No classes!

Those two words are always welcome news for students and, occasionally, for faculty, but for school administrators the feelings are decidedly mixed.

The bottom line is that we already have too many official holidays in the Philippines without the burden of additional school holidays being declared much too easily, exemplified by the “creeping” holidays around the Apec summit in November. Initially, two days were declared school holidays for the entire Metro Manila, then it became four, and now it’s complete nonworking holidays.

Too many holidays mean teachers having to cram lectures and rushing through lessons. Students’ projects also get rushed, made mediocre because of less mentoring involved and their own rushing to finish up. But there are teachers who will call for makeup classes, usually on a Saturday, so the rejoicing over a holiday becomes premature.

I should mention, too, that when offices are suspended, it means the processing of vital documents—and in schools, that’s just about every imaginable piece of paper because everything is so important—is delayed.

The Apec holidays were declared supposedly to avoid traffic jams, given all the dignitaries from the Apec member-countries coming to Manila. But the meeting is just in Manila, and I would presume the delegates will be billeted near the conference venue. So I wonder why we need a metro-wide holiday. Might it be a fear of student protest actions? I’m sure there will be such mass actions, but these will probably be small even if classes had not been suspended. Many of our students don’t even know what “Apec” means, and what the meeting is about.

Virtual and human advisers

Typhoons (and, occasionally, the habagat or west monsoon) are the other main reason we have sudden holidays. Whenever there are strong rains at night, I anticipate waking up the next day to my cell phone filled with text messages from faculty and student leaders asking: “Classes?”

I have a full complement of “advisers” on typhoons including tropicalstormrisk.com (which sends out periodic bulletins for your region, once you sign up), an app called iTyphoon from the Nueva Caceres Technology Solutions, the website of Accuweather (which provides an hour-by-hour forecast) and, most importantly, the Department of Science and Technology’s Project NOAH (Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards), which is based in the University of the Philippines Diliman.

What often happens is that these advisers—virtual or human—will predict the rains subsiding during the day, sometimes even sunny weather in a few hours. Yet, I will have no choice because local governments would have suspended classes—creeping-holiday style again, starting with elementary and high schools, then extended to all levels.

There’s a bandwagon effect here, starting with one or two local governments, and the rationale is simple: If you don’t suspend classes and others do, and a rain-connected accident happens to a student, you’ll get an uproar: “See, the other mayors had enough sense to suspend classes. Why didn’t our mayor?”

I’m actually a “fretter,” or someone who overreacts when it comes to risks and dangers. I worry all the time about students wading in floodwaters and getting leptospirosis or some other water-borne disease, or falling into an uncovered manhole.

I agree we cannot gamble when it comes to student welfare, but I still feel we’re too quick to suspend classes, especially because quite often, the strong night rains subside the next day.

Keep calm, carry on

Even after suspending classes, I have to look into whether offices and calendared events should be suspended. Here’s an example: Two weeks ago when classes were suspended, I looked at my schedule and saw that one of the scheduled activities for the day was a groundbreaking ceremony for the fraternity UP Epsilon Chi, which was donating a fitness center to Molave dormitory. It was the first donation of its kind in UP Diliman’s “Balik Dorm” campaign.

There was a flurry of texts to check if we would push through, and the fratmen said, yes, let’s have the groundbreaking. I showed up amid a drizzle, elated that there was a crowd of fratmen, old and young, and their families. An older member told me this was serious business and they weren’t going to let a little rain dampen their enthusiasm.

Keep calm, carry on. Another one told me: “In our day, classes would push through even with strong rains and we’d wade to school, the waters up to our knees.”

What really struck me was one reader writing me and decrying the tendency to suspend classes even with mild rains. He wanted to know: What message are we giving our young people with these unwarranted holidays? Doesn’t this “spoil” them into taking the easy way out, avoiding dangers and difficulties?

A class suspension does not automatically mean that offices close down, and local governments tend to be silent. The political sensitivities are obviously stronger when students are involved, but we can’t gamble either on the welfare of teachers and staff. So when UP Diliman sends out its text blasts saying that offices will remain open, we add that employees unable to get to work because of floods will be excused. I leave it to supervisors to determine how to check if there are indeed floods.

Quite often, I have UP Diliman staff who will, on their own, ask to keep their offices open even when there’s a strong typhoon. I’ve mentioned this anecdote in a previous column but it’s worthwhile repeating. A few weeks back when classes and work were suspended because of heavy rains, I actually had several offices seeking permission to keep working. One was the Office of the University Registrar, which pointed out that there were many parents and students who had come from out of town for advance registration and we could not keep them waiting. The other was the Diliman Legal Office, which had a workshop scheduled and wanted to push through with it.

Incidents like that, as well as stories of students who will call each other to meet and plan a class project even with the rains, keep me hopeful that we aren’t quite addicted yet to holidays.

Info from the ‘kapitana’

We need to be able to assess the risks involved according to weather forecasts, which have become highly accurate in recent years and are linked to disaster preparedness teams at the barangay level. I fret more about the situation within UP Diliman and check with Isabelita Gravides, the energetic barangay kapitana who’s up at the crack of dawn and will tell me if there are floods in the communities on campus.

One time I got to the barangay office and found that the kapitana had gone off on her rounds. But the people “womanning” the office—this was something like 6:30 a.m.—were able to assure me that there were no flooded areas but, yes, a tree had fallen on a certain street.

City and municipal governments should tap into such information and be more selective about suspending classes. In fact, consider this: Suspending classes might actually mean the more adventurous students going out into the streets and courting more risks, defeating the purpose of the class suspension.

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