This week we pay tribute to our favorite teachers.
We’re a little confused as to when school starts exactly, but this is as good a time as any to think about the teaching profession. If life were fair, teachers would be the highest-paid professionals in the world. Their job isn’t to cram young people’s minds with information they can regurgitate on command, it’s to teach these young people how to use their minds. They deserve our highest admiration, an admiration which society chooses to lavish on celebrity dimwits.
As in any profession there are good teachers and there are bad teachers. There are teachers who inspire you to reach your aspirations, and there are teachers who try to mock you because you’re smarter than they are. There are teachers who forego lucrative careers in other fields in order to guide ungrateful jerks like ourselves, and there are teachers whose families traded the family carabao to buy them a teaching position because they’re too inept to get a job. And there are teachers who imprint themselves on our minds, whose influence on our lives goes beyond classrooms and report cards.
To mark the start of another schoolyear, we’re paying tribute to our favorite teachers. We invite you to tell us about the teachers who made a real impact on your lives. Post your tributes in Comments. We’ll start.
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“Misery” does not begin to describe our four years in high school: we were so unhappy that we hid in the least-used girls’ bathroom in order to avoid all human contact and read books in peace. The horror began to ease only in our fourth year, when we became editor-in-chief of the school paper for a second term. As the school was focused on science and math, literature and the humanities were almost an afterthought in the curriculum. We recommend that anyone who intends to go into literature and the arts attend a science high school: if you can survive having your ego crushed on a daily basis, if you can maintain your resolve despite constant reminders that what you want is not allowed by the system, then you are prepared for the writing life.
In senior year, our Literature teacher was Mrs. Helen Ladera. She was elegant, straightforward, and formidable. The passing grade for Literature may have been lower than that of Chemistry and Calculus, but her teaching standards were consistently high. She demanded the best of her students, and for this she was considered a terror by some. She welcomed and enjoyed unorthodox interpretations of class assignments as long as these interpretations were well-argued.
At the beginning of the schoolyear, she gave us a list of novels from which we could choose four to write papers about. It was this list that introduced us to Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Augie March. For some reason she thought we might be interested in a book about Babi Yar, and now that we think about it, this kicked off our interest in Russian literature. She praised us when we did good work, and called us out when we were being jerks, like the time we wrote a wall news editorial asking why we had to take the national college entrance exams when they were so easy.
The word we used was “chickens**t” and she was not amused; we argued, unsuccessfully, that we meant chickensuit, chickenspot, chickenslut, etc. Excessive pride must be punctured early lest the student become an insufferable adult, but the response should be calibrated so that the student’s confidence is not damaged permanently. Even when she was reprimanding us, she never talked down to us. She explained that the issue was not fact, but respect and humility. She did not spew threats as lazy teachers might; she treated us as intelligent humans.
Thank you, Mrs. Helen Ladera. You were badass, and we mean that most respectfully.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 3rd, 2015 at 04:08
My Mrs. Ladera was a woman named Mrs. Joycelyn Buhawe, who taught in my college Accounting class. I was a total math flub, but she miraculously made me love it, at least for a semester or two. I knew I’d never be good with numbers, ever, but she taught classes like she was speaking only to me, and by midterms my friends were asking to be tutored before the Accounting test. She mentored me, we became good friends, and even became co-teachers after I graduated. She was like a mother to me. When she died almost three Christmases ago it was like losing a parent. Almost everything I learned about maturity, I learned from her. I hope your heaven is a pizza parlor with many, many books, and hundreds of cats you all have named. I miss you terribly.
PS thanks for writing this Jessica. :)
June 3rd, 2015 at 17:39
Anthony Tan has made so many students begin to pick up novels and poetry. I sat in his poetry and Shakespeare, and those were one of the best classes I took in college. None of us will forget Sir Tony’s biko too.
Another favorite, whose name I’m ashamed to have forgotten, was my math teacher in high school. During the lesson on square roots, I was struggling to keep up with my classmates, and he quietly approached my chair while everyone else was already working on the drills in their seats. He then explained the process step by step. Thank you, sir.
And thank you for this post, Jessica. I’m a teacher now too, and I really do want to make a difference.
June 3rd, 2015 at 21:38
To Mrs. Reyno, my homeroom and English teacher in 4th year high school, who was a bit annoyed that my average fell just short of qualifying me as an ‘oustanding student’ (our school’s title for honor students). This so surprised me because I’d never aspired to be one; passing my subjects was goal enough. Then before I could recover from my surprise, she said that it’s probably because of the feasibility project for THE, one of the most challenging activities for seniors. That makes me smile even now, her making excuses for my failing to get the required average.
The unfortunate combination of my shyness and mataray looks practically demanded hateship from teachers. My low profile and good grades corrected this bad impression from most teachers over time. But with her, there was never any of that; she was just fair and open and cool but somewhat low-profile too. She read, made notes, and encouraged my best work in our Creative Writing and Journalism elective.
I’m not sure she’ll recognize me if ever we meet again, two decades after HS. I just hope she and her family are well, and that she’s doing great and very happy, still teaching and writing beautifully.
June 5th, 2015 at 05:06
I love three English teachers from the elementary up to the college years. First, I still miss Ma’am Michelle Velasquez (wife of broadcaster Tony Velasquez). She preaches humility and excellent English. I remember her numerous spelling exercises and quizzes (French words, grabe!). And, she taught us that hell exists here, not in the afterlife (talk about Sartre in grades school!). She tolerated my childishness, tantrums and other nonsense then.
Second, Ma’am Corazon Co-Tahil. Great English and History teacher. And the irony, she delivered anti-imperialist and nationalist rants whenever she wanted! A strong feminist type, but loves wearing conservative outfits. Strong-willed but considerate. She inspired me to love history more than ever. We often ended up talking with one another in class. I continued seeing and visiting her until work forced me to skip altogether.
And third, Ma’am Cristina Buluran. She once disliked me due to my tardiness (my right leg was cemented due to a fracture. I had to join in with my old folks then). But, we ended up conversing whenever no one in her class dared to recite. In short, I passed her English-Communication course. Until her retirement, I visited her often in her English faculty room and exchanging notes on English and grammar.
I hope to meet them sooner than later.
June 5th, 2015 at 09:25
getting good grades always came effortlessly to me – until my grade 5 math teacher humiliated me in front of the class for an imagined infraction. i could not get over that incident. my grades slipped. i dropped out of the honor’s list. and for the first time in my life, i thought maybe i was stupid.
i survived that schoolyear despite my damaged self-esteem. and then, my grade 6 math teacher walked into the classroom. she was diminutive, soft-spoken, dignified, motherly. the total opposite of my terrorist the previous year.
i don’t know what happened, maybe it was the kind way that she spoke to me. but i began to do well in math class again. too well, in fact, that i began to spend my weekends training for the national math olympiad with my teacher. in her tiny faculty room, crammed with books but with no smell of dust at all, i practiced on drills, computed square roots manually and got introduced to algebra.
i didn’t win the olympiad trophy. but i did get the gold medal in school for math when i graduated from grade school. and if there was one thing that i took from my last two years in elementary, it was this: teachers can be stupid and cruel. but they can also be the kindest mentors who will help you put things back together and make you go “hey, i’m really good at this!”.
thank you mrs. lilia peralta.
baka matagal na akong patay na adik kung hindi dahil sa iyo.