By teaching we learn

Oct. 5 is World Teachers’ Day. As the name of the occasion suggests, it is a special day for remembering teachers, educators, professors, mentors, coaches, or whatever and however one may call these special people in our lives. At some point in our personal history, it is not difficult to call to mind the teacher(s) who shifted our paradigms about ourselves and changed us for the better—through their encouragement, their belief in our potentials, their unique approaches to discipline.

Oct. 5 also happens to be my 23rd birthday. And what a coincidence it is that at 23, I will be celebrating my second year as a teacher in my university. To be a teacher so early in my career and at such a tender age has been keeping me on my toes throughout my professional life thus far. Nothing has prepared me for the adventure that is teaching and all its ups and downs. It is a profession that surpasses the definition of a job, or even a career. It has actually become a calling.

World Teachers’ Day was instituted for the purpose of empowering and honoring our teachers. This tradition has been marked for quite some time now, with the first World Teachers’ Day celebrated on Oct. 5, 1994. Not only are teachers remembered on this day, the role that they play in developing communities and improving people’s lives is also acknowledged. As Unesco (or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) stated during last year’s celebration, teachers are investments for the future—whether the future of a child, a nation, or, ultimately, the global community.

Being a teacher myself, I am well aware of the influence of my position on my students. But what surprises me is the magnitude of that influence and the depth of my job description. Maybe it is partly because, in undergraduate school, I was trained for a profession entirely different from teaching: I was actually learning to become an accountant. And while I do enjoy being both a teacher and an accountant, the former requires a special kind of gusto even if the latter earns me more dough.

Taking the challenge to teach was a result of giving myself a break before diving headfirst into a working life. After hurdling the board exam for certified public accountants, I decided to take some time off to recharge before becoming part of the statistics on young professionals. It was not some esoteric break requiring transatlantic travel or involving meditation in Buddhist temples or imbibing native culture. It was simply a time for me to relax, to be without a daily schedule or agenda. But around the opening of the school year, I was invited by a former professor of mine to be part of the faculty—and the rest, as they say, is history. It was a stint originally intended to last only for a semester before I rode the corporate waves. But it went beyond that period.

As an instructor in a university, I was afforded academic freedom. I had the flexibility that probably does not apply to the teaching methods in the primary and secondary levels. Despite that I still found myself exhausted, and I can only salute the teachers of the primary and secondary levels who have longer interactions with students and therefore have stricter standards of instruction to follow.

I have learned that being the commander of a classroom also means dividing your heart and soul among your students. Your job as a teacher does not end at the ring of the bell. You may have to concern yourself with your students’ problems and defend them when no else would. You will have to anticipate problems on a daily basis, and respond to these quickly. At times you make decisions within a very short time frame. All these while under the watchful gaze of your students, who look up to you as their role model and leader.

It didn’t take long before I realized that most of the people I look up to were once teachers themselves, from Steve Wozniak and Barack Obama to J.K. Rowling and Hugh Jackman. Earlier this year, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle delivered a remarkable homily during an institutional Mass celebrated for our school. He said that we teachers are treading holy ground as Jesus Himself was called a teacher by His disciples. And so were other prophets and spiritual leaders in history who changed the way mortals viewed divinity.

Truly, teaching is nothing short of a divine calling.

Celebrating World Teachers’ Day does not only equate to remembering their heroic sacrifices and extraordinary leadership; It also entails protecting the welfare of our educators, most especially those in early education and in the public sector.

There has been a persistent call to increase the wages of teachers in public schools and state universities. The retrenchment of thousands of teachers as a result of the implementation of K-to-12 is a real fear among the ranks. The lack of resources, such as textbooks and teaching materials, takes its toll on teachers, some of whom would shell out their own money to make up for what is missing in the classroom. Teaching foreign students online has become a lucrative career, possibly steering teachers away from Filipino classrooms and locking them in front of computer screens.

Truly, teachers lay the foundation upon which our society stands. To neglect this foundation is to derail the growth that should have been ours and cloud a future we should have translated to the present. On my 23rd birthday and in my second year of teaching, my wish is this:  Docendo discimus. By teaching we learn. And how long, unpredictable, yet fulfilling that learning process will be.

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