opportunity for a free college education at a school 12 hours away from his home. Education really mattered a lot to him.
Immediately after his graduation, he was sent by the local government to our school, which was then experiencing a lack of teachers, as a temporary instructor. Being his family’s breadwinner, he accepted the job, although he was poorly paid. We did not know why, but he suddenly and unnoticeably vanished right after that academic year. He came back after two years, and this time he was a permanent teacher. We learned the reason why he suddenly disappeared: he had received a gradu- ate scholarship at the Ateneo de Manila University. He became an instant celebrity: who wouldn’t want an Atenista with a master’s degree for a teacher? Yet, he remained modest. I was amazed that he preferred to come back and teach us when he already got the edge to work at prestigious and high-paying schools in Metro Manila. He became our instructor in calculus and advanced algebra and trigonometry, our Math Society adviser, our classroom adviser and my quiz bee coach. His story was inspirational enough, but I learned far more things, both in academics and in life, during the following 10 months. As an academic instructor, he was an “Ironman,” as we called him. He used Leithold’s The Calculus 7 , his reference book from Ateneo, as our textbook in calculus, which was unusual since we were just in high school! He also required us to speak in English in both his math classes, as if they were language- proficiency subjects. He was the only teacher who obliged us to conduct not just one, but two math investigatory projects within a school year. That was the very first time we had done such a thing. Every day in his classes was a curse, for he tasked us to prepare solved problems for a random roll-call board work, and recitation. Whoever was not prepared when called
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