TODAY, June 3, 2019, marks the beginning of school year 2019-2020. Our grade school, high school and college students are again back to school. And while most of them are surely excited to meet their new classmates and teachers, this day makes me miss so much how amazing it was to be a teacher. Yes, I was a teacher for 12 years. I am now away from the academic world but I plan to make a comeback even just on a part time basis in one of the universities here.
Let me share to you my vocation story I wrote a few years back to give you a glimpse of why every cell in my body craves to be back in the classroom.
I have been told countless of times that it is so stupid to make a career out of teaching. It can never make one rich. The second proposition may be true, but the first one is certainly wrong. I had been a “stubborn” teacher for 12 years before I got into consultancy and media.
I was told by friends that I was wasting my talents and that I got great potentials in the corporate world. I was even bluntly told how important money is. While those things may be true, I chose a more fulfilling path.
Yes, I was a teacher. And I still am since consultancy is pretty much teaching too only that it’s not in a conventional set up. Teaching job is not financially rewarding, but my God, it is one great paradise!
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever plan to become a teacher. My father was grooming me to be the best lawyer in the world, I was all set to enter UP to pursue that dream but God’s ways are mysterious. My father was initially so bitter when I didn’t take advantage of my UP scholarship slot to the point of even threatening to disown me. But he eventually respected and supported my decision. I stayed with the Missionary Society of St. Columban for five years.
When I left the society, I lost my sense of direction. I went to Cebu looking for a job. The easiest job I could think of then was teaching. For some reason I felt I was led to such path by some invisible force. I had no teaching experience, yet I was hired in Ateneo de Cebu, a school known for excellence and prestige. Later I became professor in two universities in the country.
Teaching was the greater plan God had for me. But I did not realize it at the start. Unlike some of the teachers who started with so much passion and ended up bitter, teaching was just a daily routine, until slowly I saw the paradise I was led into. I thought I was only teaching the insignificant details of how Magellan ended up dead in some shore in Mactan, but I was actually leading my students to wonder and wander. What was so amazing was that I also changed for the better in the process. My students’ experiences, their erratic behaviors and mischief, their friendships and even their painful life stories taught me lessons in life and living.
Some people look down on teachers, but I was not bothered one bit for I was having the time of my life forming minds and influencing views. I was resolved that whatever little I shared with my students helped them become better and more loving people; men and women for others.
For whatever it’s worth, I was grateful to be part of the lives of my students. It is such a privilege to be given the opportunity to influence lives. That’s why I have been dying to go back to the classroom again even on a part time status.
After all, in my deathbed, it would not really matter anymore what kind of car I was driving or how big my house was.
Kudos to all the teachers for this school year! May you forge a better future one lesson at a time.