A Tribute to Teachers

This month, until the 5th of October, we celebrate National Teachers’ Month. I learned that this is a movement that began in 2008, initiated by the Metro Bank Foundation in collaboration with the Department of Education. The movement was enacted into law through Proclamation No. 242 in 2011, and Republic Act 10743 in 2016 officially designating the culmination of the month-long Celebration, October 5, as National Teachers’ Day.

One of the crucial learnings brought by the pandemic in the past two years is that teachers can never be replaced. Everyone has a story of a great teacher, who at one point made an impact on their lives. Growing up in Pasacao, I spent many days of my childhood frolicking by the beach. Looking back, my early teachers have created an impact on me that transformed the direction of my life beyond those days. Seasoned teachers will perhaps tell us that teaching is not simply the transfer of knowledge, but the art of changing people’s lives. We are where we are now, because of teachers who saw greatness in us, and who created opportunities along the way for that greatness to emerge.

Going back to my childhood memories of the sea, the image of the waves comes home to me as an appropriate one to describe who teachers are. They make ripples and waves that change one life, but that one life can transform many other lives in return. Truly, we can never tell where a teacher’s influence ends.

Kudos to the woman I am married to, once a teacher herself whose influence upon her students in Nursing at what was then the Colegio de Sta. Isabel has helped them reach their dreams.

Let us join the whole nation in paying tribute to our teachers this month. Reach out to a favorite teacher. Tell that teacher your story. It is a moment they will remember, too, for a long time.

QUOTATION OF THE WEEK:

“Education is not the filling of a pot but the lighting of a fire.” –W.B. Yeats

FOR OUR WORD OF LIFE:

“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” - Proverbs 22:6