DELACERNA
With National Teachers’ Month ending on October 5, I won’t miss the opportunity to thank and recall what many of my teachers contributed to my life.
I have always attributed my early education with the Belgian Sisters of the ICM congregation as the most significant in my life.
Mother Gertrude, my Kindergarten teacher, made me love school and learning.
In Grade 3 Sister Julia (then known as Mother Regine) made me understand discipline and taught reading not only in class but also outside class hours.
Every noon break she would gather all the children who were watching other children playing in the playground and put them in one room and made them practice oral reading.
Mother Imelda taught us almost all the subjects in Grade 4.
She was very dramatic in Religion class especially about the life of Christ I learned the sense of ritual she used in celebrating important feasts like that of Christ the King, Christmas, and Lent.
It was also in her Religion class that I learned many songs which are still sung until now.
She was a very effective Reading and Language teacher who kept us on our toes with her big voice.
Then I realized later that she taught us not to tolerate mediocrity.
She was very particular with Good Manners and Right Conduct, and was very sweet and appreciative of anything good we’ve done.
Sister Consejo was the first Filipino ICM nun I met in Grades 5 and 6.
She was the quiet type but was very good in teaching almost all the subjects.
I was a working student in Grades 5 and 6 and she was my sister in charge and I learned how to organize things every Saturday.
The common denominator of my Elementary teachers was that they were strict in their own way but very kind and fair.
In First Year High School, Miss (now Sister) Flora Alcoseba (ICM), my Literature and Composition teacher, stirred my interest in writing and speaking.
She was also my class adviser and developed my leadership potential.
In my Second year, she was my Composition teacher, in Third Year, my Literature Teacher, and in Fourth Year, my Literature and Composition teacher for the first Grading Period only because she entered the ICM congregation.
I remember how she made me recite the poem on stage in Third Year because our classroom was the social hall of the school.
This was our practice ground for public speaking and performance.
I will also remember when she appointed me in charge of the games for the JS Prom in Third Year. Since it was very successful, she awarded me in front of the class with a big bar of Serge chocolate which was such a big thing at that time.
Our generation in high school was very fortunate to have a very good P.E. teacher who could also teach Literature and Composition in the person of Miss Lydia Cuizon.
As a P.E. teacher she did not only teach the fundamentals of marching and dancing, but she was very creative in mounting a field demonstration participated by the four high school classes.
Each year had a specific dance and in the field demonstration all the classes coordinated their movements with the appropriate costume and props.
She was my Literature teacher in Second Year and she was a very good one.
It was where we appreciated Literature so much that we did not want to stop every time the bell rang.
I will never forget how she made me deliver an excerpt from the short story “The Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle during the giving of cards for the grading period.
It bolstered my self confidence.
In Third Year for our Composition she made us diagram sentences from simple to the most complex ones.
It was rare to have the same teacher for a subject for four years in high school and did not get bored.
Such was the case of the late Miss Rosario Florido who taught us Filipino from first year to Fourth Year but was not boring.
She was very thin, already advanced in years, not so healthy (she was asthmatic and had many allergies) but she was very animated in class.
It was in her Filipino classes that I learned much about Mythology and History.
In college, Sister Maria Delia Coronel, ICM and Sister Christiane (formerly Daniello) Vandenbogaert influenced me so much in my life.
Sister Delia has carved in me the love for history and cultural heritage, and the importance of research, getting the right sources and acknowledging them.
Sister Christiane taught me the benefits of being organized in anything we do.
To all these teachers, my deepest thanks.
It is said we are all a part of all that we have met.
I am glad and fortunate to have met them.