I was full of dreams for myself and hopes for our Filipino learners when I graduated in college.

I
thought everything would just go into their places since I had completed my degree. But it wasn’t.

My first year was exhausting. I felt like I was almost always drained and consumed. There were a
lot of things to do but with so little time. I burdened with exceedingly responsibilities much more than I
could take. I had to be a class adviser, broadcasting and school paper adviser, high school coordinator,
event co-chairman, and a subject-teacher simultaneously. I was jarred. I felt that the spark was dimming
as I went through.

It was my first year from the four-year contract I had to fulfill. I told myself I could not afford to
endure this way for the next years to come because I might lose it midway. So, I needed a time to
reflect, to recognize and understand where the cynicism was coming from and how could I address this.
I asked myself why I was there and why I was doing the things that I did.

I realized that the exhaustion had blurred my vision and that I had been looking at teaching as if
it’s just a job for me. In retrospect, this profession had always been my dream. By then, it was a realized
dream which I should invariably be grateful for. In college, I had set my mind that I should be the best
teacher I could ever be in the field and that the responsibilities assigned to me were manifestations that
I was living to what I had set my mind to.

Once in a while, through the hubbub amidst the demands in the field, I forgot the main reason
why I became a teacher. I took education because of my interest in knowing people and building
relationships among them, how we could inspire and aspire each other to become better and how
amazing everyone could be. I would look at our pictures (my students and I) and I would feel like I had
lived my life with purpose by guiding them become better individuals and help them discover and
unleash their potentials. The smiles I could see in their faces when winning a competition, the
amazement in their eyes when they learned something from me, the laughter when we shared personal
stories, and the tears in times of success and defeat, these were all priceless memories I could carry with
me along the way.

Indeed, these enablers of passion play an important role in developing great teachers among us.
We have to remember that our burnout moments are temporary and don’t necessarily mean the end of
us being teachers. I won’t deny the challenge and the stress our profession gives but the sense of
fulfillment teaching gives always outweighs the feeling of drained and consumed.

In teaching, I believe that I am filling he unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance
run.

I have read that teachers are not made but they are born, and it all comes down to passion.