The year was 2005. I was still a grade 6 teacher in our barangay when I was made to ponder on what the youth of that time wanted to be after graduation from elementary and high school. You see, I came across one theme where one of my pupil proudly wrote that she wanted to be a domestic helper someday.
This totally shocked me! It never occurred to me that in the eyes of the young being a domestic helper is a profession. As I went through her writing, I realized that from her juvenile mind, going to other country as a servant is one way of earning a good and lavish living. How can I contest that? She enumerated in her account the material things that her cousins possess like a beautiful concrete house, TV, DVD, PC, branded clothes and sneakers and good food. Her aunt was a domestic helper in
I questioned myself, “Are we teaching these children with their ABCs and 123s to become servants to other people?” No offense meant to the domestic helpers because I too have a mother who’s a DH in
Four years had passed after that reading and another school year had begun. I wonder if this same girl still wants to be a servant. I could not blame her if she still pursues her dream of being one. With the increasing number of local unemployment here in our country, I doubt if her parents could sacrifice more for her college/technical education. She will be an added applicant to the long line or queue at the POEA of domestic helpers for
As I write this, I am speculating how the minds of today’s Grade 6 pupils think. Is it the same as my pupils then? If their mindset remains the same, what then should we teach our children in our schools today? Does global competitiveness mean being able to communicate in English fluently to understand orders from servant’s master or does it mean having the skills to clean and mop the floors of the hotels of other foreign countries?
