Back When We Were Free

It is now about 19 years since I left high school. Back in the day, we were carefree, careless and cared less about the years ahead. The four walls of SM La Salle PJ demarcated the sandbox we played in. Lessons were taught by teachers, friends, detention classes and caning. Most lessons -caught through the relationships built (or dissolved) and the mistakes made.

School groomed us for the real world. The real world: where trials are more than a term paper to be graded. In the real world, choices have consequences. Good decisions reap maturity and bad decisions bring about opportunities for change and learning. Decisions alter the course of our lives and school was a full-dressed rehearsal to practise decision-making.

Although imparting education is the mission of schools, inculcating 'learning' ought to be school's ultimate focus. Students should be taught to love learning, like it was a bar of chocolate with an unforgettable taste. It isn't education that leads to wisdom and maturity, but learning.

Now 19 years later, I find myself a student once again. A student of life. The subjects have expanded. The lessons are huge and exciting. The mistakes graver. But the fulfillment of learning and growing and wisening up, is abounding.