Dr.
Teresita Rungduin
English Translation
From the videos we have seen one of the most important enabler is that the teachers showed that they
are committed to teach and that they'd like to make a difference and this has led to them creating their
personal legacies.
For example, in the case of Robert, he used all the resources he has and what he knew about teaching to
be able to gather resources to help the Aetas.
In the case of Marcelo we could see how he extends himself to the community he tried his best to relate
and gather resources so that he will be able to help the community he's teaching celebrate and do
something to make the culture -- the culture of his community flourish.
This is similar also with Ratnawati, she wanted to help her child and this has resonated and impacted the
way she looked for advances in the field of special education to help children in her country.
The way the teacher perceives his or her job is an enabler of passion and this now leads to creating
personal legacies. We should notice that in the sharings of the three teachers that they use the word
reflect often and they have looked into the idea of reflection.
In the case of Robert, every day he writes down his reflections in a journal and looks into it as a means to
make himself better the following day.
In relation to Marcelo, he reflected on how he could further look for people and agencies that could help
him promote his culture promote the indigenization of the practices in his community.
With regard to Ratnawati, she extended herself to seeing how special education can be an important area
or should be an important area in her country.
So in terms of reflection these teachers used it as a way to primarily fuel whatever drive they have because
that particular drive would now be of course emulated to how they teach their students.
I could also say that the teachers have their own sense of personal hope. This personal hope coming from
the reflections aligned with their goals and when hopes and goals go together sometimes it creates a
wonderful effect.
Some teachers would just want to teach and that's it but these teachers they're outstanding,
extraordinary because they went out of their way and that is could be, they could be fueled by that
reflections.
So you see hope and goals combined with reflection would create positive impacts as to how we see
ourselves internally and how we could extend this hope and goals to our students.
We have our emotional buffers, so these emotional buffers come in the form of it could be friends,
colleagues or in this case the teacher's family.
In the case of Robert, he saw his students as his family this came from the idea that he came from well
with Marcelo too. They both came from a poor family and they wanted to make lives better and the idea
of making lives better did not just focus on doing well in their profession for their siblings, for the people
that they care for but then it extended to their students and now they're doing extra effort to be able to
address the needs of their students.
This now prompted their capacity to be able to become more resilient and more capable of doing things
to make a difference.
In the case of Ratnawati, she has a child with special needs and this particular need to help her child could
be used to influence other parents to do the same and if we will look at it, these are the things that could
have been developed because of how they have related to their families and of how they have related to
their students.
The last enabler, one of the most important also is that the teachers see themselves growing with like-
minded people. They flourish with the people they are with.
In the case of Dr. Robert Santos, he mentored his co-teachers in fact, he mentored also his students who
eventually became teachers in his school. With regard to Marcelo, he looked into how he can network
with other government agencies whose main task is also to help.
When it comes to enablers of passion, we see that a teacher should somehow feel it inside. It should be
coming internally from inside. It should be very internal the life experiences of these teachers show stories
of triumph, stories of hope and stories of resilience.
I think these are things we need when it comes to teaching because sometimes there could be really
problematic areas very challenging areas that we should hold on to each other, our support system and
we should also look into ourselves internally to see why do we actually want to teach? What is the reason
for teaching?
I do hope that teachers continue teaching with commitment teaching with energy and giving their lives to
help other people.
