My father was a teacher. My mother was a teacher, too. And the three aunts I was closest to were all teachers. It seems safe to say teaching runs in my blood.
I finished my management in education degree when I was 19 years old. Immediately after, I began teaching high school at St. Theresa’s College (STC), Cebu City.
Back then, practically all of Cebu’s elite families sent their daughters to STC for a high school education. My superiors were Belgian nuns, stern but gentle. My students came to school dressed in well-pressed, starched and fragrant uniforms and ferried by flashy cars.
I spent seven self-fulfilling and pleasant years at STC.
But I had to resign from the school. I got married and, with a teacher’s eligibility certificate, I accepted a permanent position in a public elementary school.
The new place was far different from my former school. Unclean and sweaty children crowded the classroom, many without pencils or textbooks.
But I did not lose the dedication and understanding of a teacher. I was, in fact, challenged and I learned to love the underprivileged children. I would like to think they loved me in return.
I spent more years as a college teacher. After earning a master’s degree in education, I taught English and Filipino at Cebu Institute of Technology University (Citu).
As I was also working full-time in the provincial governor’s office, I was only a part-time evening instructor. At times, I was assigned subjects foreign to me like land reform, taxation and basic accounting. The challenges made me more versatile and broadened my knowledge.
At Citu, I taught in practically all departments—engineering, nursing, education, business management, because English and Filipino were basic academic subjects.
I have many former students who are now nurses in the United States, engineers in Saudi Arabia and businesswomen in other parts of the world.
A rare opportunity was to teach the local language to US Army officers and men during the Vietnam War.
They were stationed at Lapu-Lapu Air Force Base, Cebu. They had to take the class to be able to understand and talk in the local language. It was a huge task for me but also for my students, who did not know a word of Cebuano.
But, by a happy coincidence, I was among those trained by the US Peace Corps in local language teaching years before. I wrote a pocketbook, “Cebuano Made Easy,” which made it easier for my American students to learn to speak Cebuano.
I have retired as a provincial administrator but remain a consultant at the Cebu provincial capitol. My boss was my first-year high school student at STC. When her classmates visit her every now and then, I am overjoyed to see my pupils after more than 50 years.
I am particularly proud of an STC student who became a consul to the Czech Republic and a Citu engineering graduate who became a priest and is now head of Franciscan missionaries in Brazil.
But I am equally blessed to see Marietto, my third-grade pupil in a poor barangay elementary school, who is now a jeepney driver and who still remembers me as his Ma’am.
I never regretted having been a teacher most of my life. By teaching, I continued to learn. By teaching, I became a more hardworking and more understanding person.
American historian Henry Adams, who thought highly of teachers, wrote: “A teacher affects eternity, he can never tell when his influence stops.”
Teachers should proudly proclaim: “We influence the world. We teach.”
The author currently works at the Office of the Vice Governor in Cebu City.