I come from a "never-heard-of high school in Cielito." My alma mater does not have a Science High surname; thus, I was taught by the Secondary Education Develoment Program or merely SEDP. I never had a science lab classes, but I did try to experiments within the same four-corners of the room with some improvised lab apparatuses. Mind you, my alma mater did exist in some science investigative project and we bagged honors judging from the fact that we are lacking of lab apparatuses and equipments. In my four-year in high school I also didn't had a computer subject. We do have computers but only three or so, and exclusively only to faculty members, school and club officers for school purposes. But I did learned through experience which my school has awaken me, that not all things can be learn in the four-corners of the classroom, that experience is great teacher behind its word; exploring and searching for the things that my school is incapable to teach are one of the best thing you could do to annihilate the mediocrity.
In some little ways through experience I/we create a school environment that is competitive and aggressive, where free-thinking is fostered, where mediocrity has definitely no place. That's why when somebody asks me the question "Saang high school ka galing?" I never end my reply with "lang."
I see no definite reason why I should.
To make use one's high school background as an excuse for mediocrity, I think, is pathetic. Academic excellence may be partially attributed to the curriculum, but a bigger of chunk of it really depends upon the student - he or she should find the threshold to what learning really is. I refuse to accept that just because my school failed to introduce me to computer subject, science lab class, calculus or molecular biology, I could no longer learn beyond the things that they did teach me. Mind you, there are things I would have not known and experiences I would have not had in a science or an exclusive high school.
Besides, why would I deprive myself in front of other people? So that some airhead obsessed with his or her alma mater could show-off his Encyclopedic brain or her Newtonian mind and kick my Cielitian ass? Sorry, I'd rather be the butt-kicker out to prove that underestimating an opponent is one effing lethal mistake. (And please, wipe that smirk off your face when asking the follow-up question "Huh? Saan yung school mo?")
The more irritating instance though are people who make use the line "Galing LANG akong (insert the name of school here)..." as a prelude to "...tsamba kaya ako naging scholar." or "...nagkataon lang na alam ko ang solution diyan sa homework natin." Enough with your false modesty crap. If you are exceptional, then show that you indeed are; I would not give a damn where you had come from.
This is not about insecurity or anything. But about self-esteem.
Let us be realistic, secondary education uses up a single line in our résumés. Cliché alert, it is not the school, but the student itself.
I am from a "never-heard-of high school in Cielito," and I am proud of -- not despite -- that fact.
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