You ask the first question. Detailed answers; very profound statements. Ultimately brilliant! You can’t hide your pleased smile. You nod in approval often. They notice. So, their posture and countenance shift to such projection of much confidence.

Then you move to another line of questioning. You ask about what significantly matters to them. You start to bleed as one answer after the other reveals the language of their hearts: the hopelessness, the apathy, the absence of a dream and conviction. A heart that is no longer willing to learn speaks, “I’m an expert already, take it from me!”; “I’m contented with my undergraduate degree; I have never wanted to pursue further studies. I am contented with what I know and with where I am. I have been teaching for more than seven years, anyway.” Their responses now disappoint you. You grip the table to keep your composure. Then one adds, “I teach English to 5th and 6th grade. I have been teaching for almost ten years now.” Not bad. So, you ask, “You must have, somehow, mastered the English language well. To have an idea on how you enrich your knowledge, please tell me the kind of books you read.” The applicant smiles, “I only read two kinds of books: Mills and Boons and other love story novels similar to Mills and Boons.” You stare at the applicant in disbelief. There is nothing wrong with reading Mills and Boons and romantic novels; but if those are the only reading materials that a 5th and 6th grade English teacher feeds the mind, what depth of English is the students likely to learn? What context of English is the students likely to receive? Though dismayed, you give it another try, “Magazines? You read magazines? Movies? What was the last movie you saw?” Answer came abruptly, “I read magazines on showbiz issues. Last movie I saw? The last time I saw a movie, I slept through it. Aside from that movie, the last movie I watched was Titanic.” You stare in disbelief. You are dying to ask the applicant to define what a teacher is and what teaching is all about. An idea in you screams that maybe, just maybe, these applicants do not really understand what being a teacher means even after all these years of being one. Sad to realize such but their responses seem to confirm your thoughts. You shift to another sitting position while thinking to yourself, “I’m not going to flare up and preach here”, when, suddenly, another applicant stares at you and retorts, “I no longer like reading; I never really did—is there a problem with that?!”

You bleed. As you interview one teacher-applicant to the other, you bleed for our country, you bleed for the younger generations. It has always been said that our country has hope in education. And you have always held on to that statement only to find yourself face-to-face with the front liners of our academic institutions whose responses steal from you the energy to hope for a brighter future. You nurse your wounds unaware of another slashing remark on its way, “I have long ago lost my hope on heroes. This country will no longer have one”. And another one declares, “Nope, I no longer go to church (moves towards you and grins); but don’t worry, I’m very okay, my brother is a pastor anyway.” With all these, though only at the 3rd level of 7 levels of pre-hiring screening, you no longer have the inspiration to continue.

You try—at least you tried—to already end the conversation. But one insists, “The Bible? Women degrading. Do you know that they scrapped Lilibeth from that Holy Book? Genesis is incomplete.” You gasped at the sudden remark. You now want to snap, “Can I throw you out of my office?”, but instead you say, “Lilibeth? Who is she? What do you mean?” The succeeding response wrecks you more, “Oh, the strong-willed, shrewd, independent woman in the Bible. The third party of Adam and Eve’s love story. She was totally scrapped simply because they do not want to encourage women empowerment. They do not want to encourage strength as women are to just submit. They want women to be as dumb as Eve.”

Determined to put aside the résumé, you execute the protocols: the handshake, the “I’ll give you a call when the Hiring Committee deliberates”, the “Thank you for coming.” Formal closing statements. But that is all. Not even an offer of a teaching-designation. Yet, there is an insisting on a last query: “Compensation? I want to know the starting pay.”

You breathe a figure. Not really accurate. You just want to provide an answer. Applicant lunges forward, “Aren’t you going to bid for my service? Such and such school has a higher offer.”

And just before the exit, you were informed, “There are many homosexuals in the Bible—Ester, Ruth—list goes on. Not really revealed though. Well, that Holy Book has to be kept ‘holy’….”

You rebut. Doors are closed. It is made clear that an argument isn’t pursued; it is just an intention to inform you how much the applicant knows, “I’m an expert! Women’s studies? Human rights? I know a lot.” And right after the applicant leaves, you take one last glance on the credentials: MA in Theology.

Do not just read this essay; but, take this as a drink. This is an undiluted liquid. A homogenous solution. Experiences testify: recruitment and hiring of teachers provide wealthy proofs of our poverty as a nation—as a supposedly Christian nation.

Take a drink so you may taste the poison concocted for the young generation. A battle now exists in our academic institutions as the formation of learning is jeopardized by the very people whom we entrust our children’s education. And these are the very people who, whether we like it or not, shape the character of our country’s future leaders. The freedom of discussion that teachers have, the authority and discretion their mere presence impose, and the very role they assume in the classroom—all these represent a sphere of power and influence which shapes our children’s understanding and reasoning. To add, with the years spent in school, the core of a child’s thinking can inevitably be shaped by a teacher.

Take a drink so you may re-acquaint with the bitter lamentations of our heroes centuries ago. Our very own Dr. Jose Rizal’s greatest novels bear not much of intellectual debate or explosion of credentials; instead, his writings focused on exposure and attack of corrupt characters. Maybe because it is a corrupt character that is really the cancer of our society. Strange that Dr. Jose Rizal’s two greatest novels are read and studied for more than two hundred years already; and, yet the purpose of his novels seem to remain uncaught. How long shall it take for each of us to realize the part of our being that needs significant and deeper reformation?Our heroes’ grieved not really for what we, Filipinos, kept in our minds; but, rather what we carried in our hearts. The advocacies of their writing, works of art and the way they lived their lives should have summoned an awakening in us. At a surface level evaluation, it is as if our heroes died for our country’s freedom. Yet, further reflection reveals that the passion of their love for our country could have not just simply yearned for freedom alone. Freedom does not promise a direction. Not all who has freedom is determined to win in life. Freedom does not even promise a value of fundamental principles. Not all who has freedom can live a life of ultimate obedience and sacrifice.

Take a drink. This offer is not to simply break your heart; for it intends to crush and tear it until nothing remains but a desperate weeping that shall compel you to start caring. We work hard—burning our hours in labor and clamor to earn more—just so we can send our children to school, only to find out that our children are not really learning anything. How many generations of MA, MS, MD, PhD, LLB…graduates have this country produced? And, yet, where are we now? Has our country moved away from being chaotic and disunited? Has our country moved away from having mothers and fathers leave their families to toil in a foreign land? We remain stagnant; if ever there was movement it was to a deeper pit of impoverishment. There must be something wrong with our education system; there must be a severe miseducation that continues to miseducate our countrymen.

When a teacher stands in front of his/her students, it is inevitable that the academic teaching would not be infected by personal beliefs and principles. It is difficult to imagine how a teacher can encourage a student to learn when he/she has arrived at a point that he/she is no longer a learner but—proclaims self—a learned. The most horrible destination we can bring ourselves onto is in the thinking that we already know everything that has to be known. When an “expert syndrome” or a “fall-out-of-love-from-reading complex” conquers us, the learning ends as the thirst for self-enrichment dries. Thus, what depth of learning can a teacher impart to his/her students when a limit to knowledge has already been drawn? Do we realize that we can only give as much as we have? Do we realize that we can only pass on what we have always held onto?

It is more difficult to imagine how a teacher can sincerely mentor his/her students when he/she does not have a mentor to look up to. The absence of a sense of heroes reveals a heart that is not humble and principled enough to seek learning from lives lived well. The absence of a sense of heroes reveals a heart that no longer dreams for the country. In this case, how can a teacher devotedly and faithfully train a student, when he/she is apathetic and hopeless of the future?

There are things unimaginably inseparable because their existing together is natural. Thus, their independence from each other spontaneously creates a definite inconsistency. It is a struggle to believe how teachers can value the significant truths of education when they dare contest the essence of biblical truths. Teachers should anchor themselves to a fundamental foundation. So, if it isn’t the Bible, where do they anchor themselves to? If it isn’t the biblical truths where teachers anchor themselves, what are they bound to pass on to their students? Worst, some teachers who are self-proclaimed Christians seemed to have their own understanding of salvation. Salvation is not received just because someone in the family stands in the pulpit. It is alarming to realize that there lurks in our academes—where understanding and reasoning are formed—a demented view of Christianity.

We have to truly understand that a teacher’s mind and heart are inseparable. A teacher’s intellect responds to a student’s interest and learning prerequisites—lesson plans, assessment tools, worksheets, etc. On the other hand, it is a teacher’s character that establishes and reinforces any influence he/she has in a student. Thus, a teacher’s academic training of a student shall equip a student to claim a stand; but, it shall be a teacher’s testimony of his/her fundamental beliefs and principles that shall motivate and strengthen a student to fight for that chosen stand.

We have many teachers who are miseducated—not in intellect but in character. This is a kind of miseducation where the culprit lies no longer in erroneous textbooks but in the self already. And such realization should challenge us to pursue a grappling for the truth and meaning of our roles as mentors.

To be a teacher is to respond to an immensely special mission. Our country has been grasping for economic, social, political and developmental salvation for hundreds of years already. Thus, to be a teacher is to motivate and encourage every child’s dream to be fulfilled. To be a teacher is to change the hundreds years of detrimental understanding of leadership and sense of unity—not just in our bureaucratic institutions but even in our local communities. To be a teacher is to bridge our shattered pieces as a country by encouraging and challenging every Filipino to win.

Education remains the legacy and hope we leave our children so that they may rise from an overwhelmingly impoverished past. However, no matter the varying formulas and programs of a best curriculum, like all the other things in this world, it remains that…

“Education has to have faith in God or it will fail.”–Dr. David Sutherland Hibbard, founder Silliman University

Keep in mind that every teacher is a window to the Truth that a student’s weary and lost soul seeks.