By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

I like telling the story of how I wound up going back to school after nine years. In fact, I’ve written about it on this very blog. Suffice to say, I worked in the newspaper industry for almost a decade and taught at the same time without taking up my Masters.

When an opportunity to take it on scholarship came up, I took it. I have to say, I had no idea how difficult it was to stay still in the classroom for an hour much less three (which is the usual length of my classes). But more than that, I experienced how it was to be a real student again, with deadlines and requirements and presentations and—gasp—grades!

The whole experience of studying taught me so much more about being a teacher that it redefined my classroom rules when I returned (yay) to the confines of the academe in front of the class instead of in the class. But I can’t imagine going through that again, even though the idea of a doctorate is always alluring. It’s just that the moment that, as a student, I got back into school I couldn’t wait to get back out again, In fact, during the end of semesters when the paperwork would be flying and the deadline would be creeping closer, I found myself promising “I am never going to do this again!”

I guess it’s different when you tackle a skills class, like learning how to cook, make movies or even how to eat fire. Non sequitur: I always thought that fire-eating and balloon animals would make great additions for my classroom presentations. I still do.

Back to regular scheduled programming: but there are just time in Masteral (and I am sure Doctoral) work that you ask yourself why exactly are you doing this. Part of it, I’m theorizing, is because MA work doesn’t have a universal end transformation, such as that waiting for the brave souls in law school and even braver souls in medical school. Masteral study, particularly in the liberal arts (MBAs are a whole other bunch of bananas), is an experience in the abstract, where learning becomes an almost physical process. Weird? Yeah, but probably also true. Now, if I were a Ph.D., wouldn’t you believe me?

Read about different kinds of education in the May 3, 2009 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.

By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

I HATED school. From the very first day of Kindergarten when my mom had to drag me from the chair in front of the TV (“Sesame Street” was on) to the waiting school bus to the day I graduated from college, I hated it. And I hated college the most.

Work was revelatory for me. I savored working on my own, judged by the last and the next thing you did, and, most of all, I loved getting paid. In the back of my mind, it seemed weird to pay and be forced to work — in other words, like being in school.

I returned to school a year after working, but to teach, not to study. Ironically, I enjoyed teaching and got better at it (after the first years of being incompetent at it, of course). It had a lot to do with the fact that I could remember what I hated about my teachers — and tried to get away from that.

Going back to school for my master’s degree was something I kept juggling in my head. I always dismissed it because of the time and monetary constraints. It did occur to me that a master’s degree would be very useful in the teaching career — plus the MA toga is way cooler than the AB toga.

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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.

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By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

I WAS never the most enthusiastic person when it came to the first day of school. I was largely a bad student who only studied when I was fascinated by what we were taking up, which wasn’t often for most subjects, and never, when it came to math. I was also a kid with a history of being virtually impossible to drag away from the TV (I was a true-blue afternoon section guy), even if the school bus (ah, the immortal service) was already idling outside.

But there were things to love about the coming of school and most of it had to do with the new stuff we brought. There were the basics, like the stroller bag that went really fast. Those dismissal-time stroller races needed the swiftest strollers, after all. Everyone had new shoes but very few had new uniforms (usually reserved for Friday) so that was a wash.

It all boiled down to the glory of school supplies. From those days, I still carry with me an exultation that comes with staring at office supplies. Back then, it was all about the conspicuous stuff. Those were the 1980s, the heyday of the Trapper Keeper, those monstrous plastic-and-Velcro contraptions that were actually not very useful (too big, too bulky, way too noisy) but man, were they ever distracting. Mead (manufacturer of those Trapper Keepers) remains the grand poobah of binder construction today but has toned down the colors and dimensions to make tasteful and utterly practical wares.

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