I always wanted to be a nurse, but when I was registering, the fees for nursing school were too high and my family couldn’t afford them. My older sister, a teacher, advised me to apply to the School of Education, since it was cheaper and I would have a good profession from it. I graduated last year, with a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education.

As part of the degree, we had to spend four months practice teaching at a local secondary school. During that last year of college, I was always surrounded by lesson plans. Lesson plans here, lesson plans there, lesson plans everywhere! Every day after school I went home I had to finish at least one lesson plan because we needed to be prepared with the plans as we started our teaching demonstrations. I was pretty tense and stressed during this time. I found it difficult to put together really good plans and it took me a while to get them completed. After what felt like forever, I finally got all my lesson plans done, and finished my demonstration teaching successfully. I was so relieved to be done and to have passed!

My practice teaching was the last time I taught and truthfully, I was relieved to find employment with Ugat ng Kalusugan because I enjoyed the work and I was glad I didn’t have to make lesson plans all the time and deal with unruly, noisy and naughty children. But soon I realized that in our work, we would be teaching women and girls in Pulang Lupa about health. Ugh! More lesson planning! I couldn’t help but think I was totally wrong for this aspect of my job. Lessons plans had become like shadows always following me. I was nervous again as it was a new subject for me but had some experience this time and I gave it a shot.

Fortunately, teaching the women in Pulang Lupa has been completely different from my experiences with high school kids. I don’t have students who don’t do their assignments, come to class late, or come to class drunk, like in my last teaching job. The mothers in Pulang Lupa are really willing to listen and learn from us. They are so excited every time we come and have new topics for them and they always have great questions for us. We have a lot of lively and interesting discussions and I really feel like we are teaching them valuable information.

Because we’re focused on health, I have also been learning a lot as Ami and I have made the lesson plans, and in a way I am getting to work in what I was always interested in. I’m not a nurse, and I’m still a teacher. But I’m also a community health advocate and facilitator. And I’m teaching people who really want to learn, and I’m learning so much, too. I still don’t love making lesson plans but now I don’t mind them nearly as much. They make it easier for me to conduct great workshop lessons with women eager to learn and that makes a huge difference.