-=(Sagien)=-

Cruel and Unusual

The Philippines is a place where laws and policy are made, but not enforced. At least, not when I was growing up.

Schools do not have to bend to laws that govern how they treat their students as far as punishment goes.

Inside is the account of what I would consider the worst punishment of my life. Worse than John Walley.

P.S. Before you start reading, check out the newest addition to the ISSF stable of blogging superstars. Dirt. Perhaps you've seen his witty comments on this blog before?

In the United States of America, the public school system provides the necessary books for their students for learning. They also provide lockers to keep these books in so you have no excuse to 'forget a book at home'.

Such is not the case in my homeland. One had to purchase one's own books in a private school system in the Philippines. If you went to public school, you'd be lucky if you only had to share a book with two other students.

In addition to having to shell your own cash for your own learning media, you also had to keep all of your books with you at all times. Jansport bookbags were out of the question when you're having to carry 8 or 9 heavily bound tomes with you at all times. This was what I carried all my school supplies, notebooks, books, lunch and everything in when I went to school:

And I was fortunate to have something like that to carry my books around. Most other kids pulled along an equivalent of a cardboard box on casters, adorned in the school's colors.

Anyway, while that in itself might seem like cruel and unusual punishment, that is not what brings this story about.

It is highly frowned upon to disobey the rules and regulations of the school. And when they frown upon a student, they don't send him to detention or suspend him. They make him perform heavy military-type physical excersize.

Before I get into the description of such punishment, let me emphasize the school's dress code.

Students had to wear the school appointed dress shirt(tucked in), khakis, white socks, school ID, and black dress shoes. Sneakers(especially ones with fancy designs like, oh say.. stripes) are not allowed at all. Sneakers will incur heavy military-type physical excersizes.

It was a bad day in sixth grade. I didn't do my homework, I forgot my ID at home, I ran out of writing utensils(lost them all), and I didn't have my Math book. I'm in for some shit.

I sat in one of the many vice principals' office, waiting for my turn to get my reprimand and sentencing. I sat there on the rattan chair in absolute fear as I hear whooshing sounds followed by a resounding whack. Seven of them, I counted. Seven isn't so bad.

I changed my mind when a child about three years younger than I am left the office in tears. Oh boy, I wonder what he did..

He was wearing Air Jordans, white, with the Michael Jordan logo emblazoned on its side, and several stripes. I gulped.

My name gets called and I stood up, shaking. I feebly made my way into the office.

She asked me what I had done to be there.

I told her.

She looks over me through her thick glasses and shook her head as if what she was about to do was unfavorable to her.

She asked me what my math teacher had done to punish me.

I told her that I was made to do 50 pushups and to hold a squat for 15 minutes.

She asked if this was my first offense.

I can't lie. I told her that it wasn't.

She looks out her window to the view that overlooked the quad. The quad consisted of two full sized basketball courts, separated in the middle by a tree in the middle of half a basketball court size pavement.

She tells me to start running around the quad and to not stop until she told me to stop.

It was always summer in the Philippines. It was especially summer at around the time I started running, and it doesn't get better until the sun goes down. The sun won't be going down until well after the school day is over.

It was also a good thing that I obeyed school regulations and was wearing my black leather dress shoes.

I started to run. At first I kept track of the laps. I stopped counting around 20. I kept running with no water, and the heat pounding on my frail 11 year old body. I ran with my dress shirt on, keeping it tucked in, afraid she might add more time to whatever time she had in mind.

After about an hour and a half of running around the two and a half basketball courts, a student comes walking out of the vice principal's office. He stopped my running vision quest.

He informed me that I was to do 50 laps and asked how many I had done.

I told him I lost track.

He goes back to the office to inquire as to what to do next. Meanwhile, I sat down and broke down in tears from sheer exhaustion. Moments later, he comes back out.

He told me that I am to run 50 laps starting now. Then my punishment was over.

I missed 3 class periods while I ran the 50 laps. I ran the first 5 crying like a girl, then ran out of tears, which is just as well considering I was probably on the verge of dehydration.

I have forgotten most of the thoughts that kept me occupied during that run. The only thing that I can remember is the pounding of my regulation leather dress shoes on the hot concrete pavement, wearing down their soles.

Fuck you, Miss Ruiz. I can afford to buy Coca Cola now, how about you?

Posted by sagien at June 24, 2005 12:27 AM