As in any class, we have “characters” in them. Meet Jacob, who said that the English Club is the best club ever. When asked if he liked the club because of the lessons, the food treats, the library books…he hastily cut it short with “All of the above!” Jacob loves the rubiks cube! It’s the best way to get him excited about anthing! Meet Ms. Nga, my Vietnamese postulate student, who memorized “Umay-Ka” the Igorot’s way of welcoming others and said that she has “gold in her heart!” (Learned from a lesson about Kabunian, the aboriginal Igorot deity and the quest for gold in the mountains). When learning about the food chain in a story, she also wanted to be a butterfly who could fly away from predators and land lightly and prettily. And there was a young boy who when taught about the word “ sanctuary” said that his sanctuary is his bed. You get to know them too in the discussions. While discussing a story about 3 boys, 2 of whom wanted to keep the money they found on the road and 1 who wanted to return it to the lost and found, one student said he would keep the money because that’s what he saw an elder do before. In times like these, you learn to tread lightly as a teacher. You have to make the point that honesty is a virtue without denigrating their life experiences. To make the point, we told them the real-life story of a NAIA janitor who returned as much as 4 million pesos worth of goods he found in the airport, with the single biggest return amounting to Php 2.5 million. Hopefully, that inspired. Hopefully, that showed a better way. Hopefully, it is a lesson that he will carry with him and share with  his family too.