A Teacher’s Life
It was a December day of 2004, few days before Christmas, when my morning eyesight was impaled on an early TV show, which gave viewers free greeting of their text message wishes. Well, it was not really free after all. I didn’t even know how the TV show aficionados enjoyed such segment, wasting some money for non-sense greetings! It was an ordinary morning, which was made extraordinary by the December fog and Christmas songs. Because of the mood-changing atmosphere, I eventually bothered myself sending my text message wish through the TV show, thinking that I still had some cell phone loads to play the game. After a short while, my message was flashed on the TV screen, which said “Sana magkaroon na ako ng trabaho.” Indeed, it was a desperate act a jobless person could ever wish. I had already finished a bachelor’s degree – the fact that gave me a license to live out of my own keep.
Celebrating the yuletide season then probably was the hardest thing to observe. My brothers and sisters would not give me gifts anymore. What more would I expect from my parents? Another celebration just passed by which I just embraced with the same wish – my birthday. Wishing was the only thing I could afford to do then.
The New Year unfolded; and, it just catapulted to more wasted days and months I had to endure as a jobless degree-holder. Eventually, I launched a job hunt like a fierce warrior who could not wait to fight in the battlefield where I could get paid. With my visual aids at hand, I could fight fair and square with anyone else who had the same plight. I was like a beast which was controlled by the law of the jungle – survival of the fittest. One, two, three, and more schools had I applied at; and, my condition was still status quo. I started losing my patience, perseverance and, of course, money.
One day I decided to apply in the public school where I had taken my off-campus student teaching in college. I was thinking that I had a good chance to spot a slot; for, I had already passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers with a rating that belonged to the upper ten percent of the total number of passers in the entire country.
Along the way I met a person who said that he had a relative in the school where I was applying at. He even bragged that he had had five years of teaching experience in a private school and had finished the academic requirements in his graduate studies having taken up social studies – my specialization in my undergraduate course. In other words he was a strong competitor. He was like trying to barricade and guard me off his territory. Despite the big threat, I still tendered my application.
After having counted more days, the result finally came out. To my surprise I was the only one who made it to the category A. The supposed big threat against me fell in rank five under category B. However, the laborious application died out with the information that an item was not yet available for me. How long would I have to wait then? I decided to trash the chance out in the middle of the summer time.
Truly, blessings usually come by surprise. I received a phone call from a big private school located in a city in Pangasinan. Finally, one person I knew would not contribute anymore to the unemployment rate in the country. Soon, I would be exercising my profession as a bona fide teacher. I was really excited to wear uniforms, be greeted by students, be addressed with ‘Sir,’ discuss lessons, and receive my first salary. The school routines were what quenched my thirst of my noble desire.
I usually arrived early at the school, which was situated nearby the boarding house. At first I was hesitant to accept the offer; for, I had been trained to teach in high school. Consequently I tried my best to teach in college. I experienced teaching students with different courses – Criminology, Teacher Education, Maritime, Engineering, HRM, Accountancy, etc. – across year levels. I experienced teaching the different areas of social science, English, and Humanities subjects. I was paid on an hourly basis, with 55 pesos per hour during my first year and 60 pesos per hour during my second year with allowance from 500 to 1000 pesos, respectively. In other words I was already earning despite all the difficulties a neophyte teacher had to pass through. There were several instances I had to finish computing the grades before I could receive my salary. There was even a time that I was eating instant noodles all day while I was forcing myself to finish with the computation due to my limited budget. Nevertheless I believed I was lucky to have a job amidst the economic crisis. Nevertheless, my first two years of teaching experience made me aspire for a better position.
Before the school year of 2005-2006 ended, I tendered my application at the national high school near our house. Again I submitted myself for ranking, thinking I would be lucky this time. I passed through rigid assessment, examination, interviews, and demonstration teaching all over again. And after a couple of weeks, I learned I landed 2nd under category A in the entire division. The first in rank outscored me by a minute point because of the points she got for the number of years in service. My two years of teaching in college did not earn me any point. This time I was very optimistic to get the plantilia position in the public school. However, the summer vacation was nearing its end; and, there was no call from the division office. I did not have any job that time; for, I got terminated when my employer found out I was applying for public school. Would I again experience the ordeal of job hunting? The only difference this time was I became an experienced job hunter. Consequently, my experience with the DepEd schools forced me not to rely too much on the ranking results because of alleged anomalies. On account of this, I submitted my application to as many schools as possible to increase my chance of getting employed in the next school year.
Fortunately, I got a part-time teaching job at a state college in Tarlac. The rate was a little higher compared to the previous one. I was just probably complacent to accept it just to ease my anxiety. During the orientation I was too surprised to know that the regular number of teaching loads was just half of my regular load before. I started as a part-time teacher, only receiving less than 10,000 pesos per month. At least I did not have to kill myself just to earn that much. During the first semester I just commuted between home and school. For this I needed to wake up at 4:00 A.M. every weekday to catch up the 5:00 A.M. buss to school. In the afternoon I could not afford to miss the last trip on my way home to dodge expensive special trip. I would be home by about 7:00 P.M. and would just fall asleep at 12 midnight after preparing my lessons for the next day. Indeed, my previous experience made me ready for this.
After a semester I rented a boarding house to significantly ameliorate my condition. A few months later, I got promoted to a contract of service. This time I was receiving a fixed salary regardless of the number of teaching loads I had. The only problem then was how to get by during the summer break without salary. Because of my performance, I got recommended for a contractual status and a temporary status in the successive years. And the only way to get permanent position was to perform better and finish my master’s degree.
Employing different strategies of teaching was not a big deal to me; for, I could apply a wide gamut of teaching strategies, which would significantly augment the delivery of my lessons. Field trips, debates, seminars, symposia, role-playing, dramatization were among the activities I would usually require my students to do.
Writing my thesis then to finish my course was my goal to finally get permanent. I decided to develop and validate an instructional material on the subject Social Dimensions of Education, which was just a new subject under the new Teacher-Education Curriculum, to address the problem on the inadequacy of instructional materials. I used Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory in designing activities that would tap at least three types of intelligence of my students. The work text was awarded the certificate of utilization, after passing through very rigid evaluation and validation. Eventually, I finished my graduate study in 2010, which became my passport in getting the permanent position I had long been dreaming of. 
Consequently, this further propelled my yen to aspire for more as I decided to embark on another chapter of my life as a teacher.
My humble beginning in my educational quest as a neophyte student in the post-graduate study and the transformative influence on my profession brought about by my embryonic experiences for the past few months at the University of the Philippines even magnified my determination to transcend all the challenges along my way. Truly, never can quantity be equated with quality; for, needless to say, my learning experiences for the past few months have already made me distinguish the difference between ordinary and extraordinary, mediocrity and insatiability; and, complacence and excellence.
Ever since studying the ‘science of man and his associates’ has stirred my curiosity and interest to become competent in the field and eventually aspire to be an ‘authority’ by pursuing degrees relevant to the field. This is exactly the reason why I took up Bachelor of Secondary Education, Major in Social Studies Education and Master of Arts in Education, Major in Social Studies Education, successively – the same reason I have in pursuing Doctor of Philosophy, Major in Anthropology/Sociology of Education. As a social science instructor, it is within the gamut of my concern to possess abyssal knowledge on man’s existence as a social being, with emphasis on his culture as a product of social and historical forces and the establishment of his institutions such as the school. And at the dawn of my life as a post-graduate student, I am sanguine to continuously enrich my knowledge, course my destiny, inspire others, and write the plots of my life story as a teacher.
