still

October 12, 2009

The past typhoons have become a national calamity. The damage is not of trivial things like mere car accessories, but of much more huge proportions. We have depended on the government to provide us with temporary shelter and economic relief and placed our trust on our fellowmen to help us start our lives anew. Majority of the people still do not know how to survive the losses and the tragedies. Above all, there is only One to whom we should entrust our lives.

Inspired by the Christian song Still, I am sharing this with you.

 

When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with you above the storm
Father you are King over the flood
I will be still and know you are God

On teaching

A good professor once said, teaching is an art.

A few years ago, I wanted to enroll in a master’s program in education (when I thought I couldn’t study law anymore). I find teaching a very rewarding profession, having been inspired by a single professor in comparative literature back in college. I felt so grateful of having been on his class that I, for the first time ever in my life, gave him a card. It was a thank you card, telling him he was like a guru, with knowledge emanating from him and we students absorbing it. I’ve never seen one so passionate in his teaching, so eager for everyone to learn. There was no superiority of teacher over student, only the pure desire to teach. The simplicity of his white long sleeves contradicts the grandness of his person. His single word of trust in me sustains my self-esteem, especially when I need it most.

Then, there is this professor I have now. Everyone trembles when she came, wondering if they should have dropped along with the others. She makes everybody feel inferior, not one satisfying her questions. She would have made a good wrinkle cream model, being the one causing too much stress on her students. She never tells the correct answer, only leaving the students with a plummeting self-esteem and an impossibly low grade. She has been known to flunk more students than she passes. Her single comment makes one think twice of his or her plan in life, losing track of his or her vision. But it is in her class that all students prepare so much and that frustration is all too familiar.

You are a good teacher if your students learn. You are a great teacher if you inspire.