LAST week, I shared my enriching experience with aspiring licensed professional teachers at the review center Mindgym Philippines these past few months. I get repeatedly asked by my family, my classmates and friends: Why do I do this to myself? The usual question is “Don’t I already have enough to do?” This week, let me share in more detail the “why” of my pursuit of education.
I chose to title this column series after this Teachers’ Day song because I think it fits my source
of comfort growing up. As a child, I was raised to put a smile in teachers’ eyes. Maybe because I was raised by my grandaunt, who was a teacher before she moved to a relative’s business. I remember she would teach me to bring two roses, from my assigned plant in the house, to give to my teachers in kindergarten. It came to a point when it became automatic. I remember when I had four Dunkin Donuts Munchkins in my lunch box, I would eat two and give one each to my advisers.
My first experience with teachers was in Chiang Kai Shek at age four. I had most fun with paints and recitations. I was picked up by my nanny, Manang Eyang, every day. When I got a star, she would buy me Chippy. When I got home, my sa-ko po (grandaunt) would tutor me. On that first year of matriculation, I managed to receive two gold certificates, one for art and one for academics. I have kept the certificates and more than that, I even still have the envelope where the certificates were placed.
Throughout my grade school years in a traditional school, I came across teachers who had varying degrees of affinity and impact on me. I can say the teachers who had the biggest effect on me were those who stretched my abilities and allowed me to be my own person.
My second-grade teacher Ms. Liu rewarded me with Care Bears when I got the highest scores in class and gave me a lot of class chores. Ms. Rafael gave me my first chance to be class president. Mrs. Contreras even invited me to her house just to train me in my first declamation contest in third grade.
Ms. Bautista and Mrs. Yao gave me opportunities to perform and organize programs. Ms. Ting and Mrs. Benito, my Grade 5 teachers, pushed me to get the highest average I could get in grade school which was a 96 for my final average. And of course Ms. Haw and Mrs. Manrique, my grade school graduation advisers, guided me to pursue every academic and extracurricular activity that led me to top our graduating class.
My few months in New York further solidified my gratitude to teachers. Mrs. Hicks, Mrs. A, Mr. Fleiser, among others, spent after-school hours on my remedial classes given that I entered the second half of the school year. By the end of the year, Mr. Fleiser pushed me to take AP classes. Mrs. Hicks acknowledged me as Outstanding in Math. She even gave me a chance to have my own official tutee.
Poveda is truly providence for me. From Mrs. Winnie Cometa, Senora Villanueva, Mrs. Ang, Mr. Cedre, Ms. Java and so many more great teachers, I can say they are my “gate-openers.” I entered the school “in protest”: from my parents’ decision to cut my American dream, I ended up being grateful for the multiple opportunities beyond academics. I realize today how important curriculum is. The Individual Work (IW) system’s constructive approach to subject teaching translated to developing my leadership, and collaborative and creative skills.
This open approach further extended to me trying out theater, heading the World Youth Day for our school, and even establishing the first Acolyte Ministry in School. Even now, Ms. Villavicencio continues to guide me. She gave me the idea and the chance to finish my second major in Education.
Why do I share all these? I share these to express my utmost gratitude to people who were not related to me by blood but who nonetheless put their hearts to know me. They have made me better than even what my own family expected of me. Maybe it was them being my “caring metrics” that has motivated me to do my part in hopefully also “brightening” someone’s future. This is the first part of my “why.”
The deeper sense of my why lies in this simple story of my nanny, Manang Eyang. She never graduated from grade school. She lived within very simple means. Yet, she managed to build a house for her parents and help produce four graduates in her family. Most became teachers; one became a lawyer. Every so often, when I was already working, she would go to me and ask me if I had any giveaways like umbrellas. She would give these to motivate the kids in her neighborhood in San Quintin, Pangasinan, to study. When she became sick and eventually passed, I became friends with her relatives. One of them was Ching, a public-school teacher in high school. She helped me immortalize my nanny’s unconditional love and patience to kids into a small play center in their barangay. She even brought my family to see the classroom where she teaches in one of our annual visits to San Quintin. It makes me think. If my spinster nanny, who had so little, gave so much to people, I knew in my heart, as the closest thing she had for a daughter, she would want me to continue this path of education.
What, when or how?… I am yet uncertain. But for whom, I am certain it is for all my “teachers” in life.