For a Nonexistent Future
“Sa tingin mo, kailan kaya tayo magkakaroon ng face-to-face ulit?” the students ask.
This question has been routinely thrown around on a daily basis, most especially on the highs and lows of quarantine life. In times of celebration, we would think about how we could’ve been partying the night out with friends, of how we may have ended the night seated outside 7/11 sipping on cup noodles to offset the alcohol. In times of despair, we would imagine how we would’ve sat down with friends near the coffee shop window on a rainy 3 AM night, having our deepest conversations that accompany both the saltiness of our tears and the bitterness of caffeine.
During exams, the days end with tears, but the weeks conclude with sighs of relief. The last stroke of the pen on the final item of the last test paper for the week was always accompanied by an emotion correlated with our expected grade; and as we walk down the classroom hallways, the answers we hear from post-exam conversations slowly make us realize that every step we take outside the classroom just kicks out a point off our final grade. However, a bad day could be recovered with a long walk with friends around campus, and sadness is replaced by a few extra servings of Kwek-Kwek on a warm plastic cup.
But in this pandemic, the little ways of how students could cope with the rigorous demands of college life are no more.
Disappointingly, some people would argue that life is easier in the online setting. Some would even say:
Ganito na ba katamad ang kabataan ngayon?
Noong panahon ko naman nakakastress talaga ang college, ang hihina niyo naman!
I cannot help but ask, have they not been with us throughout the pandemic? Do they not realize that students barely have any means to displace these stressors?
Our institutions are zeroing in on the academic consequences of distance education. Everyone is commonly worried about not being able to produce competent graduates in the online setting. The focus of the conversation primarily revolves around the concerns of educational continuity — neglecting the fact that these students have little to no means of properly coping with the stressors of academic life. Our current educational policies are trying too hard to force the online learning environment towards becoming as close as possible with campus experience — we still continue to have 7-hour long synchronous days; we continue to act as if all households have the same conducive environment that campuses provide.
The lack of means to cope with stressors is not the only problem that our students face — it is also the fear of becoming a half-baked student unprepared to face a highly competitive world. Besides, the argument of potential employers is valid — how sure are we that these students are competent enough to be hired when they lack the practical and physical experience of these jobs? Our medical and health-allied students are using stuffed toys to present patient interactions, our laboratory-dependent students are playing around with outdated Adobe Flash environments, essential procedures are copied and attached to PowerPoint video embeds, practicum lectures begin and end with “Kapag nasa F2F tayo, ganito dapat ang mangyayari” — and these crucial skills are restricted to imagination.
Could our students find the motivation to work for a future that seems to be nonexistent? See, in the pre-pandemic world, the lineage of student life was studying well, graduating, passing the boards, landing a good job, getting hired, and living a good life. In our present, pandemic-ridden world, this linear, step-by-step life manual received a question mark at every stage. The consequence of being unable to predict when the pandemic life would end is that the students find it hard to foresee a future where studying well pays off. If businesses and companies are shutting down left and right, laying off their well-experienced employees just to stay afloat — what can convince them to look towards hiring fresh graduates with half-baked skills?
In all this, we cannot entirely fault our educational institutions — they too, are victims of selfish politics. But the mistake of these institutions is that they remain to be as apolitical as possible — even when the sources of these problems are heavily influenced by bad politics. When would we hear of massive inter-university movements that call for the formulation of multi-sectoral groups that plan towards a safe campus return? When would universities practice what they teach about standing up for what is right, calling out the incompetent, and demanding for better national policy?
It is much more disappointing to see professors and administrators ranting about how this generation of students are too lazy and too demanding when both of them are victims of bad policy. Have we forgotten that these students are the experimental batches thrown into a poorly planned transition towards the K-12 curriculum? Have we forgotten that these students have little to no methods to cope? Have we forgotten that these batches have no physical ceremonies to acknowledge the diplomas they’ve worked very hard for?
