The gift of a lifetime

The author, 37, has been a teacher for 17 years and counting. She currently teaches at Bacarra National Comprehensive High School, Bacarra, Ilocos Norte.

To her, teaching is a lifetime vocation. She plans to put up a school for the marginalized someday. She believes children are like rough diamonds waiting for a mother’s hand to cut and polish them.

Teachers influence the lives of everyone around them. A positive teacher can mine his students’ limitless potentials in the way a skillful coach can bring out the winning form among his athletes.

The Chinese movie Not One Less rekindled my passion for this noble profession which teaches young minds, touches their hearts and transforms their lives.

In rural China, young, naïve Teacher Gao is ordered to serve as a substitute teacher. Barely older than her pupils, she is tasked with keeping the class intact for a month or else she won’t get paid.

Devoid of a college diploma and teaching experience, she dutifully looks after a group of elementary pupils.

The first meeting is completely and awfully disastrous, a baptism of fire. The filthy room, aside from being too dusty, is something a parent will never dream of putting his children in. Worse, Mayor (we call it the principal) tells her to consume just a piece of chalk a day.

One day, one of her pupils is absent. She learns later that he left the city to work. Determined to bring the boy back, Teacher Gao follows him to the city. To shoulder her expenses, she and her class work in a construction site. Thankfully, she is able to raise the needed amount of money.

In the city, Teacher Gao asks help from people, but they ignore her pleas to help her find the boy. Then a local TV station learns about her noble mission and helps her. The boy is finally found roaming around the streets.

The station also learns about the school’s predicament. Soon, the school building is moved to a new location in the village.

The film shows that teaching is not only confined to the four corners of the classroom. That’s what makes it challenging. I myself married at 30 because I enjoyed my life as a teacher so much.

But it’s not a smooth-sailing all the time. It pains me each time I notice that one or two of my students must stop going to school due to financial woes and family problems.

One time, the mother of a boy told me she couldn’t send her son to school anymore. Doing so would force her family to skip meals. I talked to the boy and convinced him to continue his studies through his own effort. He’d come to our house on Saturdays and clean it. Thankfully, he was able to finance his studies.

I strongly believe that in faraway places, there are teachers who quietly help young people even if they get no recognition from award-giving bodies.

Teacher Gao will always reinforce my commitment to teaching. I enjoy my life as a teacher because to our students, we are a lifetime gift. We are their shepherds – determined to search for them if they get lost, because we cannot afford to lose a single one of them. Yes, not one less.