The Class is in Session: Dr. Glenda Bonifacio’s Life Lesson

Dr. Glenda Bonifacio (Supplied)

A room slowly fills as students start occupying their respective seats, with some preparing for the next class, while others are maximizing their remaining free time to take a quick nap or chat with their friends — this is the usual scenario we see in a classroom before the next subject begins.

But as the clock ticks, hitting the time the class will start, students quickly pull their acts together, all of them sitting firmly with their arms on their table as their mentor enters the room.

Just like these students, the rest of the world is also all eyes and ears to the spotlight stealer, a professor in glasses named Dr. Glenda Bonifacio, who now takes the floor, ready to inspire many people with her life lesson.

Chapter 1: The making of an educator

As an educator, Glenda is expected to inspire and encourage her students to work harder and bring out their full potentials in order to reach whatever goals they have. Aside from their parents, students look at her as someone with much experience in life and brilliance who could help them excel by teaching them lessons that they can use not only on their term papers and exams but also in real life.

Glenda does these things everyday in hopes that her teaching will take her students to great heights of achievements someday, but looking on the other side of the paper, what actually made her to become somebody who will make an enormous contribution to one’s existence?

Looking back, Glenda was just then living her simple life with her family in Tacloban City as a daughter of a public school dentist and a school employee.

In her early age, Glenda attended Leyte Normal Laboratory School, now Leyte Normal University (LNU), for elementary and later on transferred to Leyte Research and Development High School.

She finished her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science as a Magna Cum Laude and her Master’s degree in Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines (UP).

During that time, Glenda never imagined herself doing the works of her teachers like dealing with students, making lesson plans and presentations, and checking a mountain of academic papers.

“I did not dream to be a teacher. I guess I was the least likely to be one in elementary or high school.”

But what or who pulled her to the world of teaching? Was it her parents whose jobs are related to school that influenced her to become someone she never thinks she would be?

“Perhaps am drawn by some force to be where I can best shape the future. Teaching is the only job I know I could do best.”

Having a strong will to help make this world a better place for everyone, Glenda, without any second thought, decided to step her foot into the world of the education sector, commencing her career as a professor at the University of the Philippines-Tacloban College.

Chapter 2: Turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones

For someone who has an extreme and insatiable thirst for knowledge in her field, searching for new information she can share to her students in the bookshelves of various libraries and off campus in her home country was not enough.

This was what made Glenda and her own family leave the Pearl of the Orient Seas in 2000 and fly to Australia to pursue her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) scholarship in History and Politics at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales.

Glenda and her family, however, did not stay there for so long because three years later, they moved to Canada to explore more opportunities in her field of study.

“At that time, the centres for migration studies were closing down in Australia while the same centres have expanded in Canada, the now defunct Metropolis.”

“According to my colleagues then, Canada offers better opportunities than Australia for my field of study.”

Being able to spend years living in Australia, Glenda for sure has experienced cold temperatures — trembling as the cold air hits her skin with her hands and feet feeling like blocks of ice. Perhaps, many would think Glenda and her family already got used to this kind of weather, but surprisingly, they were still not.

As someone born in a tropical country where even in its ‘cool’ months, bone-chilling temperatures can only be felt in air-conditioned areas or provinces, probably using a jacket, long sleeves and, pants will suffice.

“We arrived in September during the fall season. Our understanding of how cold will it be was tested upon arrival with our insufficient Australian jackets.”

Going to Toronto, her family took the Seoul route from Sydney and that their long flight and jet lag made them spend most of their time sleeping for a week.

“We arranged to rent a townhouse while still in Australia and the realtor met us at the airport to hand over the keys and showed us where we live. The strip mall nearby offered us the basic necessities while we figured out how the system works for registering kids in schools, etc.”

Their struggle as first-timers in Canada did not end with battling the country’s cold weather and adjusting to their new surroundings — it was just the beginning.

Just like other new Filipino immigrants who flew to Canada in hopes of having a brighter future, Glenda said she and her husband had to struggle, seeking for a decent work as they lack the “Canadian experience.”

In order to gain that experience Canadian employers are looking for and to put food on their table, they took temporary jobs for the meantime while they wait for their ideal job interviews to come.

“Looking back, new immigrants were classified as new ‘graduates’ of the labour market where the way up starts from way down.”

“While our experience maybe different from others based on migration status, we have to understand how the system operates with limited social network. Along the way my husband found relatives and friends who helped us learn the ropes of living in Mississauga for a year.”

Despite her excellent educational background and work experience, and even if she does her job competently without stepping on someone else’s toes, Glenda still became the target of discrimination in her white-dominated workplace.

Glenda, who was held in high regard not just by her students but also by her other former colleagues, was labelled as visible minority, wherein she was considered as a caregiver regardless of her profession.

“Unconscious bias of some people tends to designate us as all caregivers; perhaps a consequence of the longstanding caregiver program where over 90% are participated in by Filipinos compared to other groups in Canada.”

Aside from this, the way the newcomers speak in English also became an issue, that being asked “where did you come from” all the time made her annoyed. Some of her Canadian students, who grew up with Filipino nannies, are also not used to seeing her as their professor.

“Some could be mean in rendering course evaluations. It’s as if race is an excuse to put your class efforts down.”

Experiencing discrimination in her adopted country did not stop her from recognizing the best things in Canada. Living in the Great White North, Glenda said that she is allowed to do whatever makes her happy without having fear of persecution, being able to enjoy quality education and health regardless of income, and of course, the seeming lack of corruption in the Canadian government.

She wakes up every morning with a mission to discover life’s full meaning by interacting with her husband and five daughters, her friends, colleagues, and the community.

If Glenda is not overwhelmed by her workload, Glenda gets to spend her time with her loved ones and attends to meetings or events that matters to her the most.

Even if Glenda was away from her home territory for more than a decade, she never forgets that Filipino blood is running through her veins.

“I am a Filipino and will always be wherever I am,” she said. “As a parent, I try to inculcate values of respect, harmony, and bayanihan, for example, to my children. I try to show these by examples and letting them be a part of what I do, both at home and outside. We still speak our dialect to them.”

Chapter 3: Shaping stepping stones to success

Upon their arrival in Canada, the first thing that Glenda did was not to have fun nor enjoy its beautiful sceneries. Instead, she processed needed documents to enroll her daughters in school and got their social insurance numbers. But right after she has settled her kids in school, Glenda and her husband immediately registered with an employment agency.

“My youngest then was about six years old so my husband and I decided to do shift work.”

Teaching for many years, 10 years to be exact, Glenda has probably acquired tons of knowledge and experience in her previous workplace which most employers are exactly looking for when they are hiring — but this was not how it works for Canadian employers.

“My career was on hold as everything that I have accomplished in the Philippines were not considered for academic employment. I started from scratch.” 

After seven months of waiting for a job interview, Glenda received a call for a sessional post at the University of Guelph in Ontario to teach Women’s History in Asia, which became her first Canadian teaching experience.

“Thereafter, I applied for teaching jobs related to Women’s Studies and Asian Studies instead of Political Science, my main teaching area at the University of the Philippines, and was eventually shortlisted.”

From struggling to adjust in her new environment in Canada, to being discriminated because of her racial roots, also to starting from zero in her career, Glenda managed to surf big waves of her life as she got her first full-time academic job as a professor in her first full campus interview at the University of Lethbridge (U of L) in Alberta. Glenda has been teaching there since 2005.

Although she is known for being one of the experts in Women & Gender Studies with one monograph, three edited books, and four co-edited books, Glenda never thought that she would be teaching this course to her students.

“I did not first choose to be a professor in women and gender studies. My PhD dissertation is about gender and politics, and somehow this often becomes the basis of your specialization.”

But for Glenda, who gained an interdisciplinary background in Social Sciences and Asian Studies, being able to teach women’s studies is just a perfect timing.

“With bias, I could say that Women & Gender Studies is the best interdisciplinary field of study because it covers everything – politics, economics, science, philosophy, etc. — as gleaned from the standpoint of women or gendered lens. Gender matters in all aspects of study.”

With Glenda’s almost perfect profile and also being one of the Global FWN 100 Most Influential Filipino Women in the World in 2015 by the Filipino Women’s Network in the United States (U.S.), perhaps many would think that she will have a smooth and upward moving career path especially now that she is already a professor. However, as Glenda’s career in the education industry blossoms, her struggles and adversities also continue.

“My politics in the Philippines hindered some opportunities for research and promotion; there is the perception that those outside of the inner circles of governance have lesser chance of success or knowing about them in the first place.”

Not letting this stop her from achieving her dream, Glenda accepted the fact that struggles and failures are part of one building their career. That is why in order for her to succeed, Glenda bears in her mind that she must have the resilience to face the inevitable and must trust the process.

“I try to practice my principles in life, to ‘be the change you want to see,’ and if these crosses with certain structures of power along the way, I face it head on; understanding that life without a fight is having no life at all.”

“I believe the system now is advanced to deal with redress, and filing complaints is the first step of the fight. Hence, for each struggle, I say keep fighting.”

Having a mission to play a vital role in the youth’s education as well as in their lives, Glenda utilizes her career in the education industry not only as a professor inside the four corners of the classroom, but also a member of a group outside the university that, like her, is firmly believing that education is the key to everything.

Chapter 4: Returning to the main classroom

Remember the time when Super Typhoon Yolanda, internationally known as Typhoon Haiyan, made headlines all over the world where it left thousands of Filipinos dead and unimaginable damages in several parts in the Philippines? Returning to the Philippines where she started her teaching career, Glenda was one of those who came to help her kababayans to get back on their feet after the disaster.

It was in 2014 when Glenda, along with other passionate women in Lethbridge, organized ReadWorld Foundation to help schools which were affected by the typhoon rebuild their library resources through collecting, organizing, and shipping used books to impoverished communities in the Philippines.

“We operate on zero budget and sustained by the commitment of volunteers and their families, and the support of community donors and sponsors to raise funds for shipping costs.”

“We ship these books directly to the schools in many areas in the Philippines.”

A month after Typhoon Yolanda wreaked havoc in Tacloban City, Glenda’s former colleague sent her an email, asking for her books on gender to replace the books at their resource centre to which Glenda quickly responded.

She sent out information materials and did presentations at local elementary schools regarding the ReadWorld Foundation’s ‘adopt a school project.’

“I provided participating schools with balikbayan boxes and the names of schools in Leyte. My friends helped me a lot; the project and the network spread in that spring of 2014.”

The local book drive that she spearheaded did not stop in that same year or even in the following years. In fact, the campaign still continues up to this day with the organization recently shipping 16 boxes of books and other supplies in July 2018.

True to her word that literacy is critical to youth development, Glenda also organized her first summer field course of the Department of Women & Gender Studies in Tacloban in 2015 where, unexpectedly, 14 Canadian students registered from the limited 10 slots available.

The reason for conducting this field course was for them to examine gender and local-global intersections that relate to their discipline such as education, economy, culture, environment, among others. The foreign students were able to participate in several festivals and had the chance to interact with other Filipino students.

In addition to their experience apart from their interaction with the localities, Glenda and her students also experienced living in a place with no air conditioning and hot water, far from their situation back in Canada. This happened because, during that time, all hotels were booked by international aid agencies and other accommodations were too expensive or lack the security personnel which led them to stay in a university dormitory like regular Filipino students just to continue with their field course

“Despite the stress and the workload of being with students 24/7, it was the best form of field instruction I ever did. I would love to do it again but there are other risk factors to consider now.”

Final chapter: Inspiring others to mold the future

As a proud U of L’s associate professor, Glenda enjoys her freedom to design courses the way she likes, as well as interpret the subject she is teaching based on broad and critical perspectives. Apart from sharing her knowledge, she also gets to enjoy being inspired by the difference she makes in the lives of her students during and after the course.

“To contribute towards equity and social justice through education is an important rationale why I teach.”

“When we shape the minds of young people to become part of the solution in fostering change in their own communities and see a better world for themselves, their children, and everyone — we are part of the process for change.”

While she enjoys what she calls the best part of teaching, Glenda too, has a few words for those who want to be like her someday.

Continuing her journey filled with both struggle and triumph, she said:

“Do your best always no matter the limitations, but recognize as well that in our struggles we rely on the people who love us for support and with others with whom we share our time and resources to become better persons.”

“Embrace teaching as a way of life, not as a day job; if we do, we could make a difference.”