It’s all in God’s blueprint

(EDITOR’S Note: We would love to receive original personal essays from all kinds of teachers out there about why they teach, for possible publication in this column. We want to encourage more teachers to write, especially those who are tasked to teach writing. Essays must be written in English and must be accompanied by a solo photo of the writer. Each submission should not exceed 5,000 characters. We reserve the right to edit. E-mail your essay to [email protected] or send on a CD to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1098 Chino Roces Avenue corner Yague and Mascardo Streets, Makati City 1204, attention: Learning.)

ANATALIO teaches the Bench-sponsored serial story to her fifth grade students.

Mapping out a blueprint for one’s life gives a person focus and purpose. However, sometimes our plans are not God’s plans. I know this now because I’ve tried to walk in another direction, but God kept directing and redirecting me to the path He has mapped out for me.

Teaching was not at all my dream profession. I had wanted to be a doctor like my father, who served as San Juan’s municipal health officer for more than 30 years. He was my inspiration. So I took up BS Biological Sciences at the University of the Philippines.

In the summer of 1984, shortly after graduation, I made plans to join some friends for a little R&R at the once-famous Matabungkay Beach Resort in  Batangas. However, my nanay wouldn’t allow me to go if I  didn’t first see the directress of St. John’s  Academy (SJA), my elementary and high school alma mater, which was in need of additional teachers for the  coming school year.

To please my mother and get her permission for the overnight trip, I went— unprepared, reluctant and without even a resumé.

And so it was that, by June, my  former teachers had become my  colleagues, not to mention my models for standards of excellence in teaching. I didn’t even know how to write a lesson plan! My  first principal, Cecile Perez, gave me a crash course in lesson planning and her full support.

I kept the teaching job not for long because I still wanted to pursue my dream of becoming a doctor and I had qualified for a scholarship to the College of Medicine at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila. After two years as a medical student there, I got sidetracked again. I fell in love and married a classmate. Though my husband wanted me to continue with my medical studies, I opted to be the breadwinner so he could focus on his.

I went back to teaching at SJA. Each day that I came in contact with my pupils, I evolved into a more confident and dedicated teacher. On top of my regular teaching load, my days were packed with extracurricular assignments—scouting, faculty club presidency, among other things.

As I gained experience, the passion to teach never wavered. There were days that were so fulfilling and days that were so frustrating but, through it all, I came to love teaching. It ceased to be a job that put food on the table. It became what it ought to have been in the first place: A vocation.

On  my  seventh  year teaching, I was appointed officer in charge of the elementary department. No sooner than I expected, I was offered to be the assistant principal, in  tandem  with  my  retiring principal, at a school in  Rodriguez, Rizal. I  became  both an administrator and a  teacher. But I had to quit the job after a year because the long commute took its toll on me and my family.

Wanting to keep busy again, I took a certificate course for a nursing assistantship and later a home caregiver course offered by the Department of Education under its Alternative Learning  System Non-Formal Education program. So unrelated to teaching and yet not quite. I  wasn’t really away from what I did best because I was a tutor on weekdays and a student only on weekends.

Before my caregiving course came to an end, I got invitations to teach full-time again. As I prayed for direction and guidance, I thought that if I got  another call, then I would take it that God wanted me to go back to teaching. True enough, a couple of days later, I got another call at around 9 a.m., this time from a former coteacher who was now teaching at a public elementary school in Pasig City.

Needless to say, I made good on my promise to God. That day, by noon, I was teaching a  class of second graders.

There had been offers for me to teach abroad but, as the divine blueprint would have it, they came in the least opportune time. For instance, when I got a call to teach at an  international school in Indonesia, my  husband had just left to be a United Nations volunteer doctor in Somalia. I couldn’t bear to leave my kids. My youngest was just about 3 years old and my eldest was in junior high. It was the first of many chances to work abroad that I had to forego.

So, why do I teach? Simply because it is in God’s design. I’m not the perfect teacher; neither am I the best. The most I can do and offer Him is to be a good steward of the children He brings to my classroom year after year.

The author is an Inquirer in Education partner teacher who teaches at San Juan Elementary School in San Juan City.