CHILDREN’S GARDEN: A LEGACY OF LEARNING

By: Norberto Betita 

Teacher Angeline L. Tandan, incumbent Director & the late Teacher Irene L.Tandan, the Founder

The CGL:CI am not sure whether my meeting and shake hands with teacher Angeline L. Tandan yesterday have registered some thoughts in my sub-conscious mind that when I awoke early dawn today, Monday, March 4, 2019, the first thought that entered my consciousness was about the Children’s Garden Learning Center as a legacy of learning for many of the children and youths in Surigao City. 

The thought lingered even after my restroom call and it just didn’t leave as to have me awake until the alarm rings. What was in my mind is a sense of sincere personal gratitude to the founder of one of the pioneering kindergarten school in Surigao City---the late teacher IRENE L. TANDAN-- and those teachers, many of whom were already retired and with some having already slipped into the other side of the veil, in molding and building the educational foundations of all my five children, who studied and finished kindergarten from that beloved institution of foundational learning. It hits me so much that after my regular prayer I was kind of dragged in front of my computer and started to write those inspired thoughts while still fresh in the mind. 

The late Teacher Irene L. Tandan, CGLC founder & Husband, the late Atty. Enrique Y. Tandan

 

The memories of those many years of parent-teacher-institution partnership in molding the foundations and building blocks of our children’s quest for learning and education remains, as its alumni now occupies competitive positions in government and private institutions; and are pursuing private professional advancements in the field of medicine, law, science and technology, engineering and architecture and other progressive professions, during the last 40 years of its existence. I do not boast the fact that from the early foundational learning competencies in communications and mathematical literacy gained by my children from that humble and simple environment of the Children’s Garden Learning Center, four out of my five children had qualified to study in one of the nation’s premiere university---the University of the Philippines---although only two of them survived, the two having relinquished their scholarship in favor of reasonable priorities. Such learning foundations also motivated them to seriously endeavor to earn college degrees.

The founder of the Children’s Garden learning Center---the late teacher Irene---as she is fondly addressed by her pupils, was herself a teacher. She graduated with a degree in Elementary education and with a master’s degree in English. She should have gone far into the leadership hierarchy in the Surigao City Division of the Department of Education Culture and Sports (DECS), but having herself observed the foundational learning deficiencies in many of Public school pupils, she chose to instead establish a pre-school learning center, which by then there was only one available in the city, with a noble vision to better help prepare children for formal education. 

The CGLC founder as a young educator

       
Although her husband---Atty. Enrique Y. Tandan, a prominent lawyer---had been very supportive of her sublime and admirable vision for the children of Surigao City and the Province of Surigao del Norte, they were not that affluent as to have enough capital. Hence, they started the kindergarten school in a rented building. I knew of several plans of expansion, early on, using their real estate resources. However, according to their eldest son Enrique, Jr., a brilliant young man, who was then a first year college student at UP Diliman College of Economics, during our personal interviews and dialogues, the costs and the plight of the student’s family had always been a consideration and concern of her mother. She always justified her generous and benevolent disposition in favor of the children and their families as a token of affection, because from its inception she never wanted to make business out of the education which the school offered, but to make education its business. Consequently, the expansion plans did never materialize, except the converting of the kindergarten school into an elementary school. But through the years and until her passing, teacher Irene, left an endowment of learning that will forever be carved in the tablet of the hearts of those dearly beloved pupils she helped mold towards success, and the rest of the alumni of the school she patiently established not for material gains, but for a noble vision to help prepare children for better learning. 

Children celebrating Christmas

Therefore and up to this time, the Children’s Garden Learning Center remains to be the cheapest private preparatory and elementary school in Surigao City. Yet, its competitiveness in so far as learning capabilities of its students are concerned, continues to be at par with its sophisticated counterparts.

The school is now headed by teacher Angeline L. Tandan, a Bachelor of Science in Child Psychology graduate from the Xavier-Ateneo de Cagayan University in Cagayan de Oro City and daughter of the late teacher Irene L. Tandan. It is still housed in the same rented building of long ago. 

Cultural show and recognition

Economic development and progress and the significant appreciation of real estate market values and appraisals, attracted and enticed the owner to take advantage and dispose of the property, and thus threaten the school’s existence. But its grand and majestic vision and mission as enshrined by its founder will surely remain hallowed and consecrated to the same ideals when it was first established. Thus, it will stand on the rock of principles upon which it was built, no matter the storms, and the children will continue to recite the pupil’s creed more loudly and clear:

“We believe in the value of education.

“We thank God for our parents and guardians who care.

“We thank God for this chance to study at the Children’s Garden Learning Center.

“We shall not waste this golden opportunity to improve ourselves and be useful to God and country. We take pride in this school which is our second home.

“For optimum growth, we shall use every moment profitably, we shall obey rules and regulations. We shall respect teachers and all school authorities.

“At all times, we shall behave, upholding the good name and honor of our Alma Mater.

“To Almighty God, we return all blessings and praises.”

Then with greater fervor and solemn conviction, perform their whole-souled cry of the school’s motto:

“In the Children’s Garden Learning Center, we don’t make business out of education. We make education our business.”

In time, a new door will be opened to accommodate its enthusiastic pupils and parents, with renewed vigor and commitment for an enduring parent-teacher-institution partnership. Then the Children’s Garden Learning Center will live on forever as a provider of competitive foundational learning environment for our children and our children’s children. 

CGLC faculty and staff

As a parent, I cherished and treasured the time when I was humbled by the memory of the late Atty. Enrique Y. Tandan, who even beyond the boundaries of his prominence, had to convey our son Robert Sherwin home because we forgot to fetch him at school due to our very busy work schedule. Now as a grandparent, I cherish and love to witness my grandchildren show their respect, honor and fondness, tenderly expressed for their teacher Buding (Angeline), the school director, and other teachers for that matter, wherever and whenever they met, a substantiation of an atmosphere of tender and affectionate relationship in the school room and campus.

Then I am reminded of the words of Daniel Webster (1782-1852): “If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work on brass, time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will crumble to dust. But if we work on men’s immortal minds, if we impress on them high principles, the just fear of God, and love for their fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets something which no time can efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all eternity.” I know that such ideals are part of what the Children’s Garden would want to leave as a legacy of learning for its students.