It was April 2, 2006 when our daughter celebrated her 4th birthday. After that celebration we began to think of enrolling our child to a school which has a nursery program. My wife then heard of a school somewhere in Macasandig, Cagayan de Oro City. After a year there, it seems that something was lacking in our child’s education. She can memorize her ABC’s, identify the primary colors but it was not enough for us. So we began to ask our family friends and officemates about the schools where their children were enrolled. A ninang of our daughter then told us, "Why not try Lifetime Study Center near the San Agustin Cathedral."

So we enrolled our daughter to the said school with the hope and aspiration that perhaps our daughter may have a good foundation before entering the elementary grades. And so my child’s formal education begins.

Since, I was busy in the office; it was my wife who kept on tracking the progress of our daughter. After just a few months of schooling, I was surprised when we were watching TV with my daughter, Anne, and she was able to read two to three syllables words with the correct pronunciation flashed on the screen. As a doting father, nothing is more sweet than hearing your child start reading and pronouncing it well.

After a year of spending her Kinder 1 with Lifetime Study Center, I began to learn that it started in a mother and daughter tandem. I was also surprise that it was a classmate of mine in college and a good friend, Khessa Louise F. Lluch and her mother, Roqueza M. Flores who founded it.

In the middle of the year, my daughter started to count numbers 1 - 100 and matched colors with their names. Not only that, when school time was about to end, I heard my daughter memorizing a school play where she was one of the primary characters. Seeing my child's progress from a young toddler and after she began her lessons at Lifetime Study Center, it was more than parents could ask for in a school that seems to be simple and homey. It was a school of wonders.

Teacher Marissa, as she is fondly called by the kids and parents in and outside the school, is a very approachable and motherly mentor. She is soft-spoken yet very articulate and eloquent in imparting her lessons. At one time, I was early in the school, having left early from the office to fetch my daughter and I chanced upon Teacher Marissa calling one by one the students and asked the kids to read the given word or count the sum of the numbers shown on the board. She was very patient in teaching the lessons point by point and strict in imposing a motherly discipline in class. A kid who seemed too shy to come to the front of the class is now a very confident kid after a year in the school.

I, myself, having been raised in a family of educators, my papa and mama being teachers themselves in a public secondary school, know how very tedious it is to prepare the lessons everyday. How much more when your students are kids who have yet to learn their first syllables. You must be patient, selfless and have the love and passion for teaching.

These little kids are the reflection of the quality of education the school is imparting. And preschool is a very critical period since it is where the character of the child is first molded, discovered and developed. With the progress that I have been witnessing in my own daughter, everyday as I got to fetch her in school, it made me realize that the key to be a good mentor and role model is very simple yet uncommon: it is the love of what you are doing. I have found it in my child’s mentor and perhaps second mother in school, Teacher Marissa.

If there is one best thing that happened to my daughter, Anne, it is when we enrolled her at LIFETIME STUDY CENTER! Indeed, it’s a lifetime of treasure. Thanks for coming into my daughter's life. May you continue to share and touch the lives of those kids in your school. In fact, I once told my wife, we had made not only the right choice but the best choice.

I salute all the teachers who untiringly share their knowledge and talents to the kids. To the proud parents, the LIFETIME education that the children have is worth more than we had paid. We got not only the best but the best of them all!

Keep up the good work and mabuhay po kayong lahat!