Now, why am I not writing about the joys and sorrows of being a high school teacher?
It's because I'm too busy. Too busy with checking papers. Too busy preparing lesson plans. Too busy coming up with creative ideas for their performance tasks and other assessments. Too busy with making powerpoints. Too busy joining them in their various activities, like working as baggers in SM.
Whereas if I taught philosophy in college, I think I would have the luxury of time to blog a lot, to write about basketball, to even continue my musings on key existential ideas. I should have chose that because I was well-trained for it, because that has been my passion since the time I entered college and understood the meaning of the word "philosophy."
But certain events in my life led me to this decision, and at this point in time, I can say that due to the things that I have experienced, I don't regret choosing to teach in high school.
Is it because of the pay? Not even. If it's because of money, then I could have left the vocation of teaching and instead entered a company or a big newspaper firm and wrote lots of articles for them. It's part of the things that I can and love to do, anyway.
Is it because of lighter intellectual work? Far from it. In fact, teaching high school seems to be more difficult than teaching philosophy. I even had to do what I'm not really accustomed to doing: planning and preparing for things that I have to teach, coming up with different creative and engaging activities that deviate from the usual conventional styles, and even organizing the way I would have to deliver the important concepts in and out of class (which includes accompanying them in different school activities).
Is it because of a lighter form of work? Definitely not. Teacher life is not cloud-hopping all day long. Most of the time you go home with a lot of academic load at your back. You have to check those papers and design activities within a given time. When you go home, routines are still present, and it might be possible that you're going to miss the latest episode of "Chuck" or postpone watching Japanese films and save them for the weekend. In fact, work load is so much heavier compared to that in college, and there's a great deal of adjustment involve in terms of living my life and coping up with work.
And sometimes it brings you down. It comes with a lot of stress that you just want to eat and eat while doing these in your workroom or at home. It makes you think, raises questions, as to why you are still in this job, or, most appropriately, why you pursued this particular vocation.
But despite those things, I say that I'm happy with it.
I'm happy whenever my students were able to understand what I'm teaching. I'm happy whenever they come up with their deep, moving, and insightful class prayer services which would really surprise any Chrristian Life Education teacher who have seen these. I'm happy with the way students get along with me and ask me various questions about what I teach. I'm happy with how they get along with me and talk not just about religion but also basketball fantasy leagues, their plans for college, as well as their sentiments about the things that they have experienced during the past days. It might be true that the teacher would invest all of his time and effort to the students just for a relatively low salary compared to that of business employees. But then, where else could you find such sense of fulfillment? Where else could you be able to serve and actually take care of other people who are just like you? Nothing, except in the school, where everyone grows and becomes actually human both inside and outside the classrooms and the workrooms.
And I guess I'm satisfied with that. These reasons might not be clear and intelligible enough to serve as explanations. But after a few months of teaching, together with the little successes and failures that come with it, one thing is clear for the person who once saw himself as a philosopher: that the philosophy that he has learned should be exigent. It should get out of itself and encounter the daily lives and struggles of the people around the thinker. It has to serve as a foundation for living, to ground everything in it, to apply it and impart the lessons that it teaches in particular contexts, in particular subjects, in particular classes. And for me, it is in forming these young men, in being with them, in teaching and guiding them, that the philosophy that I have learned in college is enfleshed. It becomes truly alive, truly lived.
It might be busy. It might take most of my time. It might leave me with no free time at all. But who cares, as long as you're growing to be happy and fulfilled with it?
