By Alex Lauricio

You wake up. The sound of the faucet greets you good morning, and the smell of coffee invites you outside of bed. It’s yet another day in the job—and you’ve grown accustomed to going through the motions of being a teacher. You look at the deadlines, have a long good look at the Google Classroom, and can’t help but feel the weight of the entire world crashing on your shoulders.

And then, you smile.

We greet them in the alleys in school, spot them walking with piles of paper in the corridors of the Ateneo Senior High School (ASHS), and encounter them on a daily basis in our lives as students. This Duffy Delaney Day, let us recognize the formators and teachers who, in spite of certain difficulties, have learned to smile in the face of struggle.

We see them sprawling in the Grades 11 & 12 Workrooms, and sometimes meet them on the way to school. You offer to help them carry their bag of papers, but they refuse because you might see your score in the long test. They arrive in class sweaty and wondering where all the time went—it’s already five minutes past the start of class.

A Blue Backstory

Fr John P Delaney, SJ was a known figure throughout the country, as he served as the Chaplain of the University of the Philippines (UP), and contributed to the construction of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrifice in UP. In the Ateneo de Manila High School (AHS), he became a noteworthy principal among the students.

Fr Charles G Duffy, SJ helped shape the lives of the high school students in the then-AHS, serving as a guidance counselor and teacher. His heartwarming stories helped his pupils grow, and taught them the value of cura personalis.

Teacherhood, Formatorhood

In each classroom is a world—a bustling scene of life filled with student culture and experience. You go through different worlds each day, and as much as they imprint on you, you also do the same. You’re probably the hot topic of discussion among student circles when discussing who their favorite teacher is.

Choosing to be a teacher is a difficult yet rewarding choice—and we’ve encountered many teachers who told their story of encountering the profession in times where they didn’t expect it.

Teachers have to attend a four-year course that teaches them their subject matter expertise as well as methods on teaching and pedagogy. They then have to prepare for the Licensure Examination for Teachers—a grueling 150-item test over the course of two hours. This doesn’t even include the nail-biting months of waiting for the results to come out, either in disappointment or in triumph.

After all their trials and tribulations, they’re greeted with a class of about forty students who won’t stop their noise despite it being the third time the teacher has told them to quiet down. Sure, they’re trained for this specific job, but it gets tiring if it’s the fifth class and you’re doing the same thing over and over.

It’s easy to see in a classroom that there’s the students and the teacher—but despite their proximity to each other, sometimes they are just worlds apart. Students throw pop culture references in the air, and sometimes teachers mistake these references as something else. So many teachers have tried to bridge this gap—some succeed, but others remain trying in their efforts to connect with their students.

The In-Betweens

The bell rings, and you bid the class your goodbyes, eager to meet them again this week or the next. You keep your papers, tidy up the notes you have on your notebook, and walk towards the exit. This is but one of the many sections you handle each day. You get ready to go through the same routine, this time, with a different set of students. Rinse and repeat—you got this.

Just like students, many teachers often find themselves wanting to take a break. In between the sound of the bell ringing in the halls of the ASHS, they are offered only five minutes to catch their breath. Whatever time that is left, teachers use in order to set up the projector, or the TV. In their mind they’re thinking of the flow of the class— “On second thought, why is there no more chalk here?”

Or maybe they’re zoning out, trying to remember each name inside the room. Turns out it becomes a memory game once you’re consistently handling 200+ students a day. There are and will be plenty of moments where they’ll pause—and then take a step back: “Aya, ikaw ba yan?”

During recess and lunch, you’ll often spot them hanging around with other teachers, telling them stories about their wildest experiences in class, with each teacher one-upping the other as they lay down their tales one-by-one. You walk past and hear whispers of your section, and a moment later, you’ll see them burst out laughing at their table. They too have their own workroom shenanigans.

During dismissal you’ll see them consulting with an entire crowd of students—half of which were absent during the long test date. Our teachers have grown accustomed to working above and beyond class hours, just to give moments like these for students to catch up. They probably can’t count the number of students that page them from their workrooms every single day.

Outside of the classroom, the teacher becomes a friend. How many times have you exchanged chika with your mod? Even long after you graduate from the halls of the ASHS, many students often come back to the school just to see how their teachers are doing. 

And when they do, the teachers could not be any less proud to see that all their hard work and dedication paid off.