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 answer with yes but you have to answer with yes the way I say class ok let's try class class class ok still works for all ages ok , so good morning, my name again. there is no video in 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 why do you teach and it is common for us teachers in the public. school exactly to hear the question why only teach again at night due to low alarm when people ask me that question I answer a simple sentence and that simple sentence is hell mahalik in a Clemenza I teach because I love this country pause for the impact but really the story went way beyond that let's go back to my third year in college when I was in the semester break when I was at San breakin Ateneo I attended this thing we call the Ateneo student leaders assembly or whenever the law It was a five day four meeting - Evening Training Seminar and I walked in thinking I was one of those regulars.

You do an activity. You ask questions and then you get an idea. it really showed me how beautiful our country is this is my lot very inspiring and if you can't see me that's me in the red circle one of the activities in a default was we were going to go to a dive site between the what we were going to choose four different sites a commercial health environmental education site people who knew me would think i would choose the commercial 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 hiked in the mountains across an hour and a half walk over a drawbridge to a public school i felt a lot of things and then first it bothered me 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 waking up at 5 o'clock every morning to walk an hour and a half to this very disappointing public school.

I felt really disturbed right after that. I went wrong with another organization called Ateneo code and we have what we call the DEP @n LTS geo is a training program for student officers across the country now the thing is we were going to facilitate about a thousand students competing with all the noise without sleep no breakfast no voice was very very exhausting but very very rewarding and the problem was that during this time if i completed the full five days i had to cut my first day of school and i'm a nerd as you can have i heard i don't miss to classes, not even to physical education, not even to the introduction to the culture of the Ateneo.

I never miss school and this apparently hashtag, first world problems, problem was what I was thinking about. I am willing to miss school for the first time in my life and I? I thought how ironic it is that I am teaching the 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 couldn't give up one day to stay and teach the kids these two activities They 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 teaching for the Philippines came out my senior year I knew this was the opportunity I was expecting. for me, before the first day of school, of course, I would write those long Facebook statuses where you ponder things and I was thinking that I am NOT an education student.

I'm not even sure if 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 tried and that by trying we already succeeded so try because you know there is many things need to be changed, but what have you done about it? this is my school suggests Gennaro's primary school best and where five classmates in my school and the first week of class was pretty crazy like in swimming when you have to jump into the pool to learn to swim teach is the same don't feel in a class and you think about strategies of how to teach we kill each other and learn to teach and we are all sick to the point that some classmates or even the hospital after the first week of class and you realize that teaching is a work 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 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 world need does the world need your job and the third one which is the most important to me has to be something you love when you cross these three things you will find repeal something you are good at something the world needs and something you love do something you enjoy because you really only have one life to live and don't waste your life for not doing something you enjoy I asked my students in the first week of class what you want to be when you grow up the answers were typical with bullshit son dialogue we sobbing dancer Gustav trickster engineer it was horrible mugging Bogart he was a medic fighter one of my students said chair Gustavo mugging the delivery guy Armando then I thought to myself I got into the public school system thinking I want my students to dream bigger I want to tell them hey, you're dreaming wrong, there are bigger things out there when this kid told me the Kusaka in delivery, monomakh, though 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 delivery man Amador sabi ko Saranya still looking for delivery man canoe they knock on door but Gustavo Magan Sobran Killington delivery man Irma Bombeck no Gustavo to comeback delivery I think I said it's not hard anymore , our job as teachers is not to tell your children to dream bigger, but to make these dreams more real for them, that they can do it, so aspire because we all have our own ambitions and really our own ambitions should drive us. to come up with what you want to do because ultimately this idea is this dream that will change the world and when you talk about changing the world what needs to be changed and I think our generation is a great generation mainly because maybe we're fighting for a strange dark and ambiguous kind of freedom our grandparents had to fight for freedom from our colonizers our parents maybe from martial law what our generation what we are fighting for 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 daunting task of changing the world revolves around the parts we give of ourselves to others and all we have to do is choose Amelie Amelie opening began Amelie in Makaha Emilia tongue entered because not really It doesn't matter what job you choose to do or where you choose to work but it's really 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 always and when you choose to commit to doing good people often ask me if its worth it its worth it despite your job opportunities outside its worth teaching a public school for two years let me show you your a simple story this my student your name is Casey great question is my favorite student but it's a secret love debate in your video Sonya is my favorite student was in grade 3 normal age 9 entered as a non reader couldn't spell her name correctly she just tends to memorize words together it's also my picasa gotcha you know cool aha so the major made me pack a boolean which is probably why it makes up for it not reading i thought to myself.

I had to do something with this student. I don't want him to leave the big three without any improvements, so I told him to find Casey. The link I started was him. Andre when the tires hit the spot. In the afternoon I teach autistic classes and I told them we'll see each other in the classroom at two so by two o'clock they were already in the classroom waiting outside because the gate put the indirect monetization of the classroom tomorrow by car and inside they were already writing the words Ateneo on the blackboards which made it clear that they are very, very excited to get to the university.

We have dips and dips that usually take us to areas of high need. IP communities for these students. like a dive for them casey even got dizzy and nearly vomited on the way to the Athenaeum and i was really really tired i mean after six hours of yelling at the kids and yet teaching for an hour and a half and in the afternoon how not be tired but no well i empowered koenig lila had the keys but she andresa got nana in megan's appearances you hurry and dad? There are no empowered men with an atomic house. see cases a chess room because in the glow Lou pollution and persecution not an iron pagoda nominated Benghazi Lhasa alley MATLAB economy pool now while I unpack it would go and aloo silymarin comes rifle varsity in the park merlion Woodcock I can put a Samba Panama Nikita's a key to the gym Vanessa Blue Eagle sat in my statistics class and pretended to take notes so really before class started I said she gave her a bikini India not a new bell at am our chalkboard markers copper decay drawings simulated a blackboard 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 Athenaeum that night.

I had two goals to instill in KC that number one I want and number two I can because I can get in. kayak and i walked in when he wrote this in the black where i thought to myself i had i want to do something i had to do something about the i can before we left i showed report card cheesy his report boy was black and only had a grade stock class with a grade of eighty and i showed him his card he is doing a report card more baby sitting in whiter you manga report card more i speak my english in a chair and cheap Anoka single matter easy to take in report more blank card more literature chemistry made between going to nail bad Tama blocked a report card and was quiet Casey a boy calls show White a report card he sees but grandpa a report card a great to be in hindi uma boots past KC Mitali Nova Bambaataa Casey Mitali Nova Bambaataa shook her head synonyms watching the beta opening of comet Elenin but when I go to sob on comet Elenin beta manahatta from the legacy tree Casey mechanicus is a being that will walk in the lagoon cackling what Adam has to be in Caesarea Natalie no Khambatta welcome Mike does it even on our epoxy no vinyl in hindi comet Elenin because I'm Italian no compact Nino's aliquot that manual happens in the metallic no buzz Vata and at that moment Cleese cried cried the most painful and cathartic thing I've ever heard in all my life if anything it wasn't me who gave Casey hope watching Casey animal starts the action of PAGASA and if you think Casey's story is very inspiring wait until you hear the stories of all the other peers and all the other hundreds out of thousands of public school teachers in this country so i hope because now is the best time to be filipino and everything we do for our country is worth in math we often talk f of X in ear in Oh and we ' I'm very, very obsessed with

finding

that X what is the X that will give me that answer when you think about it the words function make sense what X will make us work 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, why, why do we do things if you ask me two years ago why I teach in the Philippines, I would say that I teach because I love my country, but if you ask me again now, why do you do it?

I teach in the Philippines. I teach because of students like Casey. I found my f of X and that X was to teach and hopefully before I'm done I want all of you to teach too not necessarily join the public school system although that would be great and you can apply but teach in the sense that you will also try to enjoy aspire choose and hope

philippines

because you just have a beautiful country to love so let's all teach for

philippines

thank you very much