Teacher's Tales

As I flipped through the pages of the book Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teacher Tales, I was reminded that I have been quite fortunate to have been under the tutelage of a lot of sterling individuals who have helped shape who I am today. Teaching does not necessarily equate to a lucrative profession, true, but I believe it takes dedication to continue on this path of molding young minds and influencing their character.

I have experienced so-so teaching, and have plodded through mediocre classes. But some stand out so brightly in my mind even after all these years. I have woken up early in the morning eager to face another day with these great teachers.

There was Mr. Rene Sison, who was my teacher in the third and fourth grades, who recognized my affinity for numbers, and encouraged me to develop it. His facility for drawing and musical inclination inspired me as well to join the Glee Club and stay with it until I graduated from elementary.  I still remember those monthly masses when we had to sing in church -- it was never a chore for us. I never did get to hone those drawing skills though!

Ms. Clarita De Leon (now Prof. Carillo, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs and Research at the UST) taught us sixth-grade English, and I think that was her first year of teaching as well. New she might have been then, but the quality of her teaching was something else. From her I appreciated the importance of being consistently good at what you do. She expected it of her students, and embodied it herself. She was not overly strict, and yet she kept us on our toes. I was never bored in her class, and I quite enjoyed the going over the reading requirements in class. And yes, even the grammar lessons as well! I'm proud to have been one of her students.

The late Mrs. Lourdes Salcedo taught us English in our junior year in high school. It could have easily been a recipe for disaster: with all the focus on medieval writings and modern short stories and poems, teens could have just nodded at the right places and simply memorized information. But she turned our lessons into engaging sessions, making both prose and poetry come alive with meaning for us. She was our group's inspiration when we staged our final English requirement of a Shakespearean play: we did our own take of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and spent countless hours perfecting the sounds and lights, the costumes and the lines. We were ecstatic when she gave us perfect marks for it, and added bonus points to boot! She was really a tough act to follow.

Geometry and Trigonometry do not usually figure into the favorite subject lists of students, even for those in Engineering. Being the math-and-science geek that I am though, I really enjoyed these classes. What made them more interesting was Engr. Butch Carbonell, who made his classes very interactive, and encouraged us to find practical ways of visualizing solid figures, to supplement the numerous formulae we had to absorb. When our group was assigned to tackle cylinders and spheres, we came to class with a hollowed-out watermelon with an empty softdrink can inside, which garnered hoots of laughter from the class. But hey, it was meant to be a visual application after all! His energy towards teaching was -- and from what I hear, still is -- very evident. His rendition of "Da Coconut Nut" still makes me smile.

In the Faculty of Engineering, my "nanay-nanayan", Engr. Philip Marcelo, introduced me to Fluid Flow and Thermodynamics, subjects which I grew to love. I know, I know, the inner geek is shining through again, haha! She was our freshman Chemistry professor, and then our third-year Thermo prof. She had a reputation for being strict -- and she was, at times -- but she also maintained standards in her class that we had to live up to. Her love for learning never stopped, and her forays into Food Tech is something I really admire her for. She was one of my thesis advisers in my fifth year, and was one of those who constantly cheered us in inter-university competitions. She has mellowed down a lot now in her classes (yes, you have, Nanay Philip!), and I do hope that her students know how lucky they are.

Statistics is a subject that is usually best served in little chunks, as some find it a bit difficult to digest in one go. Our third-year class was an exception to this: as Engr. Rudy Dimayacyac only taught on Saturdays due to his working full-time in the industry, we had to go through three hours worth of Statistics straight up. A challenging task, even in the best of times. But somehow, he managed to make things work by being able to make his explanations simple enough to grasp, and yet he would challenge us all to test our understanding in his bonus questions-ridden tests. I will always remember the way he would illustrate statistical concepts by making a box-and-whisker plot of our class scores, and point out the outliers! His better half, Engr. Dina Dimayacyac, also taught Statistics and Stoichiometry in the ChE department, and we always thought that Ninong and Ninang made an admirable pair.

The former dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Engr. Alberto Laurito, and the former Chemical Engineering department chair, Engr. Evelyn Laurito, are two other favorites of mine. Thermodynamics, Kinetics, Stoichionetry and Environmental Studies -- all very technical subjects, ridden with formulas and graphs, and exams that induced headaches and stiff necks (esp. if one was unprepared). Very challenging subjects indeed, but they have been tackled with great aplomb by this admirable pair, pillars of the ChE department both. Their emphasis on knowing the concepts and not just memorizing by rote, kept me striving to give my best. Ninong and Ninang, thank you.

I have a lot of fond memories of other teachers still, but I have not been able to write them down yet. For now, I would just like to say: Kudos to all of you. You have made my stay in the UST quite memorable.