THE ANATOMY OF A GOOD TEACHER

Delivered by
Dr. Rafael Cruz Bundoc, MD
Department of Anatomy
College of Medicine, UP Manila
2005 Metrobank Oustanding Teacher, Collegiate level
September 2,2005 Metrobank Plaza Awarding Ceremonies

Teacher, mentor, tutor, instructor, guru, sensei, coach, bossing (as one
student teasingly calls me) are just but many words that different races,
cultures, and religions use to designate that person tasked to impart and imbue
knowledge and spark ideas in the minds of students or people. In fact it will
not be too presumptuous of me if I say that each and every one of us in this
room right now passed through one of them. We might even think that teachers
come dime a dozen, but this is where we are wrong. International studies have
shown that teachers comprise no more than 2-3% of any population and for some
it might be much less.

Today we are here to honor only ten of them, supposedly for being the best in
their profession. But are these ten honorees just lucky that their works were
appreciated and they were nominated by the administrators of their respective
institutions? Or probably luckier moreover by hurdling the very rigorous task
that the Metrobank Foundation has set in filtering out the most qualified among
them? Rigorous indeed, for where have you ever seen qualifying interviews with a
stand by nurse at hand and an ambulance ready to ferry you to the nearest
hospital just in case you choke on words that will not come out of your mouth.

It is a great honor indeed standing here today speaking in behalf of the other
9 awardees. When I was personally informed by executive vice president and
executive director Aniceto Sobrepena that I was one of the winners for this
years 21st search since it started in 1985 I was just too honored and I agreed
too readily upon his request to deliver the speech. Little did I realize that
this will be a tall order and that I will be spending practically 5 days
preparing for this speech. What really made things hard for me is the thought
that there are other more deserving teachers out there whose works have not
been noticed as of yet. So I thought of delivering something not so much to
extol the merits of my co-awardees for today but to pay tribute to all other
teachers whose commitment and dedication to the profession of teaching is worth
emulation.

I think this is the first time a teacher of Human Anatomy like me from a
medical school is going to be given a national award for being an outstanding
teacher. And so I have decided to give justice to that by doing what I am good
at. Please allow me to dissect a good teacher and see what they are made of.
Just what is the Anatomy of an Outstanding Teacher?

Having gone through voluminous literature about teachers, I have realized that
many authors from different specialties have attempted to already define what
makes a good teacher. To name a few, Alan Haskvitz enumerated 11 traits of a
good teacher, Georgia Paschiardis gave 6 important features of outstanding
teachers, Elaine McEwan mentioned and expounded on 10 in his book entitled Ten
Traits of Highly Effective Teachers. There are many other more.

After studying and digesting their dissertations I saw that there were striking
common denominators in their works. So as a teacher of Anatomy, let me dissect
these common denominators – those that characterize a good teacher. So just
what is the anatomy of a good teacher? I would like to compare the anatomy of a
good teacher to an ‘arch’.

Why an ‘arch’? Architecturally, arches are engineering marvels created by men
to hold great weights of structures above them. They can be found in edifices
built by civilizations, from different races, philosophies and religions from
the east and the west. Most of these that I am showing to you right now are
still standing even after almost close to a thousand years even after they were
ravaged by time, by nature and even man’s follies.

Teachers like arches are made of pillars on both sides. These are the human
entity in them which is common to each and every one of us. To construct the
arch we need the ‘voussoirs’ or the stone segments and these gives the defining
character to the arch and these will represent the special traits of a good
teacher. So let us try to build an imaginary arch and imagine this first
segment as the first trait of a teacher. A teacher is himself a learner. Like
what Richard Henry Dunn said “He who dares to teach must never cease to learn”.
When asked during the interview what is the greatest challenged he is facing
now, Manny Belino my co-awardee for higher learning said that he wish he would
have more time to finish his dissertation for his second doctoral degree. A
learned man with 2 masters and a PhD degree already, why does he need another
one for? Because he believes that this is the best way he can impart his
teaching principles in the true La Sallian philosophy – “teaching minds,
touching hearts and transforming lives”. Or take the case of Maylani Galicia of
Ligao Albay who became the beacon of hope of her teacher-classmates while they
were taking Master of Science in Teaching Mathematics at Ateneo. Because of the
rigors of their curriculum many have quit early on the course. Maylani was on
the mid and last terms of her pregnancy during that time but she wanted so much
to learn more and finish what she started. All her classmates took inspiration
from her determination despite her difficult physical condition.

Our second stone segment is the character of being knowledgeable. For how else
can he or she be called if they do not possess the wisdom that should be
imparted to their students. But this is where the difference lies. According to
Louis Berman, “a good teacher is a master of simplification and an enemy of
simplism”. Take the case of these two master teachers whom we can consider
‘teachers of teachers’ for the level of mastery of their subjects. Janet Amurao
of Marikina City took pride in being assigned as an advisor to the below average
section of her school early in her career while others considered it as a curse.
Most of her students could not even read properly and what more teach chemistry
to them. She prepared a special lesson plan for them and presented chemistry in
simple words, simple strategies at a very slow pace and they learned from her
the magic of this beautiful science. Diane Aure of Iloilo City is an acclaimed
math teacher par excellence. She is very sure that she has been contributing to
nation building by using the medium of mathematics in inculcating moral values
and reasoning skills in making decisions in the daily lives of her students.

Our third stone segment is the trait of holding high expectations. A good
teacher is unsatisfied, unaccepting, a non-conformist. She expects much from
herself and likewise much from her students. She will give everything at her
disposal but will expect her students to discover more for themselves. Like
what Galileo Galilei said “You cannot teach men anything, you can only help him
find it within himself”. Or as Plutarch succinctly stated “the mind is not a
vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited”. For how else can Julia Capulong
bring out the best in every visually impaired child she has handled. For Julia,
one’s disability is not an excuse to be a burden to the family and simply be
unproductive. Her high expectations and hard work allowed visually impaired
children to develop skills and discover their potential to be productive
members of our society.

The fourth stone is the quality to question effectively. ‘What is the capital of
Zimbabwe?’ so goes one TV advertisement. Well of course, not like this question,
but in a way wherein he promotes independence among his students. Josef Albers
could not be more correct when he said “good teaching is more a giving of right
questions than a giving of right answers”. As Malcolm Forbes emphasized “the
goal of education is to replace an empty mind with an open mind”. A good
teacher promotes critical teaching by effective questioning. Questions
stimulate our students towards logical thinking. Perhaps this is what Thomas
Carruthers was referring to when he said “a good teacher is one who makes
himself progressively unnecessary”. An unknown author placed it more
metaphorically “a good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light
the way for others”. Vilma Cabrera of Isabela cannot forget how she became a
candle to her students when their class was caught in the crossfire of a
running gun battle between the NPA and our government soldiers. Unperturbed by
such circumstances, Vilma went on lighting the paths of grade 6 students in
Isabela, knowing all too well that the questions she has posed to the minds of
her elementary students have motivated them and prepared them well enough to
venture into the new challenges of secondary schooling.

The fifth stone is the character of being diverse. One of the biggest challenges
to teaching is working with students of varying learning styles, personalities,
temperament, and rates of learning. A good teacher will experiment in utilizing
auditory, visual, and tactile hands-on techniques. Rita Dunn summarized this
when she said “if the child is not learning the way you are teaching, then you
must teach in the way the child learns”. Amelia Castaneda of Tarlac discovered
that she has a natural talent in adjusting to their learning capabilities by
adapting to different characteristics and personalities of her young students.
She maximized this talent to bring out the best from her young students. She
epitomizes what Marva Collins defined as a good teacher “a good teacher makes
the poor student good and the good student superior”.

The sixth stone segment is enthusiasm. A teacher should manifest energy in his
teaching. His eagerness for teaching will make a difference in the motivation of
his students. Cicero could not put it any better when he said “the authority of
those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn”. Sometimes as
teachers we have to put our guard down. A good teacher injects humor. He should
infect his students with optimism. He sees to it that learning becomes a fun
filled experience. Elnora Ordedor of Surigao del Norte considers her classroom
as a magical place where anything can happen. She sees to it that her classroom
is a child friendly and tension free place where they can learn, play, hone
their talents and express their ideas. She gives particular attention to
students with learning difficulties and helps them get out of their shells to
love learning. As Albert Einstein once stated “it is the supreme art of the
teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge”.

The seventh stone segment is the character of being flexible. Good teachers are
resourceful and practice ingenuity. I think this is the reason why Metrobank
Foundation discouraged us from using high tech equipment like computers during
our demonstration lecture to the board of judges. The foundation stripped us
down to the barest essential and provided us with the best teaching material;
yes, the foundation provided us the best manila paper and colored marker pens
to use as our teaching aids. Yes, no PowerPoint presentations, no LCD
projectors. For a while I thought that was unfair, but wait you are supposed to
be a good teacher, so even if Metrobank Foundation has to give you a banana
leaf, well, you should deliver your lecture convincingly. I believe that what
Haim Ginott said aptly applies to most Filipino teachers – “Teachers are
expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that
they accomplish this impossible task”. Menia Alvidera took her teaching skills
beyond the classrooms by imbuing knowledge to her students and co-teachers as a
guidance counselor, a civic worker, a community leader and even as surrogate
mother to her students. Menia knows all too well that wherever a teacher could
be, she has to be flexible enough to utilize that environment as a venue for
learning. This gives credence to what George Santayana has already said “a
child educated only at school is an uneducated child”.

The last character represented by the last stone segment of our arch is the
trait of a communicator. When all of us 4 finalists in the higher education
level finally finished our grueling interview we all felt that the final
interview was more of a measure of how well you answer questions and none at
all of how good you are as a teacher. We felt it was like a beauty pageant. It
appears however that good communication skills are one the basic traits of a
good teacher. It can be almost considered a talent. Eloquence can translate to
charisma, charisma oftentimes inspire people. William Arthur Ward cannot be
more explicit when he said “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher
explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”.

Our special traits of a good teacher – a learner, knowledgeable, high
expectation, questions effectively, diverse, enthusiastic, flexible and a
communicator. All these stone segments which represent the traits of a good
teacher will collapse if it will not be locked by the last segment – the
keystone. The keystone completes and stabilizes the arch. For our arch the
keystone represents 2 interchangeable words – commitment and dedication. Or are
these 2 words really interchangeable? Anyone can commit himself to teach –
either verbally or in writing shall we say as in a contract but it will take
more than that to actually do it, it will take dedication to endure and
persevere to practice the art of teaching. Commitment is a priority, dedication
is essential.

All these stone segments represent skills. The keystone of our arch represents
one important quality – love for the art of teaching. And in the manner that
John Ruskin concisely stated it “when skill and love work together, expect a
masterpiece”. In our case that masterpiece is as precious as it can get – a
great teacher.

As simple as I can put it, this I believe is the modest way of describing the
anatomy of a good teacher – an arch that provides the widest opening to any
edifice, a structure so simple yet so strong that can carry great weights, one
that can last many lifetimes. A good teacher, like an arch, opens himself or
herself to the lives of their students, and carry great physical, emotional and
psychological burdens in being mentors, counselors, friends and even surrogate
parents to their students. Like any other human they will grow old, get tired
and retire, or probably die of natural causes while still in the service of
their duties as teachers. They say that old soldiers never die they just fade
away. We cannot say the same for teachers. Old teachers never die, they are
well remembered by. Henry Adams had a better way of expressing it “a teacher
affects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops”.

Jacques Barzun once said “teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a
lost tradition”. One man took upon himself the initiative to laud the people in
the forefront of this tradition. Recognizing the valuable role that they play
in imparting values and cultivating the skills and intellect of young students,
Dr. George S K Ty, chairman of Metrobank and of the Metrobank Foundation was
disheartened to note that, back in 1985, many of our teachers were marching in
the streets asking for better working conditions. He then conceived of an
awards program, which would pay tribute to educators and extol teaching as a
noble and rewarding profession. Thank you Dr. Ty for bringing much pride in our
profession and the hearts of our family. This is an inspiration that Carl Jung
noted years ago when he said “we think of the effective teachers we had over
the years with a sense of recognition, but those have touched our humanity we
remember with a deep sense of gratitude”.

Today we dedicate our awards with a deep sense of gratitude to our parents,
wives and husbands, children, friends, colleagues, teachers and students. And
of course to the great Almighty above who gives us a purpose to our existence.

The month of August of 1986 was a very sad one for my family. My mother – a very
good teacher succumbed to a heart attack while teaching. We deeply mourned her
passing away. During her wake, my family was awed and overwhelmed by the
multitude of her students who paid their last respects to their dear teacher.
They came in all forms – a priest, doctors, a nun, engineers, a taxi operator,
a dressmaker, a lawyer, a barangay captain, businessmen, a professor and
teachers of different grade levels. They expressed their condolences and
narrated how my mother has touched their hearts and minds. It was the time I
committed to myself that I will teach someday. Though I took up Medicine, I
fulfilled that commitment and dedicated myself to the art of teaching. Today I
wish to dedicate my trophy to that person who opened my mind to the art and
tradition of teaching – mommy I hope you can see this right now, this is for
you.