The Second Narrative: My Dream Job

Back when I was a child, I told people that I wanted to be a teacher. My nursery teacher inspired me to dream of becoming like her, mainly because of her enthusiasm and her patience in teaching children like me.

Time passed by and the dream of becoming a teacher was forgotten. I took BS Agriculture in college and decided on wanting to work in the field of science. Four years of studying my course made me fall in love with agriculture as a profession. I forgot about my desire to teach and made up my mind to pursue research after graduation.

But then, circumstances in life would make a person change plans. After graduation, I got hired as a Technical Trainee for a private vegetable seed company. As a trainee, I am tasked to go around all the company departments and learn how the company produces seeds for the farmers. I gained exposure in research, marketing, seed production and a whole lot more. After the training, I was assigned to work as a technology transfer specialist, or for a simpler term, a teacher to the farmers and farmer-enthusiasts.

Working as a teacher to farmers was no easy task. For one, I was assigned to work in the rural areas of Leyte, far from my family and friends. Secondly, the farmers I handled are usually older than me and their age and wisdom intimidated me. And lastly, I struggled a lot because I felt that I do not have enough knowledge and skill to teach them. But serving them opened my eyes to a lot of realities in the lives of a Filipino farmer: their struggle to maintain their farms, fighting diseases and environmental stresses, their need to provide for their family, and their lack of access to technologies that would benefit them and increase their yield and income. I learned to overcome my weaknesses in teaching farmers and eventually became excited to see their progress in adopting new technologies and eventually their success. Working as a teacher to the farmers also made me realize how much passion I have for sharing knowledge to people. It is also a humbling experience, especially whenever farmers thank us for helping them adapt to new technologies and realizing that there is really a good future awaiting those who till the soil and plant seeds.

Teaching farmers for two years made me realize that teaching is my dream job. It also gave me an opportunity to learn a valuable life lesson: there will be times that we feel like our dreams are not meant to be our realities but there will always be a way to make that dream come true. I dreamed of becoming a teacher when I was young, I became an educator to the farmers for two years. My experience with the farmers and fellow teachers that I worked with taught me that teaching is not limited to being in a classroom or a university. Agriculturists can teach not just students, but farmers and people interested to venture in farming. Teaching is about sharing whatever we have to people. It is a job worth pursuing because it is noble and it creates a ripple effect that will impact the lives of many.

Photo during the 30th Anniversary of East-West Seed. I was one of the personnel assigned to give a tour to the visitors of the demonstration plot. Photo by Ms. LTLacambra