Mel M. Garcia

      “The world is riding in a bullet train of changing perspectives.”

         This is what I had to say with the broken voice expressing such gloom and sadness about the occurrences in this society today. Changes never frightened me not until I observed how deteriorating the mental health statuses of some students with regards to the stress brought by the overload of school works to them.

         Deadlines. Deadly. Yes, deadly deadlines—rotating around the 24-hour clock, which forced them to skip meals and sleep and even rest. Good thing, students never forget to keep breathing whenever assignments, projects, role plays and examinations pile up and up for them. Though we had to admit, a lot of students, mostly adolescents had thought of committing suicide just because of the tiredness and exhaustion—which literally slowly make them just quit everything.

         This was not so new to us. In fact, we are all aware with the above-mentioned school system in the Philippines which was brought by the changing community—with the technology being higher than it used to be, the fading goodness in attitude and the increasing audience of judgmental and hypocrite humans—which were all no good.

         Instead of students killing themselves whenever they got to come up short in attaining the expectations of others for them, why not set goals for themselves in accordance to their skills and capabilities? But only this could be possible if the society learns to seal their lips and be more supportive even with the littlest things being done by every individual. Perhaps, the world could be as colorful as a rainbow.

         The world is constantly changing and it changes lightning fast. But as teachers or students, generally as humans, let’s all be independent and empower ourselves—never ride in others’ changes, be the change.