I Thought

When I was a young girl, I dreamed of becoming a teacher. Every time I was asked what I want to be when I grow up, I would always answer "I want to be a teacher!" without any hesitation. Even when I was in my teenage years, I would always try to be a teacher to my younger siblings and my cousins. We have a board at my grandparent's house which we use every time we play school. I'm the teacher, and they are my students. I also used to spend half of my money that is supposed to be spent on snacks for photocopying the test papers I made for my cousins. That's how eager I am to be a teacher.

But things changed and time came when I became too confused of what I really want to do in life, I want to be a nurse, a doctor, a scientist and even an astronaut! I want to do all of them. So I ended up choosing the path of a computer programmer, though math is my Waterloo, so I ended up hating programming.

And I thought of my original dream - to become a teacher and inculcate change in the lives of students. So I had to start all over again.

I thought it is so easy to be a teacher. I thought taking up education is just a piece of cake. Furthermore, I thought I won't have to go through sleepless nights just to make a thesis when I reach my fourth year in college because I heard that they only make portfolios as a prerequisite for graduation. But I was wrong. I started losing sleep  on my second year in college, paper works became my friends, we made a lot of research and studies, have to submit portfolios every end of term and a thesis before we can proceed to practice teaching.

Fourth year came, second semester we have to make a lot of demonstration teaching on every subject before we can go in the field. I passed and was deployed. Practice teaching is not that easy, unfortunately I was assigned in lower sections, and it is very challenging to teach in such an environment. I had mixed emotions when I was teaching a lesson in english, one pupil excused himself because he wanted to pee, but I was so shocked when after a few minutes I saw him climbing on the ceiling! I don't know if I'll get mad or laugh. Some children in public schools are just too wild! My practice teaching experience broke my dreams. I didn't receive any encouragement from my cooperating teachers, instead I was too discouraged to go on with my dream profession. But I decided to still continue and see what will happen to me after graduation.

I thought being able to graduate is enough. I could land any job I want because that's what people keep telling me, that you can land on any job once you are a graduate of education. But those are just assumptions I think. It's not easy, there are discrimination in the corporate world when it comes to graduates of education, they have this mindset that we will just leave the company anytime to go back to teaching.

Fortunately a BPO company gave me a chance to prove myself. I thought I was enjoying the job, but after some time, I missed the classroom, I missed the school and I missed the kids. So I took the exam without undergoing any review. I told myself that if I pass, it means I'm really meant to teach but if I don't, it's not yet too late to get a new dream. I passed, and I thought that once I passed the licensure examination, took the professional oath, it will be easy to land a job at a public school, but it's not.

I have to undergo ranking.

Ranking is the process of selecting qualified teacher applicants for teacher 1 position.

To have my name listed on the registry of qualified applicants, I need 70 points, but I don't have prior teaching experience, so I automatically lose 15 points. I need to have certificates from seminars and I need to undergo training and examination to acquire a National Certificate 2 from Technical Skills Development Authority.

See, the start is already challenging. I was just courageous enough to apply even without experience because I have high grades back in college and I trust my teaching skills.

Applying in the government sector is not easy. These are the things we need to make sure we are  qualified.

Like I mentioned high grades is an edge. You need to have high general weighted average so you can acquire high points. Good thing I did my best from second year to fourth year because I was a scholar. If you don't have high grades, it will be a disadvantage.

High ratings in the Licensure Examination. Getting  good numbers on your rating is really an advantage because it will also give you more points. And if you are not a passer of the licensure exam you are not entitled to apply for the ranking. 

Experience. One of my teacher friends told me that the department of education really values and focuses on an applican't experiences. So if you don't have an experience, well you may just be wasting your time for the ranking. But if you are confident about your skills and numbers, then you still have a chance, specially if you have awards during your graduation.

A master's degree is not a must but it is an edge. This is the reason why some of my classmates immediately enrolled in graduate school for a master's degree shortly after graduation. But I didn't do that. I don't think it's a good investment while I'm not yet a government employee.

Like mentioned earlier, I need to get a National Certificate from TESDA to make sure I automatically have 10 points. I even sacrificed my high paying job in the BPO industry just so I can enroll, be trained and be qualified for taking an examination in TESDA. 

You should ace the interview and demonstration teaching. During the interview, as an applicant you will face 3-5 principals, in which some looks really intimidating and scary. But just be confident and be yourself when talking to them because they don't eat people lol. Demonstration teaching is quite challenging too because you will teach an actual class with a principal at the back observing how you execute your lesson based on lesson plan that you wrote. Everything must be strictly followed and children must get high results during  your evaluation. 

And there's more!

I thought everything is done, but we still have to write essays to test our english proficiency skills. During my application, the essays that we wrote went down the drain because after two months the division where I applied required us to take another English Proficiency Test, this time a computerized one. I still don't know my result during that time up to this moment.

And after all these process, it's not yet the end. We have to wait several months before the Division post the results. I waited for almost ten months for my result. And I was too confident that I'll be qualified. I computed my result on hand and I was too certain that I'll pass, that I'll get at least 76 points. That's what I thought, but I was wrong again. I trusted the process too much. I forgot that it is always a matter of 'under the table' when it comes to applying on government offices. It took me ten months waiting for the result but the result was too devastating. Once again, wanting to be a teacher broke my heart.

P.S. Sorry for this long write up. I was just feeling sentimental while having a talk with my college friend and planning to go to the Division office to verify the results.

If you are interested, find the hidden treasures in this article. $0.15 and $0.05 are hidden! Comment down below if you found it.