For many times in the world we have already encountered teachers in our lifetime. Because of them, we formally learned how to read letters and count numbers; how to recognize shapes and colors; and was introduced to the complexity of our chosen field in any of the industries and professions. Teachers played a crucial role in our development as human beings. They open doors of opportunities for us to see a better world waiting ahead of us if we keep on valuing education. Teachers could impart knowledge and help us nurture our capacities, however, they also learn from their students.

I may agree that they stand in a more advanced position to mentor us students but it does not mean that they are stuck to where they are from the very beginning. They gradually mature in their perspectives and see how life like a movie reveals new learning and realizations. This is exactly how the career of being a teacher eventually transform the way I look at the world today.

I’ve been teaching in college for five years. In 2012, my former Professor in Centro Escolar University Malolos where I earned my bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication phoned me to invite me to be a lecturer in the same course. At first I was hesitant knowing that I did not have formal training in teaching profession. I did not pursue education units during my college days. It turned out that my five-year work experience then in ABS-CBN, largest media conglomerate in the country, could already qualify me to teach in Liberal Arts department as an industry expert. I hardly thought about the invitation until I remembered that teaching has also been one of my dream careers. I accepted the offer and the rest is history.

In CEU Malolos, I launched my career as a College Instructor by handling subjects namely Multimedia Production, Media Management, Television Productions, Photography, and Film. A couple of years had passed and it led me further my education by studying a graduate course of Master of Arts in Media Studies in University of the Philippines Diliman that started in 2015. That was the period when I decided to teach full time while completing my coursework in UP. New doors opened when my feet brought me to lecture for Development Communication in Manila campus of CEU for a brief time, followed by Scriptwriting, Television Productions, Broadcasting Principles and Practices, Media and Communication Theories, and Cinema Productions respectively in Communication department of Far Eastern University Manila for almost two years.

In my first year of teaching, I originally saw it as a mere platform to feed a number of brains. Teacher for me was like an all-knowing creature ordained to be the bearer of wisdom and knowledge and only tasked to share it to their mentees. It could be sometimes arguably true but not all the time. Furthermore, teachers are usually metaphorized to a potter who molds clay to create a production piece and call it as his own. On the contrary, as I spent more years inside a classroom and productions laboratory I can attest that a teacher does not necessarily need to embody the characteristics of an auteur.

In cinema, Auteur theory is a proposition that views the director as the major creative force. It derived from Alexander Astruc’s elucidation of the concept of caméra-stylo (“camera-pen”) that puts the director on god-like position who oversees both audio and visual elements of a movie. Advocated by various filmmakers such as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard of the French New Wave, and theorists namely Andrei Bazin and Andrew Sarris, it remained focus on the authorial role of the director.

We may agree that authorship could be innate to the nature of cinema, however, this is problematic if applied in teaching. I argue that teachers could not forcefully direct every step that his students take based on his subjective judgment on what they can or cannot do. If that is so, it is like imposing to a fish to climb a tree. Instead of authoring what he thinks best for his students, a teacher should present all the possibilities and watch them grow and discover more of their selves.

That is the reason why my principle in teaching in college consistently follows “learning by doing.” It is by letting the students to experience the lesson and that lesson will be forever part of their lives. It is not just heard nor seen. If they succeed in doing a task, it adds up to their confidence. It builds up their strengths. If they fail, let them fail. It is by failing that they keep on pressing forward to gain knowledge that they think they need for them to improve. Or maybe, they just find out what their strengths and weaknesses are and now they know what to work on.

At the end of 2017, I filed an indefinite leave from my post as a lecturer in both universities to pursue other breakthroughs starting this new year. Looking back, I could say that I as a teacher also learned from each one of my students. These individuals treat their journeys as texts that they creatively deconstruct for their own learning.

And that is what basically life is, whether we are in schools or not. We are lifelong learners.

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References:

Sarris, A. (Winter 1962–1963). “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”. Film Culture. 27: 1–8.

Astruc, A. (30 March 1948). “The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Caméra-Stylo,” in The New Wave, ed. Peter Graham. Trans. from Ecran Français 144.