“ Ask not what your country can do for you. But ask what you can do for your country”, John F. Kennedy.
Every individual has his own responsibility : To God, to the country, to his family, and to himself. Everyone has his own role to portray. But I indeed consider the mentors as the ones with enormous significant roles in building the future of the nation. Teachers carve the future generation. It is but recalling some lines from the DepEd central office. “BE PROUD TEACHER, THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON YOU”.
Nobody reaches the peak of success without extracting skills and knowledge from group of mentors. Each one never grows up and develops into a well-rounded individual without stepping on the ladder of values and ethical standards set by teachers. Hence, teachers have the most complicated and sensitive influence on a youth’s concepts and beliefs. And paramount to this, is the tender role of the teacher to handle the proper guidance toward the right path by keeping the child on the right tract and by monitoring his walk that he won’t be led astray as he goes on his journey.
Being a teacher and being aware of all my significant roles, there seems to be heavy burdens on my shoulders. We learn by experience, and day by day we witness poverty. Teachers work hard to alleviate their fellowmen from poverty. Mentors do it by being a model to their students. We teach optimism and make them hopeful up to the end. We teach faith in God and that God never gives us turbulences which are beyond our capabilities to endure. We teach them to take problems and trials as opportunities to make man stronger than before. We teach them that love is not a TABOO but true love can wait.
We advise the students not to pluck the budding flowers. If we will only be concentrating on the root causes of poverty. We will bare premarital sex and early pregnancies. History repeats itself. Being a product of a broken family, one automatically dares escaping from the so long darkness and agony of being the sole innocent victim of this tragedy. He will be seeking for survival. Craving for love and support. He might be misled by misconception. Hence, a teacher should be sensitive as always to all his students. He shouldn’t let any single student fall down to the deep and dark pit trap that may swallow his whole being and his dreams.
Mingling with the students the whole day, two hundred days a school year, teachers are even liable to the instances of graft and corruption. Plunder or any form of it and all about the financial coffers. Teachers should be tough and strict in implementing discipline inside the classroom that no one may find a chance to cheat. Cheating in the government commences from a simple cheating inside the classroom.
Yet we may be viewed as a simple ordinary teachers but somehow we look at ourselves as the pillars of the system. Let ourselves sprout and not be belittled by anyone else around. We are the teachers and we are proud of it.
By: Gladys A. Adriatico | T-III | Ipag Elementary School | Mariveles, Bataan
