By Andrew P. Agyapas
Licungan Elementary School
“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” I will never forget this quote I read from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk weeks before I enrolled in college. I have never been into movies where divine intervention happened before one makes a quantum jump in life such as making a crucial choice on the proper career to go for. But then it happened to me. Teaching was never in my list of professions to consider even when I was a kid. Yet it seems like the universe and other unworldly entities conspired to lead me to where I really belonged.
The first day I stepped on the teacher education building, I knew it really wasn’t for me. A person who didn’t like kids, a teenager who couldn’t handle their tantrums? I muttered, “How can I be a teacher? So what am I doing here?”
I did not come from a wealthy family so I could wander around in my academic life. I had to be serious in my attempt at getting a college degree. As a Bachelor of Elementary Education student, I forced myself to be serious. From the principles of teaching, to theories and laws associated with elementary level pupils, and then the exhausting practicum or hands-on practice teaching. But all of these are just a little chunk of my memoir.
Then I graduated and passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET), and my journey in my chosen career started. It was with all dexterity and grit that I taught and shared whatever wisdom I had. Classrooms engulfed me with joy and elicited from me overflowing energy due to the smiles and greets of those wonderful creatures, my pupils. Of course it was not all rainbows and butterflies. My utopian world as an educator was actually shuttered by harsh reality.
Years passed. I decided to apply in a public school in our province. There, life wasn’t easy. The learning environment, the physical condition of the place, the capabilities (especially financial) of learners and parents, accessibility of the school to their homes… I found myself caught in a hornet’s nest. It wasn’t really a problem of adjusting myself in a new-found world but the whole world of teaching troubled me a lot. There were times when I would use my own allowance or money just so I won’t see my students not having lunch. It broke my heart seeing how difficult it was for them to strive to live and be educated at the same time. Too many related narratives I could enumerate a lot but what for if they would only make me teary-eyed?
I told myself, “These learners don’t deserve me if I don’t give them the best quality of education I could.” Thus, I decided to enroll in graduate school to level up my skills, knowledge and degree of understanding in addressing the issues and concerns I personally experienced. With my master’s degree in education, I targeted the focal points in my school that needed to be addressed, hoping as well these would reach the ears and eyes of the government and come up with solutions and interventions.
I have nothing against the government. I would even whole-heartedly express my thanks for being with the Department of Education. With my job I could regularly put food on the table every single day.
It hounds me, however, that this is not just about me or the other teachers. Education I believe, is for the students. Providing more instructional materials and aids to learners will interest them more in going to school even with their young age and harsh living conditions. Classrooms that are suitable and conducive to learning, reliable roads and bridges to make schools accessible, allowance for impoverished students, if not nourishing food and meals for every student.
In my less than a decade of teaching experience, the list goes on. It is my responsibility to open up and show everyone the struggles we had been undertaking. I do not blame some of my former colleagues for migrating abroad in search of greener pastures. But as a teacher, having made a solemn vow and with conviction, I will have to do my best to educate young minds and try to contribute by providing solutions or suggestions to seemingly never-ending problems in the actual world of teaching. I must continue to give light to the way of others, even if it consumes me to nothingness.**
