The Making of a Teacher

NORBERTO V. CASABAL

My first baptism of fire took place two months after my college graduation in April, 2002, as a neophyte instructor.  Like a caterpillar that metamorphosed into an attractive and eye-catching butterfly, ready to spread its wings and conquer the world, I was brimming with idealism and optimism that I could make a difference in my students’ lives.  I was a warrior armored by my zealous desire to impart knowledge inside my own battlefield – the classroom.  That was more than 10 years ago!

A moment of recapitulation…

I began my college education in 1998 with no idea about what life would be like after four years or so. I was the complete stranger Robert Frost was referring to in his poem, “The Road not Taken,” “…And be one traveler long I stood/ And looked down one, as far as I could/ To where it bent, in the undergrowth (p. 5).  I had a mixed feeling of excitement and predicament; with new faces to deal with, elbows to brush with, and challenges to reckon with, my heart was pounding as pandemonium kept running down my spine. 

The first lesson I was compelled to embrace was, “Teaching is a noble profession.” It is not a job that offers earthly riches; rather, it is a commitment to the country that must be fulfilled.  Beyond the call of duty to impart knowledge, a teacher is expected to uphold the role of being a parent to his students.  Yet, I hardly understood its essence for I wanted to pursue Law at that time.  Thanks to Gilda Cordero-Fernando for her short story, “The Visitation of the Gods,” that deeply touched my inner core and ignited my passion for teaching.

…and the journey commenced!

How could I forget my first semester of teaching stint with 12 preparations and 45 unit teaching loads with an hourly rate of Php45.00?  More than a theater artist that wears different masks, I was a teacher who spoke in many languages, in varying contexts.   At times, I would slip a tongue, or sometimes, I would tip a tongue.  There’s no wonder that information was already rumbled and mixed-up in my mind. Thus, my first lesson in life as a teacher resonated the Greek aphorism, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows only one big thing.”

It was really a struggle at first, to teach and learn what to teach at the same time; as opposed to learning new things out of teaching, and teaching what have been learned over time.  Gradually, I mastered the tricks of teaching, and became the hedgehog that I wanted to be, as in the lines of William Earnest Henley in his poem, “Invictus”, “I am the master of my fate:/ I am the captain of my soul.”

            I was shaped by the blacksmith…

In a casual conversation I had with one of my mentors few years back, she gave a friendly gesture saying, “Grow where you are planted, Bert.”   Teaching must have been the soil that allowed me to grow in to the kind of person I am now.  In more than 10 years, I have gained wisdom, patience, and perspective – all because of my experience in teaching.

Beyond transferring knowledge from books, I value the classroom as a bastion of democracy – letting my students shape their ideas, voice their thoughts, and empower their actions.  When I am in front of the class, I feel like a nameless hero igniting their hopes, and inspiring their dreams.  Together, we push our limits to read between the lines and decipher the thoughts of our literary heroes in our literature classes, or commit to memory the agreement between subjects and verbs. But more than anything else, we share our daily journey in life and see the world in our own eyes.  Barbara Kroll once said, “Inside the classroom, your personal life becomes professional.”

Last night, as I nibbled through the mementos of my life as a teacher, I saw a box which contained all the letters of my former students.  I couldn’t contain the tears that flowed down my cheeks as memories kept flashing back. One student wrote, “…if all teachers are as diligent, as courageous, as inspiring, as really moving as you are, we will have a better atmosphere of learning.  You inspired me.”  I remember this young woman who wrote that note.  She came to me a couple of months ago before she left for Dubai.  Before we parted ways, I embraced her and bid her good luck and goodbye for a moment.

Then came another memory when I read another note which says, “I am blessed because you became a part of my life…a lot of changes happened in my personality…I became serious, responsible and accountable.”  This girl would choose to confide her problems with me than with her parents.  I knew what her burden was at that time.  Another note from a former colleague carried this message, “…may you never stop touching people’s lives.” 

“Whoa! What a journey,” I whispered.  I wonder where these people are now.  I wished that as I read through their notes and remembered them, at one point in their lives, they will also pause and remember me.  These notes were kept in a big box relegated in another compartment of the house –untouched, unperturbed, unnoticed. 

What bothered me about was this letter written by another student in 2008.  Where ever she is right now, I hope that she has mustered her courage to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, and I  pray that she is now living a whole new life.

…I’m in a situation where escaping is the only thing I know; situation where giving-up is coming soon; where losing hope is near. A condition where thinking sticks only on blaming others, a stage where anger cannot be controlled, a state of mind where forgiveness is unknown…That’s how hard life is. That’s how hard to be one of the million products of broken families…  You have to win life and should learn to be brave because being strong is not enough, but acceptance of things you can no longer change…  Never lose hope for life is survival… I know that forgiving is not easy, but that is the only way to befreed from the bars of anger.  And if life weren’t that great, you must do something good to make it better before I tends…

That night totally kept me in tears.  And as I look at the collage of pictures of my students from 2002 to 2011, with faces I could no longer recognize, or names I could no longer remember, I just mused, “at least once in my life, our journey converged inside the classroom.”

Maybe one of these days, our roads will cross again.  Some of them will invite me over a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and find myself listening to their own story in the making.  “Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death.  The landscape changes, our needs change, but the train keeps moving.  Life is the train, not the station” says Paulo Coelho in his novel, “Aleph”. 

What a moment of introspection and retrospection! Well, this does not happen every time. It happened when the Editor-in-Chief of the Student Publication of our college asked me for copies of pictures from the year when the school was founded up to the present, for the circulation of the paper adopting the theme, “A Decade of Excellence: Transforming Passion, Creating Legacy.”  Well, to let you know, I’ve been with this institution since it started! 

Should I call my journey a metamorphosis? 

Read Also: The Rugged Journey of Finding Your Passion