

The reflection grew from a viral online remark of Prof. Clarita Carlos: “…Kahit naka-aircon pa ang classroom kung bobo ang guro, wala din learning ang mga bata!” It was the kind of sentence that might have stayed in one comment thread. But screenshots moved faster than context. Soon it was everywhere — timelines, group chats, faculty rooms. Many teachers read it inside hot, crowded classrooms without air-conditioning, and the contrast stung. The reaction that followed was not only about one remark, but about the daily weight teachers quietly carry.

The real issue, however, is not the teacher. It is the label. Words like dumb are easy to throw. They travel fast online and hit hard. They do not only wound the teacher; they reach the students who read them, the parents who repeat them, and the child who once believed they were “dumb” because someone said so.

If we take the label seriously, we should look at what it means in real classrooms. Many teachers work with limited chalk, paper, printer ink, and sometimes even chairs. When materials are needed, the teacher often pays out of pocket. Some take loans just to buy laptops and printers. Others repaint their rooms with their own money so students can learn in a more decent space. If caring this much is called stupidity, then there are many “dumb” teachers.

Many are also overloaded. Some handle several subjects, advisory duties, committees, reports, meetings, coaching, feeding programs, home visits, reading interventions, and endless compliance tasks. Yet people still say their role is only to teach. The question then becomes simple: why is the teacher asked to do everything else? Why has the teacher become the shock absorber of system failures, administrative gaps, and sometimes even parental neglect?

Teachers are also blamed for almost everything. Low scores, lazy students, dropouts, even social problems — somehow the teacher carries the fault. When a child cannot read, the story quickly becomes “dumb teacher,” as if classrooms exist outside poverty, malnutrition, overcrowding, trauma, and constantly changing policies.

And yet many teachers keep showing up. They teach through fever, floods, long walks, and unsafe conditions, not because they are heroes, but because students are waiting. This is not ignorance. It is commitment.

There is also a clear irony. The teacher being called “dumb” is the same person who helped shape doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, professors, and public officials. Every professional once sat under a teacher. So if teachers are truly dumb, the obvious question is: who taught the so-called smart people?

Of course, no profession is perfect. Some teachers struggle and need support. But correction can be done with respect. The label dumb is not critique; it is contempt. And contempt does not improve education.

If the concern is quality — pronunciation, subject mastery, or teaching methods — then the solutions are clear: better training, mentoring, materials, supportive supervision, reduced paperwork, and stable reforms. We have seen how constant changes force teachers to start over again and again. Research suggests improvement is more sustainable when teachers are given stability and time to deepen their practice (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012).

If we want a smarter education system, we should ask better questions. Why is judgment faster than understanding? Why is it easier to insult than to review policies? Why does the teacher carry the blame while decisions and budgets sit elsewhere?

In many cases, it is harder to become a ‘Teacher I’ than to become a lawmaker. Teachers must pass licensure exams, rankings, demonstrations, and years of service. Yet when something goes wrong, they are the ones labeled “dumb.” Some say teachers should ignore the insult, but silence also has consequences. When students repeatedly hear teachers described that way, respect for the profession erodes. The insult becomes normal.

The truth is simple. Teachers are not dumb. They are exhausted, overworked, and under-supported. They are asked to do too much with too little. They are expected to solve problems that belong to the entire system.

And if some still believe the “smart” ones should teach, the invitation stands: try it for a week. Not in a demo room, but in a real classroom with fifty students, broken fans, surprise reports, hungry children, and deadlines that appear overnight. After that, the language might change.

If we truly want to fix the learning crisis, we should begin with the right question: what do teachers need to teach better? Not who to blame, but how to support them. Education is not a contest of intelligence. It is a shared responsibility. And despite the labels, many teachers carry that responsibility every day. If this is what being “dumb” looks like, perhaps the problem is not the teachers at all.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a ‘student of and for life’ who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world that is grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views herewith do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.