Although one learns a lot as a teacher every day, I consider my first two years as a fresh-out-of-the-university teacher as my formative years in the teaching field. Learning the strategies of teaching, being temporarily cross-eyed from hours of peering through the microscope, memorizing bizarre names which I couldn’t even speak properly (how much more spell?), can all be considered as child’s play compared to being in the actual field. No amount of university training has ever prepared me (most especially my heart) to being an actual teacher.
Even though I have yet so much to learn, I believe that I gained some of the most significant lessons that every teacher must learn during my first few years as a teacher. And randomly, here are they:
1. Being a twenty year old, well-sheltered, idealistic, fresh-out-of-university teacher who teaches gangly, 14 year old teenagers could most of the time mean disaster and numerous episodes of minimal heartaches. The best remedy? Laugh it off.
2. Most of the time, a hug from young kids actually means being squeezed, to death. But who’s complaining?
3. Remember way back in high school when nobody trusted you with cutting styrofoam because all you come up with are these irritatingly jagged edges and lots and lots of broken pieces? Well, redeem yourself because being a teacher means perfecting the aft of Styrofoam letter cut-outs----and later on, you will have no idea how did you do it. Plus, did I mention that there is a great possibility of going home literally covered with glitters from head to foot while getting these weird glances from people inside in the jeepney?
4. So much about being strict with spellings, punctuations and S-V agreement. Sometimes, you have to learn your students’ language.
5. A science class can instantly turn into a fruit salad party!
6. You think you have already perfected the poker-face look to appear cool and composed when you dissect a frog? Think again. Look at that slight, cringing expression in your face in the photo.
7. A solar eclipse in the middle of a science class is always a welcomed surprise and blessing.
8. When you look after young kids outside of the school premises, no matter how you mentally compose yourself to be overly alert, you would always have that weird thump of worry in your heart . Even though you are certain that you have no ounce of motherly instinct with you, but being a teacher is the closest experience to motherhood/fatherhood that one could ever get.
9. Cherish your support system. They will become your lifetime friends
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