When Married Couple Are Teachers
Whenever I tell people that I’m a teacher, it often produces no reactions and excitement on their faces. Unlike before, people do not envy teachers. Not until they learn my spouse is also a teacher and that we both teach in primary school in the same city.
Nobody knows the teaching profession other than a teacher himself/herself. Nobody understands the unconditional care and love a teacher gives to students, nobody understands that a teacher badly needs the SF 10 or Form 137 when a student from another school transferred to his/her class. Nobody understands as to why the soup in the classroom must be sold out. Teachers find it difficult to explain themselves to others that sometimes, the perception of people toward a teacher is different. Simply put, teachers are sui generis, a class of its own.
People assume, being a teacher and having a spouse who is also a teacher, is not boring at all because every day, both need to listen to the happenings in their respective classes, love stories of their students, gossip between teachers or about another teacher’s love affair and a lot more stories related to school. Sometimes when they get home, complaint ensues about having disrespectful students or the kids show no interest in learning.
I can say ours is different. Some may find it strange, but we really never do the same. We often talk more about things not related to school. Although we talk about our son’s performance in school and other matters, seldom do we open for discussion on school matters whether a gossip in school or seminar, we never talk about them.
How did you meet?
It was during my On-the-Job Training (OJT) at Pinaglabanan Elementary School when I met my spouse. While I was a student-teacher, she was already a grade 3 teacher. When my interest started to flourish, I started to court her by simply sending her notes and letters through my pupils. Several months later, we became lovers. Two years after, we got married twice, first in a civil weeding and church wedding thereafter. We settled our residence at San Juan city near our schools and were gifted with a good-looking boy, Cody in 2017. I applied as a teacher and was admitted to a different school a few distance away from hers.
Do you find it hard not to talk about teaching?
Frankly, we never talk about teaching, nor the happenings in school except for some occasions regarding our salary. We usually do not put forward a topic about our respective activities in school. In the last 6 years, we were both busy in our respective post graduate studies as to why talking about everyday happening in school was seldom. At home, she does her usual routine, checking her power point to be used for the next day teaching. While she spends most of her time on school matters, I do not subscribe to her schedule. She never sees me do what she does every day other than reading and writing. I plan and finish all the things in advance, the things I need for a month to avoid consuming a lot of time.
Could you work together?
If we work together in the same school, I see ourselves annoying each other since we are totally incompatible in terms of strategies and techniques in our job. While I always do crafting different innovations and novel strategies in teaching and learning process, she has her own style subscribing to both modern and conventional approaches in teaching. I could say we perform better if we do our tasks separately and individually without encroaching upon each other’s styles and differences. The only similarity we have is our belief that we must both keep working on the fundamental needs of our learners, literacy and numeracy. However, in dissimilar ways as to how we work for the realization of our dream for our learners every school year. While she spends the after class-time teaching her non-reader pupils, I delegate said task to parents, through videos and social media platforms, in that way I will have more time doing other things in school and at home.
Do you share teaching materials/strategies?
Although we both teach in primary, we never share our teaching materials and strategies. I do share my innovations and instructional materials with other teachers but never with her because she never asks. Like what I said, she is more of a conventional teacher.
Do you compete?
I do not feel she competes with me and I will never ever compete with her. The only competition we had was when I compelled and obliged her to apply for the promotion. We both applied for the same promotion with one slot available where I ranked 1st and she ranked 2nd.
These are just some of the things we do (or not do!) as a married couple in DepEd.
Article Written by:
Mark John G. Ortiz
San Juan Elementary School - Teacher III
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