NOTHING makes me feel extinct like a dinosaur than watching parents allow their kids make a ruckus in public because they are just being themselves -- kids. My mind goes on an automatic re-run of the terse looks we got from the adult companions that would make us focus on the single wish that trip back home be a very, very long one because with that look comes the message: bantay ra ka pag-abot sa balay. These days I see kids wail like banshees the moment they are separated from smartphones, turn coffee shops into playgrounds or fill airplanes and buses with loud noise coming from gadgets. So many times have I seen kids cut in on lines, bump a person without apologizing or being helped by a strangernary a thank you. Whatever happened to GMRC?
I’m sure a millennial will get lost with the acronym GMRC which stands for Good Manners and Right Conduct. In elementary (or basic ed., as it is called now) GMRC was taught to enhance civility which was supposed to start at home. Students were taught to say “thank you” and to return every thank you with “welcome.” Then there was “please” for every request or favor that one asks. Of course, there’s “good morning/afternoon/evening/night” and the inflection that one uses to make it sound as merry as it should. Boys were taught to offer to seat to girls and not to seat until a girl was properly seated. As for seating, everyone was supposed to sit straight and not slouch nor let the arms or elbows rest on the table, etc. Girls were taught to keep their legs together and cross it at the ankles and not at the knees. I remember being taught in elementary how to sit properly to lessen wrinkling my pleated school uniform lest it look like it just got out of the dryer.
Then there was politeness of not talking to strangers unless being addressed to or only when introduced by common friends. What’s more polite was introducing yourself or saying your name before you ask someone a question longer than what’s-the-time or where-is-what.
Of course, there was shouting. No one was supposed to shout unless hell was breaking loose or retrogressing to primate origins.
Education secretary Leonor Briones has implied bringing back GMRC in the already crammed K to 12 curriculum and probably this will bring civility back. Socioemotional skills were deemed as important as basic reading and numeracy skills and this was expressed in a recent World Bank report that saw the need for educational report about poverty in the country. As an adage goes: Manners maketh man or woman.