Inspiring educators

As Education Month comes to a close and Teachers’ day approaches, I recall some very inspiring educators: Socorro Villalobos, Neneng Hermosa, and Felisa U. Etemadi.

Metrobank outstanding teacher awardee Socorro Villalobos had been the dean of UP Cebu. During her term as dean, I could never say no to assignments which she assigned because she had to leave the comfort of being with her family to be with us.

And she had to travel from Metro Manila to Cebu often at the time when the Mandaue Mactan Bridge was destroyed. From her and her friends I learned what it really means to be a teacher.

As teacher then as principal of the UP Integrated School, she took and prepared lunch in school. She always prepared extra amounts of rice and accompanying dishes; she realized that there were those students who had not brought lunch nor had the money to buy it.

Three administrators in UP had difficulty in motivating their children to take their studies seriously. Prof. Socorro Villabos succeeded where the parents failed because she generously gave the young people her time and a listening ear.

One of them is now a very successful mathematics professor.

When it came to deliberations whether a student should fail or not, she would ask: Have you done everything to make this student learn and prevent failure?

She cared very much for UP Cebu. She took the trouble to provide opportunities for advancement for the faculty and staff. When the UP Centro ng Wikang Filipino decided on the pioneering project of preparing books in the natural and social sciences in Filipino, she suggested that faculty from the non-Tagalog areas be given the chance to participate in the project. So Cebuanas Elisa G. Lapa, Josefina C. Carvajal, Jocelyn Pinzon, and Phoebe Sanchez wrote chapters of Chemistry, Biology, Geometry, and History books. They even had lesson presentations in Filipino. She was very much loved by her students. As successful professionals they provided her with resources with which she inspired educators to excel through grants.

Another Metrobank outstanding teacher awardee from whom I learned a lot is Neneng Hermosa. She had been an English teacher both in the secondary level as well as in the graduate school of the UP College of Education. Together with Dr. Ma. Luisa Doronila, they worked at a Comprehensive Community and Education Development Program starting with Valencia, Negros Oriental, then Bohol, and Lopez Jaena, Misamis Oriental. When they had a teacher training program as part of the program, they invited faculty members from UP Cebu. We were very glad that they had such a sharing approach. Clearly they were not interested in monopolizing the program.

We learned a great deal from the experience. Community development and education have to be intertwined. The first step in community development had to be the study of the community especially its resources and challenges. Educational programs need to be relevant to the challenges and subsequent development plans. Before the teacher training in Bohol which we participated in, the staff had already done a rapid appraisal of the place. They had also done a needs assessment.

Because of such preliminaries, I had one of the most satisfying teacher training experiences. The trainees learned a lot because we were responding to their needs. They were discovering their locality at the same time that they got inputs for teaching geography.

After my encounter with Neneng, a culturally appropriate education became the center of my teaching Socio-Cultural Foundations of Education. In fact a major requirement of the course was the preparation of culturally appropriate learning materials whether they were teaching Communication Arts, Mathematics, or Home Technology.

Neneng also exposed us to “lit-num”, a method of introducing the alphabet and reading using the mother tongue. In their trials, they observed that by being very concrete in their approach and dealing with materials close to the child’s world, he or she could learn to read in three months.

Still another Metrobank outstanding teacher awardee, is our friend, Felisa Uy-Etemadi. Among the Cebuana Trailblazers of the Cebu Province-LAW Center, Inc. Heritage Cards, we read about her: “To Cebuano society, she is better known as a researcher, writing papers on local governance, Cebu’s economic growth, the environment, watershed management and urban poverty, among others. She also assists non-government organizations and helped to bring issues of children, women and marginalized groups to policy makers.” Felisa Uy-Etemadi “exemplifies the best of what the academe has molded and offers this at the service of the government and civil society, genuinely making a difference and effecting authentic societal change.”

The work of education has been very demanding. I have been very much blessed by these enriching encounters that enhanced my life in response to this special vocation.