School rules: The recess bell rings twice

By Pennie Azarcon-dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

I ONCE read this item in a newspaper about the IgNobel Award, a spoof of the Nobel Prize, which was given to the silliest, most useless, and ridiculous invention or idea of the year. At that time, it was conferred to this inventor of artificial testicles for neutered dogs that he called, and I swear I’m not making this up, Neuticles!

I remember that the Nigerians were given an honorary IgNobel for coming up with a creative literary form that publicly begs decent people to help ousted dictators, military strongmen and corrupt politicians launder their ill-gotten millions via e-mail.

Well, after reading and editing the stories for this Sunday’s Inquirer Magazine — on the provocative theme “Sex, Vice and Discipline on Campus — I thought there should be a local counterpart to the IgNobel Award in our schools. After all, some of the silliest, most useless and ridiculous rules I’ve ever encountered emanate from the cerebral cortex of our august academicians.

Consider how one teacher-training institute thought it could discourage gay mentors by barring effeminate students from sporting long hair, earrings and make-up inside the university. Curiously however, ostensibly masculine students are allowed to wear long hair, earrings and even foundation inside the campus. How weird is that?

An all-boys school, meanwhile, used to have a rule that was probably meant to weed out would-be pederasts from the student body. To be admitted to this school, student applicants must first pass a masculinity test devised by a panel of school officials and faculty members. Hmm, I wonder how that test went: “Let’s see, we have here two calendars that we’re giving away to every prospective enrollee. This here has Katrina Halili in the altogether, and this one, Piolo Pascual in the buff. Now, choose!”

On the other hand, I believe some school rules are put in place precisely to pick out from the dumb driven horde the most creative student who would then try to go around the rule.

Back in our elementary grades in this dinky Catholic school, the pupils all looked forward to recess. No, not just because we could all have a feeding frenzy and make as much noise as we could. The rule then was that the school bell rang twice to mark the end of recess. When we hear the first bell, we would always be reminded on the first day of school, we were to stand perfectly still, no blinking, no breathing, no smiling. The second bell would release us from this evil spell, and allowed us to form a line going back to our classroom.

That rule gave us the most fun we ever had in our primary grades. On the second day of school, every boy on campus would try to outdo each other in the stunt department, timing their most daring and uninhibited poses just seconds before the first bell. And so, for a full 30 seconds before the second bell rang, the school grounds would bloom with odd little creatures straight out of Darna’s nightmare. Our classmate Elpidio was the best of them: he would suddenly morph from this chinky-eyed punk to a wide-eyed acrobat perched on the school fountain, one hand clutching the spout, another pressed on his tummy, like that drink of water was pure poison now working through his system. Sometimes he would be a ballet dancer with a frozen grin and gnarled fingers, a hunchback trying to fly, a prostrated serpent on the floor with glazed eyes staring at the sky, or a very fat glutton choking on his sandwich. The other boys approximated all manner of graveyard statues and wax museum figures that even the Crypt Keeper would be horrified to encounter in a dark hallway.

It was with supreme effort that us girls stifled a smile, the boys’ objective being to crack a giggle from us and get us on the monitor’s discipline list. That meant standing and facing a corner of the classroom until the end of the day, a particularly humiliating exercise if you happen to be a girl.

To this day, I cannot fathom what logic lies behind our school’s two-bell tango, except perhaps to prefigure the mutant characters of the “Star Wars” saga through the delightful imagination of little boys.

For more rules on campus — silly, useful, funny or weird — read the June 8 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, FREE! with your copy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer