I spent 17 years in formal education across five institutions, trying to learn life through 26 subjects under 48 teachers. I filled around 70 notebooks, used up dozens of pens and pencils, wore out pairs of shoes, and spent countless hours trying to master lessons that I thought would prepare me for life. Yet even after all that, I came to realize that the deepest lessons are often learned outside the classroom.
As the years passed, I found myself remembering not only the subjects I studied but also the people who shaped me, the small moments that stayed with me, and the truths I only understood much later. Looking back now, I see that my education was never just about grades or diplomas. It was also about gratitude, sacrifice, humility, and the quiet influence of teachers whose impact took years for me to fully appreciate.
For all the years I spent in school, life still found ways to teach me new lessons every day. Some of these lessons were never part of any syllabus. They came from growing older, looking back, and finally understanding things I once took for granted.
One of those lessons is this: education does not end at graduation. In fact, some of the most meaningful learning begins when you start reflecting on the people and experiences that helped form you.
Table of Contents
My first classroom, my first teacher
Lessons are first learned at home. But my first formal teacher was Mrs. Beatriz Canillo, whom we fondly knew as Madam Betty. It was around 20 years earlier when I was first admitted into formal schooling at Project Hope kindergarten, an initiative started during the term of the late Davao City mayor Elias B. Lopez. I can still picture that first morning clearly: my mother helping me into my shiny, heavy brown shoes, my plain white shirt, and navy blue shorts after breakfast, before sending me off to school.
The school was only a 15-minute walk from home, just across the house of our barangay captain. I carried a small baon of sandwiches and orange juice in my Flash Gordon bag, then entered a world that felt both unfamiliar and exciting. There were children on the swings and slides, some too shy to speak, others crying as they clung to their mothers and grandmothers. Inside the classroom were rattan chairs, though I was told I would need to bring one of my own next time.
What a small classroom taught me about sacrifice
When the bell rang, classes began, and the crying slowly gave way to coloring books and crayons. Ours was a small classroom, just enough for about 30 pupils in the morning, with another batch in the afternoon. It was the only classroom we had.
Even when rainwater flowed from the thatched roof, Madam Betty made sure we were prepared for Grade 1. At that age, I did not yet understand what it meant for a teacher to work with so little and still give so much. Funding was limited, and parents often had to help maintain the school grounds, clean up, and contribute what they could. Looking back, I now see that education was never carried by teachers alone. It was a shared act of hope between school, family, and community.
As I grew older, I began to wonder what it really meant to become a teacher. I used to think I could never be one. I was too shy to face a class. At different points in childhood I dreamed instead of becoming a fireman, and later, an airline pilot after experiencing my first flight.
But even then, I could already see that teaching came with pain. In Grade 3, I remember our substitute teacher, Ma’am Emnace, grimacing in discomfort during lunch break because of an ulcer. In Grade 5, our class witnessed Mrs. Alejandro faint from stress while discussing Araling Panlipunan. Those moments stayed with me. They showed me, even before I fully understood it, that teachers often endure silent struggles while continuing to stand in front of the class.
A song that stayed with me
Not all my memories of school were heavy. Some remain bright, tender, and almost musical. One of them was wearing my crisp Cub Scout uniform in Grade 2 and singing a song Madam Papin taught us:
Come young citizens of the world
We are one, we are one
Come young citizens of the world
We are one, we are one
We have one hope
We have one dream
And with one voice
We sing…
Peace, prosperity
And love for all mankind
Even now, those lines feel larger than a classroom exercise. They remind me that some lessons are planted early, long before we understand their meaning. Songs like that quietly teach ideals that stay with us into adulthood: unity, hope, and a sense that we belong to something bigger than ourselves.
My elementary years ended in the class of Mrs. Perla Umusig, where our self-proclaimed quintet of me, Rodel Garsuta, Jergen Seriosa, Christopher Bermudez, and Ray Amador Bargamento became known as the Comedian Brothers. That nickname captured a part of childhood that no report card could measure: friendship, mischief, and the small glory of being known for making others laugh.
There were also the lonely walks home in the rain, my blue raincoat hanging loosely while my feet went numb in wet shoes. But even those afternoons had comfort waiting at home: champorado prepared by my late grandmother and Scooby Doo every Tuesday. Those details may seem ordinary, yet they are the very things that make memory warm. They remind me that education is not only what happens inside school walls. It is also what surrounds school: home, weather, laughter, hunger, comfort, and the people who receive us after a long day.
What adulthood revealed about teachers
In high school, I began wondering how much our teachers earned. I knew some of them had children studying for free in the school, which seemed like one of the few privileges available to them. Much later, I would discover that their salaries were even lower than what I earned in my first job after university.
At one time, I naïvely believed that happiness alone might be enough compensation. I told myself that even if the salary was not good, a person could be fine as long as they were happy. But later I understood that many of them were not fine. Many were underpaid, overworked, and quietly trying to move into public schools for better opportunities. That realization changed the way I saw my former teachers. Their work was not only noble. It was costly.
One painful lesson in life is that we often understand a person’s value only after the chance to thank them has passed. I felt this strongly when I learned of the death of our CAT commandant, Sir Picar, while I was already in Hong Kong during my first few months there.
He was a stern man, the kind whose presence alone could command silence. Yet he was also a gifted mentor in the sciences, and his influence helped inspire me to achieve Best in Math and Best in Science in our high school graduation. It still saddens me that I never got to thank him personally for helping shape that part of my life. Appreciation delayed can become appreciation denied, and that is a lesson I try not to forget.
College humbled my assumptions
As a college freshman, I thought professors had the easiest teaching jobs and were probably better paid than high school teachers. From a student’s point of view, it seemed they only had to lecture, give surprise quizzes, and decide who passed and who failed. It was a shallow judgment, one made from the outside.
My own college path also taught me that life does not always follow your preferred route. I once hoped to study at UPLB, but my mother told me plainly that our finances could not support it. That disappointment stayed with me, especially after missing that opportunity and trying other schools before eventually ending up at ICC, which soon became UIC. Scholarships softened the blow, but the experience taught me an early lesson in acceptance: not every closed door is the end of the story.
In college, I encountered a stricter world of uniforms, IDs, gatekeeping, and student policies that felt like an extension of high school. We had teachers who would deny students entry for not wearing socks, or require technical materials as a form of pass to attend class. At the time, I saw these as rigid and sometimes excessive. But I also understood that some of these rules were attempts to instill discipline and self-reliance.
Still, schools are human institutions, and not everything in them is admirable. Some teachers became role models because they practiced what they preached. Others did not. That contrast became another life lesson for me: authority alone does not earn respect. Character does.
One of the most striking memories from college was seeing UIC faculty members stage a protest. I remember the black armbands and even a symbolic coffin representing what they believed was the death of educational quality in the university. Their grievances centered on money, benefits, and unfulfilled contractual obligations.
As students, we later echoed some of those sentiments in our own protest actions, only to find ourselves made to sign agreements before enrollment to discourage similar action in the future. That period taught me that schools are not isolated from the realities of labor, power, and institutional conflict. Even in places meant for learning, injustice can shape the environment.
Becoming the teacher I thought I could never be
After graduation, I found myself stepping into a role I once thought I was unfit for: teaching. I did not become a pilot, and I did not immediately land the job I most wanted. What mattered then was avoiding idleness and proving I could be useful. So I embraced the work available to me and became a teacher.
That experience changed my perspective more than any classroom lecture ever could. Waking up at 6 in the morning, leaving home by 7, battling traffic, rushing to catch a 7:30 class, and hoping not to be marked late by the DSA secretary gave me a practical education in responsibility. The possibility of salary deductions and reprimands added pressure, but it also made me understand the daily discipline many teachers live with.
When I taught, I often had to study before I could teach with confidence. I found Differential Calculus harder to learn, but Integral Calculus harder to teach. That distinction mattered. Knowing something for yourself is very different from making it understandable for others.
I taught mostly Math subjects to Computer Science students, along with some IT and EDP classes for both CS and Commerce departments. In that role I discovered that teaching is not merely repeating what is in a book. It is interpretation, patience, timing, constant preparation, and reading the room if students truly understood what I am teaching. It demands more from a person than many students ever realize.
Fulfillment and restlessness can live together
There was fulfillment in seeing students grow, graduate, and eventually become teachers or professionals themselves. Since I was only a few years older than many of them, it was easy to relate and form connections. Yet at the end of each school year, I often found myself on the lonelier side of things as students returned to their provinces or moved on, and communication became difficult.
At the same time, I also felt restlessness. I wanted adventure. I wanted to go beyond the routines of the classroom and discover what else life had in store. That feeling taught me another lesson: it is possible to value a season of your life and still know it is not where you are meant to stay forever.
As the years passed, I became more conscious of milestones. In 1998, it was already 10 years since grade school graduation. In 2002, it had been 10 years since high school. Some reunions failed to happen, but even then I tried to remember my teachers, even if only through a simple card addressed to them.
What I missed at first was an even quieter milestone: it had already been 20 years since that little boy walked into Madam Betty’s class wearing shiny brown shoes and carrying a Flash Gordon bag. That realization taught me that memory itself is a kind of responsibility. We owe it to those who formed us to remember them while time still allows it.
If there is one lesson that endures through all these memories, it is this: gratitude should be expressed while there is still time. We do not always understand immediately what our teachers, mentors, and elders have done for us. Sometimes it takes years, distance, and experience before we finally see the weight of their sacrifices.
School gave me knowledge, discipline, friendships, songs, laughter, and memories. Life gave those experiences their meaning. And perhaps one of the greatest marks of maturity is to look back, remember well, and say thank you before the moment is gone.