HOW THE TEACHER OF OUR CHILDREN BECAME OUR PARENTAL EXTENSION

by: Norberto G. Betita

During the teachers’ month I wanted to pay tribute to the Surigawnon educators and particularly to the teacher of our five children who had been our best parental extension.

When my children were starting school, I have come to realize that most of their waking hours were spent at school and under the care of the teachers. Ever since, I have been very grateful for the teachers who became our parental partners and extension in the nurturing and development of our children. I know that the primary responsibility lies upon us--- the parents, yet they have to leave the confines of home in order to grow and progress. While we as parents served as the first teachers, it is in the classroom setting that they have to be taught lessons that provide academic and secular advancement. I find no nobler and ameliorating terminology and librettos that could best describe my greatest appreciation and heartfelt gratitude for the labors they have done which contributed and influenced much the quest for learning and education of my five children.

The meager salaries they get out of their labors for the academic nurturing of forty or more students in each class they handle in partnership with the same number of parents seemed not a fitting equilibrium, yet they felt bound by their professional choice. Their contribution to society and nation building is immeasurable considering that from the highest position of the land; the most prominent of businessmen and professionals; the heads of government departments and corporate CEOs down the lowest positions all have passed tutorials from the most noble teachers. This made Marcus Tullius Cicero to say: “What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation.” Whatever and whoever we are now is a debt that we owe from teachers whose very lives were spent in great sacrifice to provide learning and education and eventual personal advancements for us all and our children. 

As parents, I and my wife have a very notable and unforgettable connection and association with a teacher of our children. When my children entered high school more than 20 years ago, MS. LYDIA LAVARES was just a young Science teacher at the Surigao del Norte National High School. Under her tutelage was my eldest daughter Hazel. We have no blood relations whatsoever, yet we felt that she had great concern for our daughter. We do not know if she extended the same interest on other students as well, but we felt then that we could trust our daughter to her care as a parental extension. She taught with diligence, she helped influence greater desire for learning, and she inspired and aroused her students’ mental faculties to aim high in their academic race. She believed in the words of Anatole France that, “Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.” Our daughter was not in the honor roll, but she encouraged her to take the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT), and she qualified to study at UP-Visayas.

Ms. Lavares, a Surigawnon is a mother and a wife herself. She combines her parental responsibility to that of her teaching career. But more than her teaching expertise she’d been a very capable parental partner of the many parents of her students, and that she did not waiver in that extended trust. I trusted her for my children and she did never fail me.

The remaining four of our children all passed her tutelage. During those nurturing and tutoring years our trust for her as our children’s parental extension intensified and compounded. Her continued encouragement fostered and cultivated in our children an even inordinate desire to excel. My son Robert Sherwin graduated seventh honors and qualified for UP-Diliman. My daughter Lori Lynne, although not in the honor roll was best educated preparatory for college. My daughter Kathleen Beth graduated fifth honors and qualified for UP-Cebu. My youngest daughter got the highest honors from first year to third year and graduated valedictorian and qualified for UP-Cebu. In all of these high school achievements of our children, we are totally and extremely grateful to Ms. Lavares for her sincerity and total commitment in our parental partnership. In her we found the verity of Albert Einstein’s words: “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” I know she has her own family and children to nurture, but during most of the waking hours of my children which were spent in the restraints of the classroom and borders of school, she had been our most trusted parental extension and partner. She is loved by our children and her name has always been in their uncluttered memory. 

Our children have now all graduated from college. Four were already married and have their own families. Ms. Lavares has also grown to become a Master Teacher. She had been an Outstanding Teacher awardee. She even extends her expertise to other students by teaching college on part-time.

As our eldest granddaughter entered high school our connections again reconvened while longtime friendship remained. Indeed, “A teacher affects eternity; [she] can never tell where [her] influence stops.” (Henry Adams). The impact she has effected into the lives of our children are incalculable. As I now reflect on that long years of parental partnership my heart overflows with unremitting gratitude for her tremendous influence. So it is with all other Surigawnon teachers whose nurturing and tutoring have moved many people into achieving success in their individual lives.