Professor Justice's Secret Files

Leaving

For several months, I have been rehearsing in my mind what I would write in my resignation letter. The fact of resigning got me excited.

I was able to save enough money to sustain me for a whole year without work while I pursue my other interests in life. This included spending more time with my parents. At the same time, I have been wondering if I overstretched myself during my years of teaching. I was physically sick. Doctors and people who cared about me advised me to take a rest.

It was time to take a rest.

I am proud for the things that happened. However, I am fully aware that I have done things that were against school policies and, taken together, were enough to cause my dismissal as an employee. Labor law allows the dismissal of a worker for "serious misconduct" or "willful disobedience" of lawful orders.

I did not commit any criminal act. I simply did more than what I was supposed to. I've done things that, while they are not considered illegal, were against the legitimate concerns of the university. I could have kept them all a secret, but I am writing them now because–while I am happy about them–I also am aware that I've done things that can be considered as gross insubordination. I took so many risks, and it affected my own health.

Nevertheless, when I applied for clearance, it was certified that I was cleared of any responsibility or liability because I had none. I was free to go. I did not cause any problem to the university. In fact, a lot of my activities were posted online. They could be publicly viewed. I was doing almost everything out in the open. I did not hide. If any person found anything that I was doing wrong, they could have easily noticed it.

As far as the students are concerned, at least I know all of them were happy. If they tell me their parents did not approve of an activity, I simply asked them to back out. I personally talked to parents when they ask or it was my duty to talk to them. I visited some students in their houses. Once, I visited a student to attend her father's wake.

I also experienced having a student die before the final exams. She died of dengue. I computed her grades and she still passed. There was one professor, however, who insisted that he would not want to compute her grades because she's already dead. That professor only exercised his academic freedom, and because of that the dead student was marked as failed. Therefore, her family could not process her diploma.

I've done things because I believed I was helping create a future that I wish to happen not just for me, but also for my students. I don't want a future where I am alone. This is why they also need to succeed.

I could not highly recommend that another teacher should also do whatever I did because I know it is exhausting. Although I am proud and it still thrills me to look back at those memories, there are times I feel haunted by the pressures I went through. If ever I would go back to teaching, perhaps I would not exhaust myself too much the way I did.

As for the students I liked, those I had a crush on, I am glad I did not violate the trust they have for me. I am glad I did not violate my moral scruples as teacher. I did even have to cheat their grades because all of them deserved either a high or a simple passing grade. I did not have any romantic relationship with them. In fact, what I have written now in this story are things I only wrote a year after I resigned.

Anyway, I know my students would graduate. They would become professionals. Some of them might even be my colleagues. This is why I hoped I treated them well. In the future, we can be co-workers or simply friends.

When we look back at the past, I hope we would be happy. Since we could not change anything about it, I hope they would serve us as lessons that would make us a better person. But whether there are lessons or not, we can always look back to be entertained.