I have been a student for twenty years and a teacher for a year and these are my observations of the then and now in the classroom. The then is about my experience when I was the student and the now is about my experience when I was the teacher. This post does not intend to offend anyone.

Disclaimer: These observations are personal and  based on my own experience as a student and a teacher. This does not necessarily apply to every student, every parent and every school.

1. Checking assignments

Assignments were assignments then. No matter how many pages of a book we had to copy, we didn't complain because somehow, we trusted the teacher that it's part of the learning process and we needed to do these things because it's how we would learn.
I was shocked when I became a teacher because an average of 40% of the class never bothered to make their assignments. When I called their attention and told them that they scored zero for failing to make their assignment, they replied with, "Okay lang yan madam." (It's okay madam)


2. Deadline of outputs

I remember a certain classmate, back when I was in first year high school, who failed to submit her project on time. She succeeded in submitting it on the same day but not during the subject period of the teacher. The teacher found out that she slipped her project on the stack of the ones the teacher collected. She was reprimanded for it.

When I became a teacher, at least a quarter to half of the total number of students in a classroom don't care when the deadline is, nor did they bother to submit. They would even ask me if they could submit later, or tomorrow, or even a week later!


3. Checking of outputs

When I was a student, every given activity must be finished within the period of the subject. The teacher would then collect the outputs before she would leave the classroom. Since collection of projects or outputs were not difficult and students did comply, checking would be no problem.

When I became a teacher, students failed to submit outputs that are up to the standards. An average of 25% would not bother to submit, 50% would submit with a just-for-compliance output quality, while only about 25% would submit on time and with satisfactory quality.


Checking outputs had been taxing because I would have to trace the students who didn't submit theirs and ask them one by one the reason why. The situation would then become reversed. The student would end up being the one to decide the time when he or she would pass the requirement (at his or her leisure).