Every year, thousands of Filipino teachers send applications overseas, and most of the replies that come back begin with the same word: unfortunately. For every offer letter, there are stacks of polite rejections, each one a small door closing. Sarah Joy Sajulga Pasa knows that pile well. She kept applying anyway, through sleepless nights and a growing collection of “we regret to inform you” emails, until one message finally opened with something else entirely.
Today, the 28-year-old Filipino educator teaches first grade at Duval Charter Scholars Academy in Duval County, Florida, where she leads six- and seven-year-olds through English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. But the version of her story that matters most is not the one that ends in a Florida classroom. It’s the one that explains how a working student from a family of teachers turned persistence into a passport.
A calling that runs in the blood
For Sarah Joy, teaching was never a career decision so much as an inheritance. “Teaching runs in our family,” she shares with TGFM. Her mother has given more than 30 years of service as a public school teacher. Two of her uncles are school principals. Three of her aunts teach. Growing up inside that web of educators, the question was never whether she would teach, but where.
She frames the work in language that sounds almost devotional. “Teaching has always been more than just a profession for me,” she says. “It is a calling and a way to make a meaningful difference in the lives of children.” That conviction was tested early, and often, by circumstances that had nothing to do with the classroom.
While studying at UM Tagum College, she worked as a Student Training Assistant to help pay for her education, balancing shifts against coursework. The juggling act taught her the unglamorous fundamentals she would lean on for years: discipline, time management, and the ability to keep going when the schedule left no room to breathe. “These experiences,” she says, “prepared me for the challenges I would face later in my professional career.”
Even then, she was reaching past the edges of what was expected of her. In 2017, she applied for the University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific exchange program and became one of the first outbound exchange students from her institution. That summer she attended the Tamkang Summer Program, “Business & Capital Management over Globalization,” at Tamkang University in New Taipei City, Taiwan, from August 2 to 15. Surrounded by students from Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Germany, she got her first real taste of the wider world, and of her own appetite for it.
“It was an eye-opening experience that deepened my understanding of global perspectives, cultural diversity, and international collaboration,” the former working student recalls. It also planted something that would take years to fully bloom: the conviction that she belonged beyond her comfort zone.
The years of unfortunately
The exchange trip may have shown Sarah Joy what was possible, but the road to actually getting there was neither short nor smooth. In January 2021, she began her teaching career as a public school teacher at Magugpo Pilot Imelda Elementary School SPED Center under the Department of Education, staying until June 2023. Two years — the minimum experience most international teaching applications require, and not a day more than she needed.
The moment she qualified, she started sending applications abroad. Then came the hard part.
“Despite receiving numerous rejection emails and facing many sleepless nights filled with uncertainty, I remained persistent,” she says. The competition was steep in ways that had little to do with her ability. She was going up against applicants with advanced degrees, longer résumés, and thick portfolios of accomplishments. She had two years of experience and a stubborn refusal to quit.
“There were countless moments of doubt,” the Filipino educator admits. “I received many rejection emails and often questioned whether I would ever achieve my dream of teaching abroad.” What kept her at the keyboard, sending one more application into the silence, was a combination of faith and the people around her. Her parents and siblings, her pastors, and her church community formed the support system that talked her off the ledge of giving up. “Their encouragement reminded me to keep moving forward even when the path seemed difficult.”
She reframes those rejections now with the clarity that only comes after the fact. “Every rejection became a lesson,” she says, “and every setback became motivation to work harder.” In September 2023, the persistence finally paid its dividend. A school in the United States said yes. It was her first teaching position overseas, and the beginning of a chapter she had spent years fighting to write.
Where strong minds and good hearts grow
Getting the job was one thing. What she has done with it is another story entirely, and it is here that Sarah Joy’s ambitions reveal their true scale.
During the 2025-2026 school year, she guided her first-grade students in writing and illustrating their own published book, titled “Where Strong Minds and Good Hearts Grow.” Watching children barely old enough to read their own names become published authors was, she says, “a dream come true, not only for them but also for me as their teacher.”
The project was never really about the book. “The experience helped my students discover the power of their voices, build confidence in their writing abilities, and realize that their stories matter,” she explains. For a teacher who spent years being told, however politely, that her own story wasn’t quite enough, there is a quiet symmetry in teaching seven-year-olds that theirs already are. She has committed to continuing the initiative, turning more of her students into young authors in the years ahead.
Her academic results back up the sentiment with hard numbers. Through differentiated instruction and consistent intervention, the majority of her students posted significant learning gains in Reading and Mathematics, with many reaching proficiency on state assessments. But when she talks about achievement, the metrics come second. “As an educator, my greatest achievement is not found in awards,” she says, “but in seeing my students grow academically, believe in themselves, and discover their potential.”
Beyond the required curriculum, the Filipino teacher has served as adviser of the school’s Writing Club for two consecutive years and facilitated the Arts Around the World Club, where students explore different cultures through creativity. She also works Filipino culture into her American classroom deliberately, sharing traditions, language, food, and celebrations. “I take pride in being an ambassador of the Philippines wherever I go,” she says.
Carrying the door open behind her
Ask her about the future, and Sarah Joy’s answer bends back toward home. She plans to eventually return to the Philippines and bring with her the best practices she has absorbed abroad, applying them to Filipino learners with a focus on literacy, creative writing, and critical thinking. “I hope to continue supporting projects that empower students to become confident readers, writers, and future leaders,” she says. She hasn’t ruled out further international opportunities, but the underlying goal stays fixed wherever she lands: to make a meaningful difference in students’ lives.
Her advice for kababayans navigating the same overseas uncertainty she once did is direct, shaped by experience rather than platitude. “Always remember why you started,” she says. “There will be moments of homesickness, loneliness, disappointments, and challenges, but never allow temporary struggles to make you forget your purpose.” She urges financial discipline and careful company. “Not everyone you meet will have good intentions, so choose your circle carefully.”
Mostly, though, she points back to the thing that carried her through the years of rejection. Her journey, she says, from working student to exchange student in Taiwan to public school teacher in the Philippines and now to a classroom in Florida, taught her one durable lesson.
“With faith in God, dedication to your purpose, and perseverance through challenges,” she says, “impossible dreams can become reality.”
She has the offer letter to prove it, filed somewhere behind a much taller stack of the ones that said no.
