Teachers are our second parents, we stay with them most of our waking time as young children. Teachers can make or break a student. Teaching is a noble profession and one must consider it as a vocation in order to be an effective teacher. No, I am not saying that teachers must be sweet. In fact, most of the teachers who are on the sweet side are being taken for granted by their students. No, I don’t want a teacher who terrorizes his/her students. I want the following characteristics in a teacher.

1. He must be intelligent
– I am not saying that he must be Einstein- like. A teacher must be diligent in order to be intelligent. He must study his lessons in advance so that he can answer his students’ questions. If he is an English teacher, then he must be very good in speaking and writing the language. If he is a Math teacher, he must be good in problem solving and computations. Until now, whenever I remember Ms. Yolly Pruna, my grade 4 teacher, I regard her as an intellectual. She’s good in both English and Math. When it comes to Physics, nobody can beat Mrs. Mila Tagorio.

2. He must be patient.
– Not all students are equal in intelligence and comprehension. A teacher must know this. In reality, teachers prefer those who are smart and bright. There’s this silent discrimination on the slow learners. Some teachers resort to verbal and physical abuse when a student cannot catch up with the lessons. I know of a teacher who knocks hard on her students’ head whenever they could not understand the lessons.

3. He must watch his words.
-Words hurt more than spanks. “Tanga, bobo, pangit!”—these words hurt a student’s pride. But aside from these words, a teacher must refrain from making judgmental remarks.

4. He must put in his head that being a cleaner is not a student’s core responsibility.
– Most, if not all, public schools assign their students to do the cleaning. Students clean the classroom and school ground in the morning and in the afternoon. Ms. Flor de Jesus was my teacher in grade 2. She was Mrs. Gloria Castillo’s substitute. My cleaning schedule was twice a week but because she admired me for being hardworking, I voluntarily cleaned everyday! Hahaha! She was the opposite of one teacher who reprimanded me for just standing instead of going to the school ground to clean. I told her that my classmate asked for my help to open the classroom windows that was why I was standing. The window was too big for a 5th grader and I needed to support the other end of the capiz window for her to open it.

5. He must be prudent.
-With a number of sexual harassment, sexual molestation and even rape charged against a teacher, parents must get to know the personality of their children’s teachers.

6. He must be fair.
– Not every student is pretty, cute, intelligent and rich. Teachers must know that and they must not be the ones implicating those differences in their studenst.
“X is my favorite because they own this business.”
“Throw these flowers (santan given by student A) to give room to B’s flowers (Holland roses).

If you sense that something is not going well, believe it. Don’t dwell on the possibility that like any other problems, “this too shall pass.” If you think that you need to find your way out of the situation, believe your intuition. If you feel so powerless and fate is not favoring you, gather your strength and look for ways to survive. Nothing can be so depressing than being trapped in a situation that you have no choice. Believe in yourself, have faith in God but most of all, be confident in yourself.

1. The year was 1998 and cellphones were not quite popular back then. My then bf agreed that we would meet at their house after classes. Both of us were not aware of the typhoon signal. I was at the middle of a classroom discussion when the messenger sent a memo to my instructor that the Dean suspended the classes due to storm signal # 3. A Nepalese neighbor asked me if I wanted to go home with him. I told him that I would be seeing my boyfriend. I took a cab and went to my boyfriend’s house. My then boyfriend was surprised to see me. He said he didn’t expect me to come as he became aware of the typhoon.

2. I could be paranoid at times. My then (2nd) boyfriend and I agreed that he would go to my place after work. I did not eat supper because I was expecting that he would take me out. When it was 9PM, I ate some crackers and texted him. He was not replying. I fell asleep after that and when I woke up at 2AM, there was still no text message from him. I texted some of his officemates to check if he was with them. They said that they left him in the office. I was very worried that something bad happened to him. He was accident-prone and always absent-minded. At 2:30 AM, I decided to go to the office and asked the security guard on duty if he happened to see my boyfriend around. I went to his office and found nobody there. His PC was still warm; a sign that he must have left just earlier when I arrived. I went to the satellite police station not knowing what to do (forgive me, I was just 24 then, easily frightened) Then, I called up one of his officemates and told him that my boyfriend was missing.
“Iris, believe me, he’s just unwinding somewhere else,” he said.
“No, he’s not. It’s very unusual of him not to text me. Could you go here in front of the police station and accompany me to the police?”

After 10 minutes, my then (2nd) boyfriend arrived, unimpressed. Hehehe….I should have listened to his officemate that he could be unwinding somewhere else.

3. Miel gave me an engagement ring after a month of dating. I consider it the craziest thing that I did for love. No woman in her right mind would easily accept a marriage proposal from her boyfriend whom she barely knew. But I was in love and when I’m in love, I do the crazy things that I wouldn’t do when I’m not in love.