I was not planning to watch it. A random scroll through Facebook showed a teacher with uncontrollable tics helping a pupil who was quietly battling a terminal illness. My daughter saw me wiping my eyes and teased me about why, as a movie buff, I had missed it. Out of curiosity,
July 13, 2026
As part of my GCED Online Course with UNESCO-APCEIU, under the guidance of Dr. Jeff Plantilla, I have been wrestling with a simple but heavy question: What do international human rights standards really mean for ordinary lives? The six-week online course is not about quoting dignitaries or keeping track of dates.
July 11, 2026
While watching rainwater spread across our school grounds, a teacher quietly said, “They should fix the floods first instead of spending money on impeachment.” It was a sentiment many could relate to. Years of flooding can wear down anyone’s patience. Yet that simple remark also revealed a deeper problem: the growing
July 9, 2026
There is a moment in every workplace when people quietly decide whether to follow you or just comply with you. You rarely see it in formal meetings or written directives. It lives in the small moments—when pressure builds and you stay, or when it eases and you disappear; when mistakes come
July 8, 2026
A good research poster does not begin on a laptop. It begins in that quiet moment when you ask yourself, “If someone walks past my work for ten seconds, what should they remember?” I learned this the hard way years ago, standing beside my own poster at the University of the
July 7, 2026
Smart-shaming has a way of slipping into places it should never be — in the corners of classrooms, in between jokes on a group chat, even inside faculty rooms. Over time, it has quietly turned spaces meant for learning into places of quiet humiliation. A student shares a thoughtful answer and
July 6, 2026
The silence before a major test is not calm. It is cautious—the kind that tells you students are trying not to make mistakes before they even begin. Nothing looks different—the boards, the teacher, the lesson—but the mood has already turned. The room starts behaving like a waiting shed for scores. In
July 5, 2026
By Herman M. Lagon There is a kind of teacher you will not notice right away. No dramatic speeches in faculty meetings. No constant posting of accomplishments online. No habit of reminding everyone how busy they are. Yet when they are absent, something quietly collapses. Deadlines wobble. Coordination weakens. Someone eventually says, half-joking but not
July 4, 2026
Teachers know this kind of quiet heartbreak. It shows up in ordinary classrooms. A student stares at a math problem like it betrayed him. Another gives up after one mistake, already convinced science is not for her. In many schools, defeat often arrives before the lesson begins — “Hindi ko kaya,”
July 3, 2026
The most “intelligent” teacher I met in my early years of teaching could solve almost anything you threw at him—statistics, curriculum design, even budget headaches no one else wanted to touch. Students admired him. We relied on him. If there was a problem, people would say, “Ask Sir, he’ll figure it
July 2, 2026
One rarely goes through a day without encountering plastic. From food packaging to throw-away coffee cups, plastic permeates everything, and the issue goes beyond what first greets us. Now, everywhere — in our oceans, soil, air, and even within our bodies — microplastics, small bits less than 5 millimeters, abound. For
July 1, 2026
The first time a public school teacher crouches beside a sari-sari store Pisonet at night, phone balanced on a crate, trying to upload lesson requirements before mobile data runs out, the debate about whether Wi-Fi is a “right” suddenly feels less academic. It becomes practical, almost intimate. The glow of the
June 30, 2026