Start of transcript. Skip to the end.

For me passion is loving every bit of what you're doing

for yourself and for others.

If you are really a teacher at heart

there's always passion that keeps burning.

Being a teacher

you are able to collect inspiring life stories

this is intangible, you cannot put it in your pocket

but these are things

that are considered as ROI (Return of Investment)

changing, touching the lives,

being able to transform a person,

creating individuals who are successful in life.

One of the related constructs really in Psychology is

the idea of flow

and this idea was studied by

a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

he studied the concept of flow or optimal experience

and he said passion is that to be happy

to be involved not in what is easy

or unchallenging

but what is important

is to be heavily engaged in something that's meaningful

for the person

such that when you are doing these activities

It’s also referred to by some as being in the zone.

For me, teaching is learning.

So when you are teaching, you are also forced to learn.

And when you learn,

you become better in your profession

When you are teaching you have to be an expert.

You cannot be average.

You have to be excellent.

Otherwise you have no business teaching.

Passion represents the fuel that allows people

to engage in deliberate practice

so that overtime they improve their skills.

So it means that a passionate person

automatically does things or activities

on his own volition

eventually, perhaps without him noticing it

one becomes very good at his craft.

I always ask my students to always aspire for quality.

Do not be a mediocre worker

If you are going to do something,

do it on the best possible way.

We should always be doing our best all the time.

Passion is a strong inclination

toward a love, valued and self-defining cause.

Self-defining cause.

So when you are passionate in whatever you do,

you find the meaning of your existence.

What is important is that

one invests time in these activities

and one sees these activities as part of who one is.

That this is part of being yourself

and this is not something

that is required by the external environment.

It’s something that comes from within.

It’s something that you want to carry out

because it makes you feel good.

Because you find it to be meaningful.

If your reason for teaching

is because you can’t find other jobs.

What kind of a teacher will you be?

What kind of a teacher will you be?

The sooner it’s over the better it is.

Always look at the positive effect.

Even if we cannot avoid the negative.

Don’t give up, think that you can do it.

Difficulties shall pass.

So just look at the positive side.

In being a teacher,
don’t just think of it as a job.

It’s not just about the mind.

You need to have a heart.

Passion is very important in teaching

because teaching is a career, it is not a job.

It’s like a calling,

it’s like a life vocation

that you are required to improve your craft

as you go along.

When you start feeling burnout,

perhaps a simple way of putting it is if

you are making everything a routine.

You tend to become mechanical,

you do things but your heart is not there.

You just do it out of compliance

because you are forced by the structure,

by the policy,

by the mandates given to you.

But the fire,

the initiative,

the creativity

basically you lose that without you knowing it.

What you do does not make sense,

you don’t see the meaning of what you’re doing

but you are forced to do it because it’s part of your job.

you should not allow these poor kids

to suffer in your classroom.

One life is all that I have

like what one boy wrote in a composition,

"Life is like a plate of pasta noodles

You don’t know where the strands begin and end.

You don’t know where it’s going."

And then that boy says, “What does it all mean?”

If life has no meaning, why live?

You have to find out the why in your life.

Because the most important question you can ask in life

Why am I doing this?

You lose your why, you lose your way.

Love your calling with passion,

it is the meaning of your life

and I said, "Wow, that sums it up really."

We always say that

a very important part of learning is really reflection.

One's not a machine

so you have to pause at certain times

to reflect

to re-energize
so we have to be able to take a step back

to look at what we've done so far.

I started my teaching career in 1997

right after graduation.

I'm already 20 years in the teaching profession.

Initially, I only planned to finish my contract

and then move to another job.

But my experience as a teacher

started building up the interest in me

such that I made other plans for myself

and my students.

Well, I've been teaching for 65 years.

I think I'm the oldest living teacher.

I would represent

the Ateneo Inter-University Oratorical contest

I would be uneasy

unless I showed my speech to Father Delaney

and one time, okay,

after he had gone through my speech

he looks at me very intently and he says

"You know Pagsi, you have a rare gift."

“You're able to bring ideas up there, down here

so that the man in the street can understand

what those ideas are.”

And then he looks at me very intently and he says,

being a high school teacher all your life?"

I also have aunts who are teachers.

So I guess I got the idea from there.

As you know in the province

people look at you differently if you are in Manila.

When my aunts would visit the province I see them

and I tell myself "Oh, it's nice to be a teacher."

I like that way of life.

I want to teach

and also I want to share what I know

I want to share it with the kids.

In my study I used this framework.

How would you get or understand

the passion of an educator

So I looked at two things.

Number one is the life experiences

both professional and personal

and the influence of work environment.

In my study I believe

that these two things are important factors

and their life stories within these two dimensions

are contributing in the development of

the passion of an educator.

I realized I can do it.

When they were taking the exam and passed.

My first batch I managed to help 13 graduate.

So the feeling is different

because can you imagine, outside, it's just ordinary.

I guess the quality that I was able to show there is

that teaching inside the jail is

having perseverance and patience.

And always looking at the positive effect.

Even if we cannot avoid the negative

to not give up I still can do it.

Stories are very important

because it's a way of organizing our thoughts

regarding past events.

It's important because

it's an avenue for us to share what we've been through,

what we've learned along the way.

Stories are powerful tools to unearth,

it’s like wisdom from the experiences of people.

Listening to what other people's experiences have been

so that we can take inspiration from their stories,

to also learn from what they've done.

It's very important to be able to share

our experiences and our challenges

to drive us forward in the work that we do.

And then we have different challenges, different forms

because we have different lifestyle, origin.

But you will see that all these factors

also contribute to how the passion develop.

The environment can be the same

and yet people have a different take on the environment.

It's interesting to see

how different teachers in this context

would interpret what's happening.

A teacher gets high mentoring

if there's a protege in the class.

This protege he will continue my paradigm.

When I see my students and where they are living.

In depressed areas, that's a high point for me.

Why a high point?

These kids need me.

I need to help them.

The principal was saying,

"Ms. Hidalgo is leaving tomorrow.

She will go to Grade 6."

And the child was saying,

"You are not our teacher anymore?"

but he was crying.

And these are moments,

as a new teacher at 19, I'd never forget.

All of the things, as I end my career maybe soon

keep coming back to me as inspiration.

Perhaps, I could in my own little way

change people's lives by being a teacher

so I said to myself

"Mr. Pagsi-- born to teach."

That's the meaning of my life.