What's in Teaching for me? (WTFM)

To be really honest after I left Davao for De La Salle I have packed some negative feelings like discouragement, frustration, humiliation and there was a time that I hated my so called teaching job.

What's in my head only at that time was to leave and find my own niche.

There was this thinking that I am just wasting my time in a very small and boring corner of the world and that is the University where I was spending that last five years of my life.

I know that all these thoughts were quite irrational and maybe at that time they're just product of my very strong emotion.

But now, when I have nothing to do but remembering my past since I have enough time for recollection. I can say that teaching was indeed one of the noblest profession if not the most demanding one.

The time you've spent in preparing lessons, exams, quizzes and then checking students work and then thinking of better strategies to motivate your students in order for them to learn actually requires not only monetary rewards but as a teacher you must have dedication.

When I was still teaching my life seems so routinary which is what I really don't like about it. My class normally started at seven in the morning and then normally I went home late at night. I almost forgot that I was breathing.

I observed that teachers only have break time when they will re-touch their make-up, check their stockings and see to it that you really look good in the eyes of their students.

In a day, I need to meet three hundred fifty people because I have seven subjects in a day.

Well, my entry into the academic world was just an accident and never been part of my career plan because by profession I was not a teacher. So when I began teaching I have difficulty in making adjustment with a world that I was not really trained on how to play my role but to my great surprised there were also people who graduated with education degree who also do not know what to do.

It's the reason why at first I want to escape after I was hired by the University for one-year and I decided to volunteer in Kazakhstan because at that time I really feel a need a break from a robot life. I find it awkward that I was the youngest among the faculty members and it is hard dealing with old people. At the same time, I realized that teacher must know a lot which I think at 23, I am still a very neophyte professor. I also do not finish any masteral degree which add to my insecurity as a teacher.

Indeed, I have a break! but it seems that wherever I go, teaching was part of the air that I breathed. Even in Kazakhstan, I was asked to teach in Shukan Valihanuv University and we offered a crash course in Social Work. This time it is more difficult because I need to teach first my interpreter before we can give lessons.

There are times, I am convinced that I was meant to be in the teaching career because whether I tried to escape there are many opportunities that calls for me to teach.

My recollection will start when I was working as volunteer teacher at Paginhawaan Drop-In Center where my students were street children. Giving them basic lessons on how to write, count, sing, and dance was the first job that I really fall in love. Until I decided to work as street educator, we bring education to the streets of San Pedro and our school was in the Park. In this job, I discovered so much from the kids and enhance my creativity. It's the happiest period of my life.

I think the most difficult task given to me was when I was teaching Badjao's Mothers Class. My students were mothers of Badjao children who cannot even recognize the existence of Alphabet. It's the primary reason why despite of so many livelihood projects given to them still, this will not alleviate their condition because they do not have basic skills like reading and counting. But who will you blame? Where, I can see everyday that what they eat was just "cassava" and how they understand english alphabet if the words are stranger to them.

But those years with the Badjao and conducting street education were more meaningful to me. Teaching people who honestly do not learn anything and striving to know something was the real essence why teachers exist.

I am sad to know that in the University most of the students were actually not doing their work and they're just contented with cheating. For me, the Badjaos and and street kids were more better than them. Some students who came to the classroom but do not know why they are there. They do not have goals to learn. "Mga Kwanggol!"

But I still love teaching. I love my students although there were times that I hurt them but that it's definitely my expression of love. It is better for me to be honest than to be popular. Some of them hate me or love me but I don't care! It is better for them to be hurt just to learn, I know I will be immortal in their memory. The worst thing that a teacher can be is that her/his students do not appreaciate her/his existence.

I know that for those that I hurt, I give them a life-time legacy that there is someone who will tell straight into their face "what you do is not really good".

I think teachers were here because they are given the task to train which not all people were given the same opportunity. It's the privilege given only to those who hold the red ballpen.

Now, when I heard stories of my former students doing good in their own field, I was inspired, at least my time then was not really wasted. If they will be very successful in their life then I will be more inspired.

At least, I just want to prove to myself that am not wasting my time.

Happy Catholic Teachers Day!