Regressive:
It is the start of my 7th grade. I get up and start to prepare for school. I begin to iron my boring and plain uniform so that I can look neat and professional. I prepared my backpack which consists of newly bought notebooks and pens. I cannot fathom how much I love school until I arrive there. As I arrive at my classroom, which is on the third floor, I can smell the freshly painted classroom walls with a hint of wood scent from the old armchairs that are neatly arranged by row. After a short while, my classmates start arriving in the classroom as well. I could definitely recognize some of them from my 6th grade and it is from a different school. Being in a high school, particularly in this lovely school of Ernesto Rondon, makes me feel so free and alive. This very first day, we are told by our advisor that my class will have to vote for class officers. This includes class president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and so on. Two of my classmates come up to me and says, “We are going to vote for you, Ate” (“Ate” means sister). I am shocked to hear this since I barely knew those two and they already decided to make me as president. Eventually I was voted president and is given the responsibility to be in-charge of the classroom.
It is difficult being the class president. There are times that things will get out of hand, and I would cry because of how overwhelming the situation could be. Sometimes, my classmates will not listen to me whenever I tell them to be quiet. I sometimes wonder if I am a terrible class president, or maybe because I am just a student just like them. It is also weird being the “big sister” of 47 students because I am the youngest in my family. All I could say that I am on a love/hate relationship of being a president.
I love being the president because it feels like I am the teacher sometimes. Although, teachers will often assign me to teach a topic in class. I enjoy teaching them a concept that I just learned on the previous day. I also enjoy standing in front of the class and just speaking to my classmates. Ultimately, I can observe different perspectives of my classmates. Let us say I have fully adapted into being the class president. On the contrary, I hate being the class president whenever my classmates become “too wild” to manage. This includes running around the classroom and talking in extremely loud voices that interferes with the classroom besides us. The class will get extremely loud that the teacher next door walks to our classroom and yells at me in front of my classmates. After the yelling, I took a seat and starts to cry. It is an overwhelming experience for everyone especially me.
***
It is the middle of school year; we are tasked to watch a theatrical play called “Ibong Adarna.” It is extremely crowded at the mall, but I must keep my class together. Eventually, I have successfully gathered the whole class and we find our seat by the upper deck of the movie theater. My classmates would get excited whenever a handsome actor enters the stage. Needless to say, our crowd is extremely loud, but we enjoyed every last bit of it.
***
It is almost the end of school year. Our class is planning a closing party. However, instead of making it a casual closing party, the class has set up a party for me, because I am moving to Canada after 7th grade. We had food and drinks and some academic work appreciation. I ended up as top 1st student in my class and again, the closing party is a blast. Even after 7th grade, my classmates would still call me “Ms. Pres.,” and I get a little flattered whenever I hear it.
***
As I pack my luggage, I cannot help but see the faces of my four pets: Sasha, Felix, Arthur, and Belinda. Today is the day that I will have my three cats (Felix, Arthur, and Belinda) to be adopted by our neighbor. I will miss them, but I know they will be taken care of. My dog, Sasha, will also be adopted by a different neighbor of ours. The thing is I do not even know my neighbor’s names, so once they adopt my pets, I may never hear from them ever again. Coming back home from giving away my three cats, Suddenly the house feels so quiet and empty. The place where my cats would usually stay suddenly feels so vacant and lifeless.
***
I am running out of time. It is the day of me and my dad’s flight to Canada. Everything is happening to fast that we are not even done packing everything and cleaning the house for a move. Sasha is still with us because technically we have not moved out yet. The day I left is the last day I have seen Sasha. No proper goodbyes.
It is a thirteen-hour flight that I must endure. Long story short, I slept for the whole thirteen hours. I arrived in Canada but had to line up in the immigration center with my dad for my student permit. As I wait in line, there is an Asian family who is denied access because the officer cannot understand what they are trying to say. They have the papers and everything but had a difficult time explaining their goals to the immigration officer. Luckily for us, we did not have any issues and arrived in Canada safely. As I walk in the arrival area, there goes my mother, who has been working in Canada for a while, waiting for us. We took another flight from Toronto to Regina and had an hour and a half drive to a small city/town called Melville.
***
I entered 8th grade in St. Henry’s Senior School. The classrooms are way different compared to the Philippines. My 8th grade classroom has so many bookshelves and circular tables compared to the row of armchairs in the Philippines. I feel out of place since I do not know the school rules such as the lunch times. I would often be alone in a classroom because I do not know it was lunch time. My art teacher assigned a work for me to do, and I finished it the next day. She is shocked and I, too, is shocked. It turns out there is always a due date for every assignment that teachers assigned. In the Philippines, when the teacher gives you an assignment, it is automatic to be due the next day. My teacher compliments me a lot of times because how punctual I am. However, I definitely lost that “class president” energy since I cannot stand public speaking in the classroom anymore.
I entered 9th grade in the same school. This grade year is a little better than my 8th grade since I have learned my way in school and its rules. I made lots of friends and I even made it to the local newspaper TWICE! I feel more confident than ever, but this confidence did not last long.
I have to move to Regina because there is no university in a small city of Melville. I studied and finished my high school at Dr. Martin LeBoldus Catholic High School. I tried to make diverse friends, but it is tougher compared to my Melville classmates. I tried for three years to expand my variety of friends, but the students tend to group themselves by race. I cannot quite understand this situation, but it is an uneventful three years of senior year. I accepted lots of academic awards because it is what keeps me motivated. My love for the mathematics subject grows as I reject the idea of becoming a psychologist.
Progressive:
It is almost the end of school day, and I am about to finish teaching “The Unit Circle” to my students. “To convert from radians to degrees, you must use 180°/pi or pi/180° depending on whether you are converting from degrees to radians or radians to degrees” the students nodded their heads while some are writing down the formula. I waited for a while for my students to digest a new information before I continued, “Now that we are done this topic, I am now going to give you an activity to practice your converting skills. You do not have to answer every question here as it is just for practice, but you must remember that the more practice you do, the better you will understand the topic.” Some students move their chairs closer to their friends and started working on the activity, while some are working alone. I even see some students listening to music while working, while others answered one to two questions, pulled out their phone and started playing. The class is decently loud but not deafening with all the chattering. The classroom noise is just quite enjoyable to hear and listen to. I am also the last subject these students are attending to, so I could tell that they are tired and exhausted with all the new information they must learn in one day.
I decided to start a conversation in the class, “Have you all decided you career paths yet?” a student named Rachel started speaking, “Well, I have decided to be some sort of scientist that experiments on fish. My mom and dad are also scientist for fishes so I kind of want to be a part of it.” After listening, I responded “That is an interesting career. I am just imagining now how delicate you must be to operate a fish and be knowledgeable enough to correctly describe its behavior.” Other students, however, either shook their heads or did not respond at all. I noticed a handful of students did the latter, so I gave them a life lesson based on my experience, “Fun fact: I was planning to become an author before thinking about becoming a math teacher. For me, writing is therapeutic. But what I lacked the most is motivation. Then, during my High School years, I have become invested in the human mind and what it can do, so I dreamed about becoming a psychologist. It turns out I do not like this line of work as well since I do not think I have the mental capability to do it. In the end, I decided to become a Mathematics teacher. I thought about my past, of how I love helping people with their math problems, how I loved role-playing as a teacher, how I love challenges, and so on. In other words, think about what makes you happy, what gives you nostalgia, and what gives you motivation.” After saying such motivational speech, the school bell rings. I observe my students as they walk out the classroom. I see spark in their eyes which tells me they found motivation to seek their life careers with a new kind of perspective.
Analytical:
As I sit on my chair and read through my regression section, I cannot help but think that my memories faded as years goes on of me living here in Canada. As I observe, I remember more of what happened in my 7th grade, which is approximately seven years ago, compared to my memories for the past three years. I could tell from my regression that I am happier back in Philippines than I do now in Canada. I definitely have more meaningful friendships with my classmates despite the classroom not being as neat as it is in Canada. It turns out that I am not the only one feeling lonely as an immigrant. An article by Stick et al. (2021) explores the “disruption to their social networks during migration and encounter barriers establishing new relationships and connections, leaving them vulnerable to social and emotional loneliness” (para. 1). Based on the 2018 report, “immigrants reported an average loneliness score of 1.49, higher than that of the Canadian born (1.36)” (para. 7). It is safe to say that immigrants like me have been attached to my country of origin, which is why shifting is always difficult for us. Even though I have accustomed to the Canadian lifestyle, it does not necessarily mean that I would feel less lonely. Furthermore, another reason that I, as an immigrant, feel “out of place” is because of what happened to my mother when she was an “Overseas Filipino Worker” (OFW). In DiAngelo and Sensoy’s book (2017), they talked about the “common classist beliefs” such as Immigrants stealing jobs (p. 196). My mom almost got deported back in the Philippines because White people complained about immigrants being hired the most in minimum wage jobs such as fast-food chains. This phenomenon has led me to feel some sort of unwelcomeness in Canada.
Analyzing my regression section, I find out that I have memory loss. I try my hardest to remember what happened from grades 8th to 12th, but I could only remember little to nothing. As I stated, after all these years of living in Canada, I still feel lonely. My mental health deteriorated over the past few years which caused the memory loss. Pendick (2020) mentions that the reasons of one’s forgetfulness are depression, stress, and anxiety (paras. 6-7). One of the main reasons I feel so stressed and/or depressed is the idea of leaving my pets behind. I have my cats since I was in 4th grade and my dog in 7th grade. For more context, my sister stayed in the Philippines for a while because her papers needed more processing. She mentioned that Sasha will not eat and would always cry. In a medical perspective, this is a form of “Separation Anxiety” according to ASPCA (n.d.). Separation anxiety occurs when “dogs become upset because of separation from their guardians, the people they [are] attached to” (ASPCA, n.d.). Whenever I think about them today, I feel terrible that I left them behind for a “better life” in Canada.
Authoring this paper has given me a new perspective. I have come into a conclusion that I may have this memory loss because I try so hard to always think positive. I figured I may still have that “class president” aura lingering in me since I try to act tough when things get rough. I admit, I have some fun memories here in Canada, but they are always overshadowed by my past experiences. There is a saying that says to “embrace the dark side,” and this is what I will do. As a future educator, connecting with students is one of the key elements of trust and safety. When trusting somebody, we are being vulnerable around them. I will not be able to connect with my future students if I cannot connect with myself. Accepting myself, my past and my present, is one of my goals to be able to fully understand myself. I feel like I connect to my teachers the most when they relate to me in a way that they are being realistic when they say “I know. I struggled too.” In the future, I wish to aspire my students with my story and determination to live happily even when the world is against you. Lastly, as one of my past teachers said before they left is to “never settle” because life goes on. If you settle, you will not able to progress in life.
REFERENCES:
ASPCA. (n.d.). Separation Anxiety. ASPCA. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/common-dog-behavior-issues/separation-anxiety#:~:text=Separation%20anxiety%20is%20triggered%20when,points%20like%20windows%20and%20doors.
Pendick, D. (2020, April 18). 7 common causes of forgetfulness. Harvard Health Publishing. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/7-common-causes-of-forgetfulness-201302225923
Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. J. (2017). Is everyone really equal?: An introduction to key concepts in social justice education (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press.
Stick, M., Hou, F., & Kaida, L. (2021, July 28). Self-reported loneliness among recent immigrants, long-term immigrants, and Canadian-born individuals. Statistics Canada. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2021007/article/00001-eng.htm