If you've ever been inspired by a teacher, watch The Learning... and weep

There are teachers who teach because it’s their bread and butter; there are those who teach because it’s their life.

And there are those who teach because it is both their bread and butter and their life — a source of income, and a source of fulfillment, a purpose greater than themselves.

Until we were 21, we spent most of our waking hours in school — impressionable young minds like whole, uncut cloth in the expert hands of a tailor. We were there to be shaped, altered, stitched to a dream.

Those of us who turned out just fine (we are all measured by different yardsticks that measure “fine”) owe a lot to the expert tailors who trimmed our excesses and brought out the best in our fabric.

I remember the teachers who praised me and made me feel I could see my work in print one day. I remember the teachers who made me feel my work was inadequate — they made me work harder.

I remember the teacher who dinned into us that no success can make up for failure in the home; the Religion teachers who made us reflect on every raindrop, and every rainbow; the teachers who shared the magnificence of God without preaching it. I remember the History teachers who made us understand the future better by appreciating the past; the Math teachers who made sense out of what seemed like Hieroglyphics to me.

I remember with a stab in my heart the teachers whom we bullied, whose patience we tested till it was as thin as a wafer. I remember being carried away by the “mob,” of sometimes not doing anything to stop the pranks.

On few occasions I would wonder if teachers got hurt when they weren’t paid attention to, or when we laughed at their provincial accents. Sometimes I would wonder how I would feel if it were my mother by the blackboard, and her students weren’t paying attention to her … or making fun of her…

I also wondered if teachers shed tears behind their students’ backs. If they had bad-hair days, too. Once, in college, my teacher caught me doing my Math assignment in her English class. She was furious. Later, she called me aside and apologized to me for her outburst. She said her daughter was picked up by the police that morning and after class, she was going to the precinct to bring her daughter a toothbrush. I was shamed to tears by my misbehavior.

Teachers aren’t zombies mouthing lesson plans. They are wives, mothers, sisters, daughters.

They are you.

* * *

I am glad my Assumption Convent classmate Ramona “Monina” Diaz, an internationally-acclaimed director, has done a documentary on teachers, zeroing in on Filipino teachers recruited from Cebu, Bicol and other provinces to teach in inner-city schools in Baltimore, Maryland.

The US, to most Filipinos who have lived and worked there, is the land of milk and honey. We have read of OFWs who have tough times in the Middle East, but in the land of Apple Pie, Disney and Rite Aid? It’s a dream come true, not a Via Dolorosa. Or so we thought.

Monina’s 90-minute documentary, The Learning, doesn’t chronicle abuses inflicted on teachers by their American employers. There is bad behavior and bullying from students, but it isn’t sanctioned by the school.

The film, instead, chronicles the abuses every woman receives when economic woes cast a whip on her vulnerable heart. The abuses are emotional and social — homesickness, separation anxiety, erring partners, greed from family members back home.

My batchmates and I had a special preview of The Learning and there was hardly a dry eye in the room as we watched and listened to the stories of teachers Dorotea Godinez, Angel Alim, Grace Amper and Rhea Espedido. One classmate whose son is now going to college in the US sobbed like she was in a wake.

The documentary was crafted by Monina like it were a movie featuring four leading ladies — Dorotea, Grace, Angel and Rhea. Each girl had a story straight out of Charo Santos’ MMK. They played out life’s script before Monina’s expert eye and direction.

The Learning follows each teacher’s story from the moment she is recruited, to the moment she says goodbye in the airport, her 10 months of teaching in the US, to her homecoming.

In documenting a very special year in the lives of these four, The Learning captures these women’s individual experiences, their hopes and their daily classroom struggles, while also exposing the issues that plague many American public schools. Chronicling the women’s determination and unshakeable belief in education, The Learning is a bracing and timely evocation of a teacher’s indispensable work.

* * *

Dorotea seems tough. In Baltimore she earns 25 times more than what she was earning in the Philippines. Even when her students are unruly and bully her for reasons including her accent, she says, “I can cry or be brave. I choose to be brave.”

Much loved in her hometown, she tells her American students, “I will be your teacher for 206 days and I will love you for 206 days. And I will still love you on the 207th.”

You think that melted the heart of her high school students? Watch the movie and weep.

Grace leaves an infant son behind in the care of her sister. She doesn’t struggle much with her students but with the pain of being separated from her child. Her sister tells her that her baby calls the cellphone “Mama” because that is his only contact with his mother. Her real challenge comes after her homecoming, when her baby refuses to be cuddled by her anymore. She has become a complete stranger to him.

Angel is the poster girl for the “cash cow” that every OFW has become to her family. “You have brought us from rags to riches,” her mother tells her. She supports five of her siblings with her income as a teacher in Baltimore.

When she comes home, she is hauled to a supermarket by her extended family for three cartloads of groceries. When the cashier rings up her purchases, it adds up to over P10,000.

“My gosh,” she exclaims, “that’s more than $200!” And that’s not including the balikbayan boxes she brought home!

Rhea got married when she was 17, and is now 35. She has an 18-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. In the US, she seems to be the most determined to live a new life. She drives a brand new SUV. She goes to a dance class. Then one day, she receives word that her husband of 18 years is in jail for drugs.

Their reunion in jail is heartrending, but also an emancipation of sorts for Rhea as a woman. Later she says that the two most important words in life are, “Move on.”

Only a stone won’t bleed for these four women. Only a stone won’t cry for them. Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction. Truth is also more painful.

* * *

(The Assumption Convent San Lorenzo High School Batch 1979 will hold private screenings of the documentary The Learning tonight at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Powerplant Cinema 6. Proceeds from the screenings will benefit the Assumption Mission Schools. For ticket inquiries, call 0917-830-6883 (Makati), 0917-537-1103 (Pasig) or 0917-538-1920 (Alabang). Tickets are P500 each. Free seating.)

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)