LILIA Lopez has not met Dr. Ralph Tyler but she shares the same passion with the great visionary that "teaching is not just a job," and that it is "a human service and must be thought of as a mission."
Lopez was one of the passengers aboard a van that would take the Sun.Star Bacolod staff home from San Carlos City after covering the inauguration and opening of a beach resort in Sipaway Island last Saturday.
After the casual talk and inquiries, we learned that Lopez is a teacher in a remote school, so she said, in Don Salvador Benedicto--the Binowayan Elementary School, for five years. She used to handle Grade 6 students, but was assigned to teach Grade 1. The school is located some six kilometers away from the main highway and nurtures 338 students from Grades 1 to 6 with only eight faculty members.
Lopez also taught at the Pandanon Elementary School, the central school, she said, of DSB, for 17 years. Lopez has been teaching for 22 years and has committed to what she addressed as her mission.
"I've always wanted to teach. But a friend inspired me to teach children who live in the mountains. The challenge is there," she said.
"Teaching children living in the urban area is far different from teaching children in far-flung areas. I always believe that education starts at home, this is true to the urban setting. However, in the mountains, most parents are uneducated. There is no one to teach the children to write and read. We, teachers, have to start from scratch, from introducing the children to writing materials, and especially teaching them how to handle the pencil," she said. And because most of the parents are farmers, the school faces a problem during planting and harvest seasons where most of the children help their parents in the task.
"We cannot blame the parents for not permitting their children to attend classes during those seasons. We cannot claim that it is child labor. It is their source of living. It is what nourishes them," she said.
She also finds it difficult to educate children about hygiene. Some of my students come to school wearing the same clothes they wore the other day.
I have also to remind them to cut their nails short, but most families don't own a nail clipper, she added.
Commitment
Lopez lives in Bacolod City.
She said she has a house located near the school. She financed its construction.
"I leave DSB on a Friday afternoon and go home to Bacolod. I have to check on my children and also hear out their needs. I am the only one sustaining their needs," she said.
She is proud of her five children, among whom she already produced a teacher like her.
"I would like my daughter to also teach in a remote area but it would be her prerogative if she feels she is most suited there," she added.
She has one boy and four girls, two of them are in college and the other two are still in the grade school level.
"I go back to the mountain Sunday afternoon so I will not miss the flag ceremony the next day. We have to be role models even in this small matter," she said.
Humbled
She considers herself a staunch disciplinarian when it comes to her students.
"But that was before, when I was handling Grade 6 students. My students in Grade 1 taught me to be humble. A teacher should also be a psychologist in order to understand the feelings of her students," she said.
"I used to scold my Grade 1 students when they are not behaving. However, they won't come back to school the next day, worse, for a week after that. I have learned to be gentle in explaining to them where they have done wrong or when they misbehave," she added.
DepEd flaws
Lopez said that the Department of Education's designated Learning Tasks, a prepared lesson plan provided by the department, has been designed adept to the urban scope.
"Teachers in the rural areas have been grappling with the problems in learning competencies of the children. The Learning Tasks provided to us are just too much to the rural setting," she said.
The Learning Tasks usually assign materials for the children to bring to school.
"But where would the children living in the mountain secure materials like plastic wrappers of food stuff, styropor and other materials? They would be ordinary to the urban area and you can find them even in the garbage but in the mountains, it is impossible to secure those things," she lamented. Sometimes, she said, teachers would just be creative and do the next possible thing-improvise.
"Teachers should be creative in presenting their lessons. Unavailable materials could be replaced by other materials. However, it would require lots of thought and experimentation," she said.
Lopez, however, has no problem in teaching Mathematics because a foundation from Japan has provided the school with teaching aids.
TV programs
Lopez shares the children cannot avail of the lessons offered by educational television programs, as the school does not even own a television set. The children had to be taken to our co-teacher's house to view the programs and we have to pay P20 for the use of the generator, she said. The generator, rented for P20 an hour, has been endorsed to the barangay years ago and provides electricity to about 30 to 40 homes.
Challenge
"I find it a shame if my student cannot read or write yet by September," she said.
Some of her students don't have school supplies, so sometimes she lets her students borrow pencils. Sometimes she shells out some of her personal money to buy materials such as cartolina and other teaching aids.
"I have to do it if I want my students to learn," she said.
Well, if Alessandra de Rossi could inspire a group of children to sing with zest and passion in the movie Munting Tinig, Lopez has been inspiring little children to achieve more of what is expected of them.
(Published in Sun.Star Bacolod March 17, 2004)
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