It was a weekend break from my lecturer duties.
I was in a nearby bakery, eating my comfort bread and sipping cold Pepsi Blue, when one of my students suddenly approached me. Feeling close, he asked for a libre.
Slightly annoyed but I obliged. What’s twenty pesos? Choose kindness anyway, right?
This wasn’t a fancy university. No air-conditioned rooms or ergonomic chairs. Just an old state school. Bare walls, wooden desks, and students who showed up anyway.
Back in class, the same student was lively and loud. He recited confidently, made jokes from the back row, and sometimes acted like a class clown. The kind you’d call bibo. Sometimes charming, most of the time distracting.
Fast forward to one afternoon. I was heading home when the same student saw me and asked where I was going. I answered politely. Again, choose kindness, right?
He said he was headed the same way and asked if he could hitch a ride. I let him in, though admittedly still a bit annoyed.
As we passed by a construction site, he asked to get off. I stayed for a few seconds to see where he was going.
Turns out, that same noisy student, the joker of the class, worked there at night. A 17-year-old construction worker.
Admirable how, at such a young age, he carried not just the weight of hollow blocks but the weight of something heavier.
Maybe that’s where his energy in class came from. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was just trying to stay afloat.
I grew curious about him after that.
He was a boy scout, active in volunteer work, and often defended classmates who were being picked on.
He wasn’t just a class clown. He was someone carrying too much and still finding ways to make others laugh.
That day humbled me.
Back in college, I knew a lot of privileged students. It was a school for the elite after all, with a few exceptions like myself.
This was different. This was new to me.
It reminded me why I teach. Why I choose to give back.
Ultimately, we all carry weights the world doesn’t see.
So don’t judge a jester by its makeup.