Finding f(x): Why I teach for the Philippines | Delfin Villafuerte | TEDxXavierSchool

I'm going to try something, I'll say class and you'll say yes, but you have to answer yes the way I say class, okay, let's try it class, class, class, okay, it still works for all ages, okay, so Good morning, my name again. There are no videos there and as you may know I am a public school

teach

er. When people find out that I am a public school

teach

er, they always ask me why I teach and it is common for us teachers in the public. school exactly to hear the question why just go back to teaching at night because of the low alarm when people ask me that question.

I answer a simple prayer and that simple prayer is hell mahalik in a Clemenza. I teach because I love this country, pause to make an impact, but really. the story went much further than that, let's go back to my third year in college when I was on semester break when I was at San Breakin Ateneo. I attended what we called the Ateneo student leaders assembly or as long as the law was a five day four meeting. -Evening training seminar and I went in thinking it was one of those regular activities where you do an activity, ask questions, and then gain knowledge.

I didn't expect great speakers like Sabine at Kiko also about the Bisco teacher and it doesn't pass and Maria essa who really showed me how beautiful our country is, this is my very inspiring group and if you can't see me that's me there in the red circle. One of the activities with a flaw was that we went to a dive site that we had to choose from. four different sites an environmental education site, business health, people who knew me would think I would choose the business side, but during that time I thought I wanted to try the educational side, so I did what we did then was in Antipolo, we walked on the mountains. a drawbridge an hour and a half walk to a public school I felt a lot of things and then first I got upset I was restless I was thinking I'm coppin in waka ama I have to climb in American classes 730 every day I'm poppin Omaha, Greg Lamb who I have to walk from building A to building B when there are kids who wake up at 5 o'clock every morning to walk an hour and a half to this disappointing public school.

I felt really disturbed right after that. Too bad with another organization called Ateneo Code and we have what we call DEP @n LTS geo, it is a training program for student officers throughout the country. Now the thing is that we were going to facilitate about a thousand students competing with all the noise without Sleeping without breakfast without voice was very, very exhausting but very, very satisfying and the problem was that during this time, if I had to complete the full five days , I had to cut my first day of school short and I'm a nerd like you may have felt.

I heard that I didn't miss classes, not even physical education, not even introduction to the culture of the Ateneo. I never missed class and this apparently hashtag first world problems problem was what I was thinking about. Am I willing to miss classes for the first time in my life? I thought to myself how ironic it is that I am teaching students what it means to be a good Filipino, what it means to be a good leader, what it means to be a good citizen, when I myself could not give up for a day to stay. and teach children.

These two activities made me realize two things: number one, I love this country and number two, I loved working with young people and I loved teaching. When Teach for the Philippines was published my senior year, I knew this was the opportunity I had been waiting for. for me, before the first day of school, of course, I was writing those long Facebook statuses where you reflect on things and I was thinking I'm NOT an education student. I'm not even sure I made the right decision. survival test I'm not even sure if after two full years my students will be better after that I realized that really one thing that matters is that we try and that by trying we already achieved it so try it because you know that there are many things that It needs to be changed, but what have you done about it?

This is my school, suggests the best primary school in Gennaro and where five classmates from my school and the first week of classes were quite crazy, like in swimming, when you have to jump into the pool to learn to swim, teaching is the same: you don't sit in a class and think of strategies on how to teach, you don't just sit and make lesson plans, you have to jump in the classroom of 60 kids running around, try We kill each other and learn to teach and we're all sick to the point that some classmates or even the hospital after the first week of school and you realize that teaching is a job that is not just something you can do if you just want it to be is a vocation in the sense that there are three things that you have to cross first is that it has to be your skill you have to be good at it second is that it has to be a global need does the world need your work and the third which is the most important for me it has to be something you like.

When you cross these three things, you will find revocation, something you are good at, something the world needs, and something you love doing. Enjoy because you really only have one life to live and don't waste your life not doing something you enjoy. I asked my students the first week of school what you want to be when you grow up. The responses were typical of farces. son dialogue we sobbing dancer Gustav the fake engineer it was horrible to rob a Bogart was a combatant doctor one of my students said chair Gustavo rob the delivery man Armando then I thought to myself I entered the public school system thinking I want my students to dream big I want to tell Tell them hey, you're dreaming wrong, there are bigger things out there when this kid told me the Kusaka in the delivery monomakh, although I thought to myself that maybe that's not my role as a teacher.

Who am I to tell you that you are dreaming small? Who am I to tell you that you are dreaming the wrong dreams when he told me to stop imagining the delivery man Amador sabi ko Saranya is still looking for the delivery man canoe knocks on the door but Gustavo Magan Sobran Killington delivery man Irma Bombeck no Gustavo a return delivery I think I said no more It's hard, our job as teachers is not to tell your children to dream big, but to make these dreams more real so they can do it, because we all have our own ambitions and really our own ambitions should fuel us. achieve what you want to do because ultimately it is this idea, this dream, that will change the world and when you talk about world change, what needs to change?

And I think our generation is the best generation, mainly because maybe we're fighting over something strange. dark and ambiguous type of freedom our grandparents had to fight for freedom from our colonizers our parents maybe from martial law what is our generation why are we fighting maybe we are fighting for freedom against injustice oppression poverty and equality and we know that there are many things that need to be changed but what do we do my answer is simple the difficult task of changing the world revolves around the pieces we give of ourselves to others and all we have to do is choose Amelie Amelie opening began Amelie in Makaha Emilia language I came in because it really doesn't matter what job you choose to do or where you choose to work, but how you do your job, it's not about where you go, it's about how you do, wherever you go, you can be adopted or you can be a Lawyer, you can work for the government as long as you choose to commit to doing good.

People often ask me if it's worth it, despite your job opportunities abroad, to teach in a public school for two years, let me show you. you a simple story this my student his name is Casey great question he is my favorite student but it is a secret love debate in his video Sonya he is my favorite student he was in third grade normal age 9 years old entered as a non-reader who could I did not write his name correctly, he would simply tend to memorize words together. He's my picasa too, you know? Great, huh, so Major made me pack a boolean, which is most likely why he compensates because he's not a reader, I thought to myself.

I had to do something with this student. I don't want him to leave the big three without any upgrades, so I told him to get Casey for him. The link I started was him, Andre, when the tires on the nail I did not attend. In the afternoons I teach autism classes and I told them to meet in the classroom at two o'clock so at two o'clock they were already in the classroom waiting outside because at the gate they put the monetization of the classroom tomorrow in the car and inside They were already scribbling the words Ateneo on the blackboards, who cleared up, are very, very excited to get there at the university, we have dips and dips that usually take us to high need areas.

IP communities for these students who are going to attend. like a dip for them, casey even got car sick and almost threw up on the way to the Ateneo and I was really really tired, I mean after six hours of yelling at kids and still teaching for an hour and a half and in the afternoon, how could you not be? tired but not good, I gave power to Koenig Lila had the keys, but she Andresa got Nana in Megan's appearances, you hurry up and daddy is not an empowered man with an atomic da house? features a bargain app putting together a blue oval now empowered ally Gooden who wants to see cases a chess room because in the glare Lou pollution and persecution not an iron pagoda nominated Benghazi Lhasa alley MATLAB economic pool now while unpacking would go and also silymarin varsity rifle team was coming to Merlion Woodcock Park I can put in a Samba Panama Nikita's a key to the gym Vanessa Blue Eagle they sat in my statistics class and pretended to take notes so actually before the class started I said she gave him a bikini India not a new bell in I am our whiteboard markers copper decay simulated drawings a whiteboard and here I have this non-reader who struggled to combine each and every letter to write these words in my white word Megara Lock was at the Ateneo that night.

He had two goals to instill in KC number one I want to and number two I can because I can get in. kayak and get in when he wrote this in the black where I thought to myself that I had I wanted to do it. I had to do something about it. I can before we go. I showed the cheesy report card. Her child with grades was black and only had one grade. stock class with a grade of eighty and I showed him his card he is doing a report card more babette sitting in more white your report card manga more I say my English in a chair and economical Anoka single subject easy to assimilate report more deadpan card more chemistry literature did between going to nail bad Tama block a report card and he was quiet Casey a boy calls exhibition to Blanco a report card that he sees but grandfather a report card a big being in Hindi uma boots past KC Mitali Nova Bambaataa Casey Mitali Nova Bambaataa shook her head synonyms observing the beta opening of comet Elenin but when I go to sob on comet Elenin beta mannahatta of the legacy tree Casey Mechanicalus is a being who will walk around the lagoon cackling what Adam has to be in Caesarea Natalie no Khambatta, welcome Mike, he does it even in our epoxy, not vinyl, in the comet Hindi Elenin because I'm Italian, not compact, the Nino aliquot that manual occurs in the metallic no hum Vata and at that moment Cleese cried, He cried in the most painful and cathartic way I have ever heard in my entire life, if anything, it wasn't me who gave Casey hope.

Look, Casey's animal starts the PAGASA action and if you think Casey's story is very inspiring, wait until you hear the stories of all the other companions and all the. Hundreds of thousands of other public school teachers in this country have so much hope because now is the best time to be a Filipino and everything we do for our country is worth it. In mathematics we often talk about f of X by ear in Oh and we. We are very, very obsessed with

finding

that X, what is the X that will give me that answer? When you think about it, function words make sense, what X will make us tick and we try to find that answer, we won't actually end up with an answer. but we actually end up with another question: why do we do things?

If you asked me two years ago why I teach for the Philippines, I would say I teach because I love my country, but if you ask me again now, why? I teach for the Philippines. I teach because of students like Casey. I found my f of Great and you can apply, but teach in the sense that you will also try to enjoy, aspire, choose and hope for the Philippines because you only have one beautiful country to go tolove, so let us teach everyone for the Philippines. Thank you so much.