Teaching with a Heart

The teaching profession is a hard way of life. It takes passion and hard work to be a
successful in such a world. The biggest inspiration is not money but rather the soft feeling
of achievement when you see your student succeed in life. In reality the teaching profession
cannot give any substantial monetary benefit in the career of a person, however, a lot of
people still feel the need to teach and as our national hero once wrote ANG KABATAAN
ANG KINABUKASAN NG BAYAN. This quote gives us the duty to import our knowledge to
the next generation as we pave for a better future. This part of our paper talks about the
teaching career of Judge Teodoro N. Solis and how such decision cannot be achieved
without the hallmark principles of St. Benedict.
Judge Teodoro lived his childhood days in poverty. He came from a poor family
consisting of a Father who worked in the lumber mills and a mother who is a housewife. He
has 8 siblings and lived in the island of Pandan in the far reaches of Visayas. As a child he
used to work with his father in the lumber mills in the afternoon and double up as a child
laborer in a small shipping boat early in the morning. He would wake up at around 3am to
pumalaot with the other fishermen and go back at around 5 to 6am in which he would
use a makeshift lambat to scour the shallow waters of the bay around the island for small
fishes as tahong, the standard breakfast for him during that time. Due to extreme poverty
he admitted that he never thought about one day being a judge as his only goal during that
time is to graduate any course and work in order to help his family. When he started his
schooling he would hike the mountains of Pandan to reach the small public elementary
school without any money as his fathers paltry paycheck can barely meet ends meet and
any extra income would be given to his older brother who is studying in Manila. He is
however dedicated to get out of poverty and thus continued working early mornings and
late afternoons to amass his baon for the day. In such a situation he appreciated his
teachers and took an oath to GOD that if he would succeed in life, he would share the
blessings he received and teach. This oath was never forgotten.
After enduring the trying times of his education, he finally succeeded in becoming a
lawyer. However due to the stringent demand to provide for his family he cannot fulfill his
oath of teaching as early as he wanted to. After he reached the position of a judge he finally
had enough time to teach as like a good Christian proceeded to fulfill his oath to GOD.
His first venture being a professor of law was in Perpetual Help, Binan. He however
discovered that teaching is not as easy to do as he first believed it. His students are
somehow lazy and inattentive as they always seek the easiest way to pass the subject, like

asking outright if he could pass them. They always seek to shorten the subject to go out
early and they never read the assigned readings which thus ground the lessons to a halt as
no class participation can be achieved. These problems bury deep in the will of Judge Solis
and at some point of time wanted to quit. However, remembering his past teachers gave
him the resolve to push forward with the teaching. Although not a graduate of San Beda
applied the principles of St. Benedict in order to succeed and give those students a future.
Prayer. Judge Ted has always been a praying man. He believed that in order to
succeed we needed to ask God to give it to us. In his stint a as a professor he would always
visit the praying room of the school to ask God for the wisdom needed to guide the students
in their lecture. He would also ask God to give the students a clear mind during their exams
as to enable them to answer correctly and finally he would ask God to give him clarity when
grading as to give fair grades.
Stability. Judge Teodoro Solis is never a strict professor. He believes that the lessons
learned in law school is not enough to ensure the success of a person. He needed to balance
the studies with Physical. Mental and Emotional wellbeing and as such he seeks to be an
approachable professor who the students can talk to and interact. Being the terror in is
words would only lead the students to shy away from you and thus no real interactions can
be made. Those same students would one day appear in your court or may even outrank
you.
Obedience. This is a problem with a lot of successful people. They seem to think that
once you are in a position of power everyone would owe you obedience especially in a law
setting as the lawyers are bound by your position. It would be hard for them to be the ones
obedient. However, Judge Teodoro Solis believes that in order to be a leader one must also
learn to follow and thus as a professor he is bound by the rules of the school and follows
them as if they were his own rules. He seeks to give leeway if it could be given but mostly
follows the rules to the letter.
Discipline. A person can never be a good professor without discipline as teaching is
a stressful job. You cannot bring the problems in your work when you are teaching and vice
versa. It takes a lot of self-control to explain basic laws over and over again until the
students learn but such actions must be done.
Humility. A judge in a position of power would always seem to impose his authority
to those surrounding him but Judge Solis believes in being humble. It would take its root
from the spirituality of being religious as he believes that when Jesus decided to give up his
life in order to save us he gave definition to humility. If the son of God would give way to
humility what right do we, as mere humans have to pride ourselves in our worldly
achievements?

Source:

http://www1.ben.edu/programs/centers_institutes/CMI/The%20Ten%20Hallmar
ks%20of%20Benedictine%20Education.pdf