My Most Important Professional Achievement

Greetings of peace and love! 10% of this post will go to @steem.skillshare as my contribution to this empowering community.

Before anything else, I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude to @alena-vladi for coming up with this lovely contest. This reminded me of an achievement I'd be forever proud.

I'd like to start of by introducing myself. I am Glenna May Raganas, 29 years of age, happily married, and I work as a public school teacher. At the time of speaking, I have been teaching for four years. I can't imagine it has been that long. True enough that when you enjoy what you're doing, time just flies.

This was me with my first ever advisory class taken four years ago.

You know there's a pandemic when the only photos you have with you class are of like this. But still, here's me, still happy with what I'm doing.

As a teacher, we are expected to educate, inspire and mold young learners so, we do various tasks to fulfill those. Since we are facing a pandemic, our routines have changed on how we deliver those. For instance, we write modules, print them, mass produce, fold, staple and release to the students. We also do some follow-ups, conduct online class, check students' outputs, etc. However, aside from those tasks, we also have assigned ancillaries. As for me, I am the school's Disaster Risk Reduction Management coordinator and my task is to ensure everyone's safety while in the campus. Tough job, isn't it?

While being a safety coordinator can be sometimes overwhelming, this coordinatorship also paved way for me to countless opportunities. I was able to attend series of seminars, workshops, trainings and drills that made me a better coordinator and a better teacher.

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From one opportunity to another, I was just giving all of me until the greatest opportunity knocked on my door and became my most important professional achievement.

Last August 1, 2021, I was informed by our division Disaster Risk Reduction Management chief that I will be hosting a national event organized by the national DRRM Team. I was in awe of that news. I didn't know what to feel. I was confused of feeling scared and excited, but I chose to embrace the later. There are more than a million of teachers in the Philippines and I was chosen to host an episode of a national event. It felt surreal!

As much as I wanted to panic, I tried to compose myself and dedicated the alloted time rehearsing and finalizing my script. I felt like this was a once in a lifetime opportunity so I had to give out the best that I could.

And so, we went live last August 13, 2021. The program was shown on various Facebook pages and one of those pages was the DepEd Philippines page, the official Facebook page of the Department of Education. The program went live for two hours and was viewed by 62,000 individuals all over the country! Imagine hosting and seeing your face in a national page for a national event! This never even crossed my mind but it happened and it went really well!

After the program, I was applauded by the technical working group, sponsors and my heads. Being able to host a national event is one thing but receiving numerous congratulatory messages from the people you admire is another. I am not sure of what lies ahead of me as a teacher, but one thing is for sure, I will bring that memory to my grave as my most important professional achievement.

As a teacher, achievements come in different ways and forms. I believe, achievements in general are also subjective. What I consider as an achievement might not be the same for others, and vice versa. Nonetheless, what matters is that you have worked hard for what you achieved and you never stepped on anyone just to get it.

That is all for now. Thank you for allowing me to share this remarkable story. Hoping to read the stories of others too.

Love,
Glenna

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