students from our class who would teach younger students basic algebra, some trigonometry and some pre-calculus. As one of the student teachers, I was able to practice speaking in front of a crowd and became more confident in sharing my ideas with other people. As they always say, learning should not be confined within the four corners of the classroom. As my coach during our first review session, he left me and my co-quizzers in the library with a bunch of problem sets. After an hour, he came back and organized a mock quiz bee. It was a catastrophe. We protested that the problems were too difficult to solve. We were surprised when he told us that the problems were all from the reviewers he left us. Shame on us! So what’s the point? Responsibility. He said the math problems were replicas of the difficulties we would be facing in life. If we could not review for a quiz bee, how could we be responsible enough to sail our own boats when we grow up? In every competition we joined he always tried to bring out the best in us and, win or lose, he always commended us for a job well done. It’s not about winning or losing, he’d say, it’s about doing your best. We won some, we lost some; but we gained a whole bunch of experiences and wisdom.
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Frances Joyce D. Vallejos is a fourth-year industrial engineering student at the Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP) Quezon City. As a student, she has handled positions in various academic organizations and she is a consistent dean’s lister. Vallejos’s essay was adjudged the winner in the “My Favorite Classroom Teacher” essay- writing contest in September 2010 at TIP Quezon City.
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