What was it like as a high school student in the '50s?

On Jan. 1, 1950, I was in firecracker-tossing and torotot-blowing Manila. There were no hydrogen bombs or China-made firework spectaculars. I had just returned from my first trip to Baguio, was a week short of my 11th birthday, and had just begun my freshman year at Arellano High School.

- WALA LANG DR. JAIME C. LAYA

FRESHIE DAYS The author is an alumnus of Arellano High School.

The school was on Calle Teodora Alonzo, near Azcarraga and Avenida Rizal, a rectangular two-story wood building built around an inner court. One went up a few steps to the lobby. Straight ahead was the grand staircase that doubled back at a landing to the second-floor library. The checkout desk was presided over by the super strict Mrs. Josefa E. Marcos. The rest of the second floor and most of the first floor were classrooms. The partitions of the second-floor rear wing could be pushed back to form the auditorium.

There was sex segregation. The right half of the library was for girls and the left for boys. It was the same in classrooms, the half nearest the door was for girls and the half nearest the windows was for boys. Students were seated by height, and being the smallest, I was always in the first row and therefore got called all the time. Because schools had been closed during much of the Japanese Occupation, just about everyone was older than me.

First-year students had vocational classes in the afternoons. Boys had to take a five-minute walk to what had been a grand house. There, we were introduced to woodworking, metal work, electricity, drawing, and I don’t remember what else. We had to do electrical connections, a metal wall vase, a wooden box, and a portrait drawing. Rosa Rosal, the popular movie star, lived next door. We all rushed to the window when someone whistled, the signal that she was passing by.