"GOOD BYE, SMA!"

The Imprudent Prude from Prudence

Communication technology has never been faster or more accessible than today. Gone were the days of snail mails that took almost a month to reach their final lonesome destinations. Teenagers today have never been burdened by telephones heavier than a two-pound dumb bell. The youngest of the young today have the cell phone in one hand and the face glued to the Internet. They may be communicating…in more ways than one and in whatever reasons for that matter. The world has changed and shrunk immensely because of technology.

It is this same technology also that blew our top this week – our prefect of discipline’s, the student activity coordinator’s and mine. Some imprudent seniors from Section Prudence took incriminating pictures and uploaded them to the Internet all in senseless glory for the world to see. I have been cautioning our students that though the Internet may be as important as man’s discovery of fire, it could also douse us all to cold for simply being insensitive and insensible.

Students should understand that the Internet is for all people of all ages. What pictures they uploaded that to them were saintly glorious may be obscenely absurd to senior netizens. Ours is a case of wrong judgment. We may be partly to blame; however, I would like to believe that our CL teachers have never missed setting good examples for our students. Our computer curriculum explicitly warns them of the dangers of technology too. Could it be that ours is a case far deeper than what the school can fathom?

EDUCATION: CHANGING LIVES

Nurturing Faith, Building Excellence, Developing Service

Four years ago, dear graduates, you barged inside the gates of St. Mary’s Academy without a single knowledge of why you were there…simply but to study. Maybe, it was even your parents’ wishes that you should be with us. They were keenly aware of how important quality education is in your continuous quest of improving your life for the better. They entrusted you to us with all the hope that with Venerable Ignacia’s humility and the Virgin Mother’s fiat, you will someday change your lives and live them according to God’s plan. This is so, and could only be done by nurturing faith, building excellence and developing service – which is actually what the RVM pedagogy is all about.

In Christian Living, you have learned that God is the supreme author of life and that He alone knows what our respective future holds. Mary and Venerable Ignacia knew this well that was why both valiant women lived by God’s will. Their strong faith in God and that God will not forsake His children have led them to set good examples of how life should be lived for the glory of God and for the good of all people. With the opportunities afforded to you in your four years of stay with St. Mary’s Academy, your belief in God has been nurtured more. It is our hope that this fully nurtured faith will lead you more to be living witnesses of the gospel values and thus, change people whose lives you have touched.

It is no doubt that education can be the change agent in everyone’s life. However, this is predicated on quality education that imparts vision. It is the kind of education that teaches the students how to think. St. Mary’s Academy builds excellence among her students mainly through the values of discipline, competence and integrity. A lot of you may have experienced how difficult it is to earn a good grade. You went through lots of pain, but the school has only discipline in her mind. As early as today, you must learn that getting nearer to changing your lives for the better entails self-discipline, above-average competence and uncompromisable integrity. Each of you was honed to be an excellent Ignacian-Marian graduate – well-disciplined, competent and above all, honest in dealing with yourself and others.

Faith and excellence however are all useless if not put into tangible practice. What knowledge you have in your head and what compassion you have in your heart are all for naught if both are not lived as preferential service to the last, the least and the lost. Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the ultimate example of giving. We will never experience the same but at least in little ways, we may serve those in need. You have learned inside the classroom many social realities where opportunity to be of service is demanded. St. Mary’s Academy does not have to prod you to move and act. It should be every Ignacian-Marian student’s instinct to help others in need, and in so doing change all our lives for the better.

Changing lives through education has been everyone’s elusive dream before. Indeed education has always been thought as the sole solution to our country’s pervading problems of moral decay and material poverty. It is important to note though that moral uprightness and material comfort are not the only positive realities that improve lives. Education in St. Mary’s Academy is centered on Christian living and witnessing because we believe that together with moral uprightness and material comfort, spiritual fullness is needed in order for us to fully change ourselves and lead our lives all for the glory of God. Graduates, you have been schooled in an institution that puts premium on both internal and social renewal. Do not ever forget that you are always an Ignacian-Marian graduate, nurturing faith, building excellence and developing service.

The challenge has just begun. Good luck on your journey!