Cindy Bacalzo Germaine: Loving children is important as teaching them

Photos taken from Facebook profile

Another teacher that will receive honors in a simple appreciation day for teachers at the Asian Library on May 20 is Cynthia Bacalzo Germaine.

Born in the US to Filipino parents, Cynthia teaches second grade  at Huntersville Elementary School (Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools)  while attending graduate studies on Instructional Systems Technology at the University of North Carolina,  Charlotte. 

A sister-in-law of Cip Onia, 1st Vice President of the Filipino-American Community of the Carolinas (FACC), Cynthia has 29 years of teaching experience of which nine were spent in Illinois, Chicago where she was born and raised.

She also has 19 years and counting of teaching experience here in North Carolina. In her Facebook profile, Cynthia said she loves learning and is an awesome trumpet player. 

In teaching, Cynthia said it is important to love the children in school. It is her time spent with the kids that remain the most memorable. 

“Their home life and experiences are all different, but the child needs to be accepted and feel respected,” Cynthia said.

Cynthia said setting goals and reaching them can be accomplished by anyone who decides to keep progressing and is willing to seek out resources to help them on their journey.

She also said under the US Constitution, one has the right to pursue happiness but has to earn it and is willing to pay the price.  “There is no entitlement to happiness,but the right to pursue happiness,” Cynthia said.

When asked about her teaching philosophy, Cynthia said one should teach chilldren about proper values and principles and to let them feel the consequences of their mistakes. 

“When kids make mistakes it is best to explain, age appropriately, why their choice produced the consequences that they did and to give them alternatives.
But make sure you praise their accomplishments,” Cynthia said.

She said the children should be made to see and appreciate that accomplishments are achieved through effort, hard work and good work ethic.

Cindy, as she is fondly called by her family also said that if children equate accomplishments with being smart, then their appreciation of accomplishments will be short lived. 

But if children equate accomplishments with effort and work ethic, then they can become life long learners. “Mistakes are not bad so long as they become learning opportunities,” Cynthia said.

She reads the book Lion and the Mouse, a fable that teaches the truism that one must not judge a book by its cover since friends come in all shapes and sizes. 

Cynthia “Cindy’ Bacalzo Germaine would join the other teacher honorees at the Asian Library on May 20, this Saturday for a simple ceremony hosted by the Filipino-American community of the Carolinas, Inc. (FACC)./Susan Palmes-Dennis