A Love Letter to the Dragons

Dear UA&P,

 

As I write this, I am sitting on the couch in my LA home with my foster dog breathing beside me, his gentle puffs a soothing sound to my ears. He will be adopted soon by his forever family after they come back from a camping trip.

I recently reconnected with Miya Espiritu, who had attended UA&P at the same time as me and who is now working for UA&P. I asked if she would be willing to let me send a love letter so I could express my gratitude to the University and its support staff.

Why a Love Letter?

I graduated from UA&P in 2007, 13 years ago. My trajectory in life and success I credit most to UA&P, and yet I don’t know if I have ever given the Dragons the credit that they are due. I wanted to rectify that. Let me explain. And please bear with me because this won’t be short. It is six pages long, using Calibri, font size 11, single-spaced, and with one-inch margins—no references page though—but I can add one if you’d like! LOL! I get a kick out of that. MLA. APA. Turabian. The strict adherence to stylistic standards served me well though and is another example of how well UA&P set me up for success.

How I Ended Up Enrolled with the Dragons

When I was in my senior year in high school, I applied to MANY universities—my older sister applied to only three schools (the Eagles, the Archers, and… the Naked Guy in Diliman). She didn’t get accepted at any (she’s smart enough, just doesn’t test well). So our family did what any family would do for my older sister—our parents made a phone call and got her into a great university with an architectural program (where she excelled, by the way).

For fear of rejection, I applied to many schools. I didn’t have good grades, but I test well, so I got accepted into several schools. I lobbied my parents hard to put me in to learn with the Archers (having been rejected by the Eagles and the Naked Guy). I didn’t want to be with the Dragons.

You see, in the mindset of a 16-year-old, status matters. Everyone was talking about where they were going to go to college. UA&P was a relatively new school at the time, and the “best” schools were considered to be—yep, you guessed it, the Eagles, the Archers, and the Naked Guy in Diliman. I supposed I could’ve also asked my parents to make a phone call. But I didn’t. I don’t know why—it was just a topic I never brought up. My pride maybe—the idea that I would play the cards I was dealt? I don’t know.

Our home is in Quezon City, and my father, wise man that he is, flat out refused to enroll me to learn with the Archers as they were two hours away in traffic. My dad just said no, no matter how hard I lobbied. And anyone who knows my dad would know that, like any father, he wants the world for me, and if he could’ve given it to me, he would’ve. I was devastated.

On the day that registration for UA&P opened (which was earlier than any other school, by the way), he gave me a check for 20,000 pesos, told me to get in the car, and drove me to UA&P so I could walk up the CAS building and pay for my registration fee (which was not refundable, by the way—LOL, UA&P has GAME). At that time, I felt like my dad was ruining my life. Little did I know that his wisdom would prove right. That UA&P was about to change my life.

I will admit that I didn’t even want to be there. And yet, it proved to be exactly where I needed to be.

Academic Excellence

I said earlier that I didn’t have the best grades in high school. There were several reasons for that, and while I don’t want to go into the personal details that create nuance in my life, I am comfortable talking about the bullying I endured in high school.

When I was in high school, bullying was rampant. And if you’ve experienced bullying, you will know that its effects on self-esteem are devastating. When you feel you are not worth much as a person, it isn’t long before you begin to believe it. Not long after that, it becomes self-fulfilling, and you begin to believe in your worthlessness enough to stop trying.

I pretty much barely skated by in high school—not because I wasn’t capable or smart, but because I was in an environment that simply didn’t know how to encourage me and properly protect me from psychological harm. (Please know that I don’t blame my high school. And while I experienced a lot of bullying, it was not all bad. I had many friends and a few champions who made it bearable. I think some teachers tried to intervene in the ways that they could, but there just wasn’t enough information available to them at that time to meaningfully address a complex issue.)

I remember telling my older sister right before I started at UA&P that I felt like college could help me reset in a different environment. I told her that if I could just get away from toxic bullying and negativity, I could do better. She wasn’t so sure, she said. I didn’t have the built-in study habits. I liked to watch TV too much. I was too reliant on others. All valid truths.

I bet big on myself though. And boy, did the Dragons give me the space that I needed to take flight! All my life, I had been waiting for a chance to prove myself. To prove my worth. While I didn’t have great habits, I had the determination and drive. So I formed new habits. What I didn’t know, I taught myself. What I lacked in experience, I made up for in hard work.

I excelled with the Dragons. First I was 9^th in the Dean’s List, then 7^th, and then 2^nd. I never could unseat the girl in 1^st place, but dang if I didn’t try! LOL!

Finding Meaning in Life

Being good at something doesn’t always mean it will bring you joy though.

I proved that I was smart. Apparently, that was the easy part. But was what I was learning meaningful to me? And would it help me find my calling? After I had proven that I was smart, finding my calling was my next mountain to climb.

I don’t know if Father Soria will ever know how much one kind conversation with him meant to me and to my life.

Imagine being a priest walking to your office and suddenly being accosted by a college student who wanted to talk to you about the meaning of life. I sure as heck would not have known what to do if I was him. But he knew. He just knew that if someone summons enough courage to ask you about the meaning of life, it means that they are having an existential crisis, and you need to drop what you’re doing and listen. And he did exactly that. While I am sure he must’ve been busy, he sat me down and listened to my rambling speech. Then in a calm and gentle way, he told me that if I wanted to change the world in the way that I was saying, if I meant what I said and wanted my life to mean something, that maybe I should teach. He was right. I joined the School of Education and Human Development (SED).

The Little School of Education That Could

I don’t know if my SED professors will ever know how monumental their influence in my life has been. It was UA&P’s tiniest “school” at the time (it might still be the tiniest school now, I don’t know). It was/is small but truly mighty. I always thought of it as the Little School That Could—just like “The Little Engine That Could.” The faculty and staff of that school was composed of passionate, tolerant, intellectually curious, and incredibly humble teachers and support staff devoted to their mission. The teamwork was palpable. SED’s teachers and staff showed me how modeling cooperation and tolerance could create a supportive work environment.

I remember Ms. Corrine’s mentorship and how she always left me with food for thought on how children can best thrive and ways we can respect their dignity. I remember Dr. Riza Bondal’s thoughtful classes on Work and Society. To this day, I remember her class because she laid out a powerful argument that convinced me that work is good for man. She balanced that with teaching that leisure is equally good for man. I remember Dr. Antonio’s positive attitude and empathy for special needs children. He and Dr. Bondal have consistently supported and encouraged me by writing recommendation letters on my behalf to graduate and post-graduate programs I have pursued after UA&P (both of which I completed with honors).

I remember Ms. Gizelle Tan’s tolerant and sweet demeanor—she never got frustrated at our class even when she had a new baby at the time she was teaching us (she was perpetually sleep-deprived), AND as a class, we could be a little unruly. (As an aside, I know teaching college kids can be rough—you never know if they’re taking you seriously. It’s like you just throw everything at them and whatever sticks, sticks. What I do know though is that if you are both kind and firm, you will get through to them. And it’s the ultimate long-game. You may never know if you’ve succeeded unless, like me, they look you up and tell you how much you’ve done to shape their lives.)

I never had a class with Dr. Celerino Tiongco but I remember his humble, bookish, quiet demeanor. I remember how much respect everyone had for him. No ego whatsoever. I also remember that the year I graduated there was a change in the teacher licensure exam submission date, and the graduates weren’t going to be able to take the exam because the Registrar’s Office wasn’t going to be able to process transcripts until a few months after the deadline. The day he found out about this, Dr. Tiongco quietly and powerfully advocated with the Registrar’s Office to provide our graduating class with temporary transcripts meant specifically for the licensure so we could sit for the exam. No drama. He just got things done. Quiet man, but a real straight shooter. Something should be said about that. He saved his students a year in limbo without ruffling any feathers. If you ever think of a grandfatherly James Bond, I imagine that’s Dr. Tiongco.

That environment of humility, teamwork, and cooperation in SED? It was there because Dr. Tiongco led by example. If you want something to grow in your team, you can’t just talk the talk, you must walk it. In SED, everyone was there to help everyone find their path and shape their voices as teachers, advocates, or social workers.

To the Little School That Could, please know that you continue to serve as a model for teamwork and cooperation for me. I can only speak for myself, but your collective efforts came through for me and helped me find my voice.

The Vitruvian (Wo)Man (Strength, Functionality, Beauty)

I want to talk about how often students (including me) complained about the Humanities classes. I remember chiming in and complaining about why there was just so much of them. I thought silently that they weren’t necessary for a job. I remember enjoying being one of the leads in one of the school theatre productions but after its run was over, I just ran out of steam and stopped extra-curriculars because it was just too hard to keep my grades up with the course load. I remember being annoyed because 36 units just sucked out all my energy for extra-curriculars and increased my apathy—it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be involved, it was that I just didn’t have the time. My limited mental capacity was pushed at its maximum trying to maintain academic excellence.

I will say though that my 36-year old self now thanks UA&P for its foresight. Whoever insisted on Humanities—if it was a board member, a donor, founder… whoever you are, you are a GENIUS. Some random, nobody graduate of your University thanks you. I may have complained through most of it, but I sure as heck am grateful that in my moments of quiet contemplation, I am able to philosophize about life at a level that I know I would’ve struggled to grasp had I not gone through course after course of mind-bending philosophy. I even re-read Man’s Search for Meaning every few years because I so thoroughly enjoyed it in college.

I have had many art professors, and I want them all to know that collectively, they instilled a love for art in me that has endured. Thanks to them, and thanks to countless hours in museums, when I stumbled upon an original lithograph of Picasso’s 1963 Mother and Child at a flea market, I recognized Picasso’s signature fast enough to be the first person to buy it. It is hanging in my bedroom today.

I’ve also purchased a Salvador Dali print titled Beatrice. She is meaningful to me because I read the entire Divine Comedy with Mr. Borra. She was his muse, a mirror of Divine Love who serves as the pilgrim’s bridge to salvation.

That isn’t all. I live in the US, and I realized that I wanted my children to inherit my heritage too. My husband is white American, but our future children will be Filipino-American. So, I decided on my own to learn about Filipino art and to focus my art acquisitions on that. I tell my husband not to buy me jewelry or fancy purses but to buy me Philippine art instead. I no longer live in the Philippines, but I own cubist, modernist, and abstract Filipino art. And I take pride in curating my collection not just for myself but also to pass down to my children. A piece of heritage that I feel will show them that Filipino artists are just as good as Westerners—just as Juan Luna proved when he painted the Spoliarium.

If the art professors read this—please, please, try to add Filipino artists in your curriculum if you haven’t already. I know a lot of what you teach is art history and the march of art through time. But there are some terrific and talented Filipino artists out there that have been inspired by those movements, and their works reflect such inspirations, and we need Filipino voices to be heard and amplified. It wouldn’t take much to tell your students to find a Filipino artist whose style is influenced by a particular movement.

I want to give the Dragons all the credit for being insistent that a study of the Humanities rounds out a person’s knowledge at a young age and exposes them to a variety of topics that they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to or had any inclination for (I mean, no 17-year-old really knows that art history will enrich their life or that classical music has the power to delight them if they just gave it a chance—they wouldn’t know what they’re missing until they take a class and realize that art is… an expression of the sublime). I dragged my husband to Monet’s garden in Giverny last October. As we were driving there from Mont-St-Michel, he was complaining about why I just HAD to go to Giverny. He stopped complaining when we got there, and he found a much deeper appreciation for it when we followed that up with a trip to the Orangerie museum in Paris and saw Monet’s swan song: his waterlilies collection, based on the garden he created, grew, and toiled over with his own bare hands.

This is not to say that my husband has no culture, only that his education was different. For reference, my husband went to UC Berkeley and studied a double major in Political Science and Religious Studies; he also went to UCLA for law school. While he had an excellent education, he didn’t have one rooted in the Humanities.

When we first met, I saw Dante’s Inferno in his bookshelf, and I inquired if he had read it—he said that he tried but it was too hard for him to get through. I understood completely. Dante’s Inferno is a long and arduous allegory steeped in symbol and metaphor; readers need at least someone to help them process it or better yet, a class/professor to help facilitate learning and meaning-making. This is not to say that I think my husband didn’t have a complete education. He had a different experience and was busy learning other things. For example, he went on an archeological dig in Israel and lived in a kibbutz for three months. He also lived in England as an exchange student. And he can still recognize every saint in every painting we see in any museum just from the symbols and objects that they hold or are around them (that’s the Religious Studies coming out). I guess what I’m saying is that every school is different, and some schools focus on some things, and other schools focus on other things. My school helped me focus on developing culture and a rounded understanding of the world.

I know for a fact that the Dragons get a lot of beef for the Humanities bent, so I hope you realize that, speaking for myself, while at that time it didn’t make sense, over the course of my life, the Humanities have enriched me and continues to enrich me to this day.

Why Do We Go to School?

I could write more, but I think you all get the point. Why do we go to school? I used to think it was to get a job. Getting a job is just part of it. We go to school to prepare for life—whatever that may hold.

My unending gratitude to UA&P for getting me started and for encouraging me to be intellectually and culturally curious will endure for the rest of my life. I didn’t learn everything in UA&P, but I learned what I needed to set me up for a life of learning.

Continued Support as an Alumni

The story doesn’t end here. After I graduated, I moved to the US and then to Hong Kong and then back to the US. I moved around, taught in an international school, applied to graduate school. And then I applied to yet another postgraduate degree program. Moving each time meant different jurisdictions and getting certified as a teacher and as a school supervisor. I had to go through the process both in Hong Kong and the US. And I gotta tell you, the Dragons have been with me every step of the way.

I want to thank UA&P and its Office of Alumni Affairs, the School of Education and Human Development, and the Registrar’s Office for all the special requests that I have had to ask for to get all the papers I needed to advance my career. I have had to get in touch with them multiple times over the last 13 years to provide me with detailed class descriptions as I went through different academic evaluations reports. I have had to ask them to FedEx my transcripts directly to not one but two Cal State Universities which required that a school directly send them transcripts. I have had to have them certify that I completed a practicum with students at SED to get licensed as a teacher in California. In the 13 years I have been an alumna, they have NEVER let me down.

I remember my sister (who went to undergrad and law school with the Eagles) telling me that there was no way the Eagles would be as responsive as the Dragons have been. She said, “Ate, grabe, there’s no way I could make these kinds of requests with the Eagles and get a cohesive response. Pero the Dragons, always responsive! Gusto ka talaga nila tulungan.” My gratitude for this support is immense—I wouldn’t otherwise have all the credentials and degrees I have now without this support.

A Message of Love—And Encouragement

We are going through an unprecedented time right now. And with a lot of time on my hands, I have had a lot of opportunity to reflect on what has made me who I am today. I realize that my education has been a great privilege and my teachers have given me a great gift. One I had never fully appreciated until now. And as I think of that I realize that their gift isn’t just knowledge; it’s also encouragement and support. I think the world could use some encouragement now. That was the other reason I wanted to write this.

I wanted to tell each and every Dragon that you are changing lives. It may not feel that way when you’re teaching angry, emo, punk, teenager/young adults who think they know everything they need to know to succeed in life. But I promise you that when they enter the real world, there are parts of what they learned from you that will flash through to them. Maybe they’ll remember the way you taught them supply and demand for economics, or the way they get a kick out of learning the word “transubstantiation” (and feeling like geniuses for knowing exactly what that meant) as they sit for Mass, or it could also be in the way they buy potted plants for their homes because the school campus had always been a place of cleanliness and beauty with small fountains and potted plants. Or a flash of a piece of poetry you taught that resonated with them—the way Robert Frost’s words from Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening comes to mind when I think about people who are suffering and are carrying on with their burdens no matter how hard their situation is (The last lines in that poem: “But I have promises to keep / And miles to go before I sleep / And miles to go before I sleep.”).

To the Dragons, thank you for doing right by me. Please know that you are doing something good. Keep fighting the good fight. My heart will always, always be with you. And I am so filled with joy, love, and gratitude when I think of how much my life has benefited from what I have learned there. In fact, tears are running down my cheeks right now, and I have to stop and get a box of tissues because I’m about to ugly-cry. LOL.

You’ve pretty much learned a good chunk of my life story by now. I hope this gives you a feeling of satisfaction in a job well done. I hope it gives you the encouragement I had hoped to bring.

 

Privileged to have been a student at UA&P,

Christine Ventura-Finneman, MA Ed. and Applied Behavior Analyst

[email protected]

Instagram: @theeffectiveparent

www.theeffectiveparent.com

 

 

Banner photo by Anthony Gucciardi on Unsplash.