Apples and Chalkdust

Transform the Filipino Dream

2010-12-19T06:01:00.003+08:00

I stopped writing entries here as I am now focusing my energy on fewer blogs. I am inviting you to visit jefmenguin.com to read fresh articles, contribute your ideas and join my monthly contest. Thank you and God bless.

021 Qualities of Great Teachers

2005-10-17T11:43:00.000+08:00

Qualities of Great Teachers

There are many kinds of teachers as there are stars in the heavens. Each, though of variant brightness, provide us light even in the darkest nights.

What are the qualities of great teachers? Let us spell them.
Teachers...

Touch. Everytime a teacher comes into our lives, she or he can not not touch our lives. Great teachers foremost reason for teaching is to touch our lives. Great teachers make us feel even more the beauty of life, the greatness of our soul, and the joys of our spirits. Long after they graduate, we will forget most of the information fed on us, but we will never forget how these teachers touched our lives.

Electrify. Thunder is good. Thunder is impressive. But it is lightning that does the work. Great teachers cause sudden and intense excitement, they startle us, surprise us, they arouse our desire to learn. They make us look forward to every session. They make us thirst.

Aspire. Great teachers always aim for the most noble values. True them we learned to value high ideals like love, freedom, and justice.

Commit. Great teachers commit themselves to what they believe in. This is the reason why they can see the potentials of every person when others do not. All great works begin in dreams, but dreams start to become reality only when one commits himself to it.

Heal. Great teachers help us reconcile with ourselves. They emphatize with us. They feel our pains and help us heal our wounds.

Experience. Experto credite. We believe those who have had experience. Great teachers bring to life even the most boring topic because they don't simply share what they have not experienced. Great teachers believe in constant growth. They choose their experiences. They always look for new experiences. Only by growing they can help others grow.

Rejoice. Every learning experience is a celebration of life. The very act of teaching itself, for great teachers, is an occasion for expressing joy.

Self-accepting. Great teachers are aware of their limitations. They know of their fault and problems. They also know that there are things that their powers cannot change.

017 Teachers Day

2004-10-01T20:47:00.000+08:00

I went home early today. We just reported for half-day with which we celebrated our teachers day. There was no fun-fare. It was simple and communal. Somehow, it is much better this way.

The other days I received messages from my former students from Jubilee greeting me happy teachers' day--something absent in Northfield. I feel that it is not really a culture here to celebrate such day...maybe because there are so many celebrations that an additional one would not matter so much.

016 Long Time

2004-07-07T23:23:00.000+08:00

It has been decades since the last time I was here. There had already climbing mountains and breaking down hearts. I want to fly, but seems that I am down.

I canot write more of this. My eyes are beginning to close.

015 Life of significance

2004-06-13T15:08:00.000+08:00

It has been ages since the last time I wrote here. I have been busy for the past few days panning for my new-found business and mapping out my life. I am dreaming big and I dream a life of significance.

This is the first time that I am not excited for the first day of class. Maybe because I still don't know the people that I am going to meet. or maybe because I am not so much excited with the subject I am to teach. I know that this is temporary, once I meet my students, I know things will certainly change. There is so much life into teaching that death would not be able to conquer. I know enthusiasm will soon come back.

I hope that in a few days, I would be able to write down my dreams. I want to feel, smell, see, hear, and if possible, taste it. I want my dreams to become flesh and blood reality.

By the way, tomorrow i will be delivering a speech at the Metro Manila Toastmasters Club. My tentative title is DREAMWEAVER. I will post the speech at smarspeech soon.

014 Work

2004-05-30T08:30:00.000+08:00

There are still so many things that need to be done. I have to work to live. I have to live to do my mission.

I don't feel good today. Same as yesterday. It feels like the world stopped spinning but only on me. I am down and cannot do anything.

I have to move though. So today I will
construct my last two syllabi
wash my clothes
write my 2nd speech for the toastmasters
construct my daily schedule
make affirmation cards...I need this for I am now out of balance...
go to church
chat with a friend
clean my room, and
try to be myself again.

I have to do this and stop waiting for the manna of chikka to come online this morning....

013 bloodstained island

2004-05-28T00:30:00.000+08:00

For three days, we stayed in Corregidor. We went inside its tunnels and caves and foxholes. We went over its mountains and dove in the sea that surrounds it. There is so much to be said of the experience. This I will do in the coming days. Stay connected! God bless you.

cliche: I was here!

012 ABsent

2004-05-28T00:11:00.000+08:00

I did not report for work yesterday, Thursday. I felt so tired. My muscles ached and it feels like I need another whole day of sleep. Yet, I am here, Friday morning, still very much awake. I did not do anything yesterday for the whole day. I decided to that I should start working again Friday. I am about to sleep now. God morning dear readers....and greetings to you ms rojo...I know that you are reading my blog. YOU don't have to print this copy, just go to view above and find text, then chose the largest. And you too chalyz...I am actually looking forward to see you again. I hope that life is kind to you.

I had a small talk with tahnee this evening. Nice kid. Always beautiful inside and out. So there. Have a nice day.

011 Dead tired

2004-05-21T21:44:00.000+08:00

My body aches. I am very very tired from todays work. Yet, I cannot rest since I still have to prepare for tomorrows activity.

I finished and passed two syllabi for today. I am also done with one schedule which is to be given to the students. I still have to do two more syllabi. I will finish one this sunday and work for the other after next week.

Yes, there are lots and lots of work. I have no regrets however of leaving Jubilee. I know that I am in a right direction. It seems that I am with people who are not simply bright. They all manifest the drive for excellence.

I have to rest my finger for a while. I have to work after 15 minutes.

God bless you.

010 Learn Latin

2004-05-20T20:57:00.000+08:00

One of my co-teachers shared that he learned his Latin right after college. He took pains to study the language every summer. That made him qualified to teach Latin though he was a chemical engineering professor at the university of the Philippines. He is young; he looks intelligent too considering his young age.

There is something puzzling with the teachers in PAREF northfield. Each one seems to be so qualified to teach in a big school yet they chose to teach in PAREF. I have my own reason and that make me somehow accepts that talented teachers do teach in a school that does not offer a competitive salary. I have also observed that most of the teachers are ambitious. Every one wants to advance in his career.

PAREF offers each teacher a training which is a little bit of all the good things. This is very much a unique school. Something like a seminary in a layman's world.

Some may not like the involvement of parents in the management of the schools. But PAREF way is different. The parents are involve because they have decide to be truly involve in the development or their children from home to school to society. There is actually a consious effort from the parents to make the school the best for their children. This I believe is admirable.

By the way, I also want to learn Latin. I am going to borrow basic Latin from my co-teacher.

This is all for tonight. God bless.

007 Learning Competencies

2004-05-19T07:17:00.000+08:00

I am done writing all the competencies for all the four sections assigned to me. I think I am one of the early one who were able to pass on time. The others are still writing theirs until today.

The more difficult task is to write the syllabus. I am still starting. Maybe tomorrow morning. We have a seminar this morning and I have to finalize my handouts for Saturday. On Saturday, I will be a resource speaker for the seminar of the high school teachers of the Central Colleges of the Philippines. I have to really prepare for it.

Anyways, the syllabus has no deadline yet.

This is just for now as I have to leave for school.

God bless to everyone.

006 I could sing of your love forever

2004-05-15T22:20:00.000+08:00

I am listening now to a song of the same title as this entry. I am done writing the minimum competencies for 2nd and 3rd year high school. I am yet to write one for the 4th year. These minimum competencies will become the bases of the syllabus that we teachers are to design.

As I was writing the curriculum objectives, I was visited with an army of ideas on how to execute them in the classroom. I have learned so many techniques in my eight years of teaching. Yet, none of these technique is a sure fire in the classroom. Every child in the classroom is a new being I have to deal with. Every classroom is different to every other classroom I have handled before.

One prominent thought that visited me was a warning. Most of what are education today trained students on how to answer questions like WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF Paris? or WHAT IS A VERB, A NOUN, AN ADJECTIVE, GALAXY, NEUTRON, MEAN, CHI SQUARE, OR ANYTHING? which if given just another short glance would amount to nothing. It has been a tradition of modern schools to let the students master the world outside of him without even nurturing the world inside him.

I have yet to hear again a teacher who tried to convince a child that he is a marvel, that no one is like him in huge expanse of the universe. Every child child in a classroom could be a Gandhi, a Rembrandt, a president of a country. We tell them of how the great people dress or talk but we don't tell them that they can be the great people we are talking in the classroom for the fiber that compose those great people is the same people that compose each and every child in the class.

The teachers low self-esteem is partly to blame. Most of the teachers in the classroom think that they are nothing compared to the great people, the makers and shakers of the world, they talked about in the classroom that it is easy for them to forget that they are actually dealing with the future great persons in the world. It is necessary to deal with them now for them to become the best that they can be.

By the way, I have now come into the conclusion that a teacher is root of all the great and notorious people in the world. The very good teacher is much better than a Gandhi or a Rembrandt. The nobleness of the teacher's profession is more than the sum of all the other professions combine. A teacher can be the most constructive/destructive force set into motion. I have my choice.

I want to be the positive change in the world of my students.

005 Birth of Fire

2004-05-12T10:24:00.000+08:00

Today is one of the many birthings in my life. I am to decide between character and career. I know it would not be easy since I loathe the reality that I wasn't able to do what I have always wanted to do. But definitely, I cannot sacrifice my character. I do welcome a new birth. I will get through this with pride.

004 GROWING IN THE PROFESSION (reprinted)

2004-05-08T17:07:00.000+08:00

There were times when I could not understand why teachers stay in the profession. I am perfectly sure that many of us are as much qualified as those CEOs whose salaries are astronomically far higher than what many of us are receiving. Surely, teachers would always be happy to think that a student of ten years ago is now very much above in the ladder of success earning money twice the number of digits we are receiving now…, but isn’t that ironic?

Rightly or wrongly, we should accept that many of us count success by the number of digits we have in our paychecks. Yet, most teachers, molders of persons and the fountain of all knowledge ever recorded, stays with the same classroom where we saw them ten years.

Why do we stay?

Rizal, a teacher himself, had long recognized that the youth is the future. I had imagined him thinking to himself , “but the future depends on me….” The future is in the teachers’ hands.

Yes, that sounds so romantic, but should we romanticize the lot most of us are in now?

Fact: A teacher, even if she is the most sincere among us, has to contend with the two widely accepted objectives of education today -- education for living and education for making a living.

Fact: Many teachers are like sailors in a starless night. Many had given up the hope for a piece of earth to land on.

We educate the youth; we lead them to what is good, to what is true, and to what is beautiful. We teach them to teach themselves for life.

Yes, many teachers don't “think much” about their salaries. They always say that they love what they are doing. They say that teaching is a vocation! It is the noblest profession! Granted! But for how long?

My fellow teachers, were there times you thought you can no longer get across what you want to say with your students? Did you think each class hour is getting longer than what it really is? Did you think that your classes are getting boring each new day? And did you feel you can no longer afford to do bell-to-bell teaching?

I felt them sometimes. And many times I thought that maybe I am now stuck in the rut”

If what we felt is true, then we are doing a great disservice to our students.

My fellow teachers, can you not help but spend your last peso a day before the next payday? Do you think that the salaries of your friends are getting higher but that of yours is not? Do you think you can no longer cope up with inflation?.

If what we think is true, then, this time, we are fishermen in the Sahara. We are doing a great disservice to ourselves.
Don’t cry! I believe we can do something about it.

Answer me. Where are you fifteen years ago? Ten years ago? Five years ago? Last year? And where are you now? You are growing professionally , aren't you?

Thomas Carlyle once said," Do the duty that nearest to thee with which thou knowest to be a duty. The second duty will only become more clear. "

Which is your first duty—educating for living or educating for making a living? Knowing your first duty is of utmost importance for this will define the way you would handle your second duty.

Let us assume that all teacher would agree with me that the first duty is to prepare the young to educate themselves through out their lives—educating for living. If a teacher failed on this duty, a child is lost.

Teachers should develop themselves professionally and practice what they teach. That, I see, is the next duty. If a teacher failed on this duty, a teacher and a child are lost.

Five years of teaching students and observing teachers made me realize that the fulfillment of our duties go hand in hand. If we are to teach our students well, then we have to develop ourselves professionally.

Let me share some of my thoughts. Think about them. This is free. Get as much as you can, but do not blame me if you cannot understand them.

First be always informed on current trends and issues. The school library houses periodicals and magazines that feature issues related to our field of specialization. Look for articles relevant to our classroom teaching. Though some of them presented an ideal classroom situation, we can learn so many things from the “experts of the field”. It can stretch out our thinking . New information will motivate us to rethink what we are currently doing in the classroom. We have a shelf for teachers reference. Ask the librarian for them.

Students (our best critics) can easily detect our constant growth in knowledge, and so it will be foolish of them to sleep in our class (but sometimes, they cannot help it especially if they did so many projects the night before). In each meeting, we will be offering them new things to learn. They will desire for our presence. Our desire to learn will inspire them to learn more. We will gain a new confidence and no child will be lost.

Second,attend workshop, seminars and conferences. It was in 1996 when I attended the American Parliamentary Debate Seminar at the Ateneo de Manila University. Two of our three mentors attended the said seminar, too. The other one, our sexagenarian Speech Director, did not attend. I thought the reason to be obvious, as he has been teaching the Art of Argumentation and Debate for a number of decades. But I was surprised to learn from the old man that he was very much interested in attending the seminar. He gave way to the two younger mentors for them to learn more. So great was he.

Many of the subject coordinators can attest to these! Workshops, seminars, and conferences have lots of information to offer which cannot be found in the nook and cranny of some graduate schools. New trends and issues in teaching are “discussed and evaluated” in these educational programs. We will be meeting flesh-and-blood experienced teachers armed with tested knowledge in the field. We will meet people of younger age but of greater knowledge and thicker wallets. There, we will be provided with new challenges.

As we gain knowledge from workshops, our vision of education widens. We will be motivated to apply new techniques. We will be more open-minded and the rest of the learning community cannot help but notice us. They will like us because they know where we are heading. That is none other but up.

“Learn, but learn from the learned” said by a wise man long time ago. A learned teacher radiates senses of vision and confidence. Let us learn more for the child's future. And ours.

Third, Build a culture of collaboration and learning. We are all learners. The school is a community of learners. It provides the faculty, staff, students, parents, and administrators fertile ground for learning. Teachers no matter how learned they are, have a lot more of things to learn. Teachers can collaborate to make learning as natural as breathing.

Every time a teacher prepares a lesson, she prepares individually. That is her subject, anyway. Is it healthy?
I am afraid not. We being model learners must collaborate to study teaching and its effects. Let us initiate a collaborative spirit among the faculty. It will be easy for us because what binds people together, aside from their similarity, is their need for each other. We need each other. Our common concern is the education of the young.

What is collaboration? A teacher sharing information and demonstrating skills to other teachers based on conferences and workshops she attended demonstrates collaboration She shares what she learned because she cares for the department, for the school. This will develop a philosophy of teamwork among the faculty within and among various subject areas. If Jubilee would have a culture of teachers who are more willing to ask help, more open to admitting difficulties in handling some subjects, and come out of their world and see what others are doing, then this would always be a great place to stay.

If the teachers, say in the English area, are doing together their responsibilities to the best of their abilities, then the rest of the community will follow suit. The teachers must be the prime mover. I hope that the integrated approach that the school will be implementing for the years to come will lead to teachers collaboration.

Fourth, look for other sources of income. With the rising prices of commodities, what we are earning in teaching will never be enough. Examine once again your talents. You surely have one.

If you are teaching students to write, why not write and submit them to publications. Yes, not all of us would be J.K. Rawling as not all of us would write a Harry Potter. You can write a book. Your teaching experience is more than a qualification. You need not be a master of words. Put them into the paper and let somebody edit them for you. Frankly, many of us are more qualified than the authors of some textbooks. Many of them stopped teaching long time ago.

If you really need the money, make teaching your part-time job. Good teachers are not judged by the length of time they spent in school. Do this: open a bank account now, not because more and more people will be sharing their monies to you, but because this is what you should do.

And finally, love your work!. What a job we teachers have! We work all day, every moment, for our works will always be works in progress. Our action and inaction will always have something to do with our work. Whatever we did say or failed to say will always have an impact on people who are not even our relatives. We have to love our work—the students—for how could we care for them if we cannot love them.

We cannot deny this: students learn better from us if they like us, much more when they love us. Love begets love. We have to love them first. Do so for what is at stake is our future.

makatanglawin

003 Teaching has two faces (reprinted)

2004-05-08T17:00:00.000+08:00

Teach me not...

Every one should have known by now that it is dumb to force a duck lay all her golden eggs. Yet, many of us think only of the immediate comforts and forget about tomorrow. Worse, we became insensitive to everything outside us.

Teachers are glaring examples.

When I come into the classroom, I know that students will learn something from me- both good and bad-which may have eternal influence on them. Yes, everything I say, or ignore to say, will affect change in them.

We are supposed to teach the students to be resourceful, to be responsible, to think of what is good to them and to everyone. But reality presents a different picture.

Teachers are supposed to model to students how to be resourceful, responsible, and productive.

I know of one teacher who told her students to buy tickets for the upcoming disco, which is a school fund-raising activity. To “motivate” the students, the teacher promised to add 5 points for each ticket bought. One student bought four tickets. She got 100 in her report card.

The teacher convert the grades of the students, which are supposed to reflect their learning growth, into a simple commodity you can buy anytime in the market place. The teacher will get fifteen pesos, a ten percent share, for each ticket. Yes, in this third world country, so many people, including teachers, seemed to have lost their senses. The teacher’s style in selling the ticket is not being resourceful or entrepreneurial—this is an outright opportunism and grave abused of power.

She is not alone. It is not unusual to hear students complain about so many projects. Many of these projects are not even related to their subject matter. Nevertheless, they have to nag their parents every night because ‘submission’ of the projects with high tag price ensures higher grade.

In this country of mine, there is no duck that lays a golden egg. We work all day to earn money we borrowed yesterday.

The ugly face of teaching is a monster. Let us erase it.

Viajero dela Tierra
December 6 1998
Sunday

002 SCHOOL DULLS THE MIND (REPRINTED)

2004-05-03T01:12:00.000+08:00

I am not a teacher, but an awakener.
Robert Frost

Two days ago, in my grade eight class, a student said that school dulls the mind. He got the idea from someone else. Whether he understands the full extent of its meaning I do not know. I observed that schools in the Philippines, for so many students, are factories that produce learned ignoramuses.

If teaching is a revolution, this revolution is courting a bleak future. Most of the revolutionaries are now disillusioned and lost.

Our students are told to speak in English always since the individual success of a student is pegged on his ability to speak the language. I Observed that many teachers are impressed by those who could jumble the highfalutin' English words which most of the times are not understood by the speaker (the student) and by the listener (the teacher). These students were made to understand that “deep” words are better.

Many students are made to parrot a parrot. Examine closely the examination paper for communication arts. The paper contains questions on vocabulary, grammar, literature, and writing.

The vocabulary question is easy. Students can easily be experts overnight. They were told to memorize and to use the words in sentences. They all do until the examination day. After that, the words vanish into thin air. The person with a very retentive short-term memory gets the prize.

The grammar questions look like a repetition of the seatwork given long before the test. They sometime contain the same item. A careful examination would reveal that the students could answer it despite the instruction of the teacher. They just follow the patterns. Parrots.

They are invited to be critical in answering the literature questions. Even then, these test only the memory of the students. High-level question were given. Their answers were given also during their class discussion, and it was the teacher who answered her own questions since the students are to shy to show that their answers are not like that of the teacher. The rest of the questions are of knowledge level which were also discussed in the class. You can learn these, too, despite the teacher. The answers usually appear in a single page of their textbook. Parrots are good in memorizing literature, too.

The writing part is the easiest part. Scribble long enough and you will get your desired score.

… AND TEACHERS EXPECT THEM TO SPEAK THEIR MINDS WHEN THEY ARE NOT EVEN ENCOURAGED TO USE THEM.

School dulls the mind.
Great words from the student.

Nov. 30, 2002

P.S. Today is Andres Bonifacio’s 139th birthday. He is the Supremo of the Filipino Revolution. He is an awakener, not a teacher.

001 NEW LIFE

2004-05-01T23:06:00.000+08:00

This is the start of a new life, of new dreams, of bigger missions, and more noteworthy actions. I hope that whoever views this site from now on will learn the world of a teacher beyond the chalkdust.

Apples and Chakdust will highlight my journey as an educator. Here you will come to understand what makes a teacher a teacher. Of course, I will not brag to be the best teacher that you will ever meet. I am working to be the best that I can be--that is what I can assure you.

So, welcome aboard. Let me bring you to my journey.

God bless us all.

-005 LOVE'S INCONSISTENCY

2003-08-24T21:34:00.000+08:00

After this I will have my first period, 10 Newton.

Our discussion will be on the topic Love's inconsistency by Francesco Petrarch. This topic comes to home. Like Francesco, I am in love with a girl, who is also my delight and my strife. This morning I said goodbye to her. A goodbye which I my hearts says I should have not said. My mind says that I cannot live with her because she belongs to a world different from mine. But eveytime I follow my mind, I am hurt. And eveytime I follow my heart, I fall.

I don't see love is inconsistent. I see all the feelings and the emotions I experienced as part of this great state--Love. For love is infinite, and we humans, cannot understand, all the colors of love. Some of us can see only harmony because we ignore to see the other colors of it. But love is a mixture of all of these.

I love because it is the greatest experience. I rise with love. I fall with love. Life is love. Love is like. There is no real diference. and when we stop to love, we also stop to live.

I got to go now. It is already 7:30. Time to discuss love.

(9:10)

As expected the students said that they did not understand the poem. It seems that It is always like that with my students, both 3rd year and fourth year. What appeared to me as an easy to understand poem seems so difficult for them to understand. This does not mean that I am more intelligent than they are.

When I was in highschool, I could also understnd the poems we studied so easily, as if the author talked to me face to face. My classmates all the while were groping in the dark. They saw the words of the poems like magic words one has to master through careful study. Though I have this gift of seeing the poem, I believe, in the eyes of the poet, my classmates still had higher grades than I.

My first class after this would be Bronze. We are going to have speech lessons, particularly on selling ideas to people---on selling oneself. I feel the great need of the students to know this...

In our seminar last Monday, the speaker said that it is not good to see that the fourth year examination and lessons is vey mcuh different to the other three levels. She made it appear that there is something wrong with the fourth year lessons. I hav a dissenting opinion, though this time, I chose not to speak.

There is really a great difference when it comes to lesson planning. We were togehter when we made our course outline. The other teachers, I observe, chose their topics because those were the topics in the book. Mine is different. When I did my course outline, I always have my students in mine. I spent time thinking of their needs at this stage of their education. My lessons seems advance not because they are really advance. It is because the lessons in the first three levels, I assessed, do not meet the abilities of the students. The students are very mcuh capable of learning higher level learning skills. But these were not offered to them.

I don't believe that there is something wrong with my difference. I hope, however, that the other teachers will raise the level of their teaching.

(10:44)

The submission of our Unit test will be this coming Tuesday. I just smiled when my coordinator inform me about it. The administration did not change the schedule. We have just started with our discussion because of so many class interruptions. It is very unlikely that they are going to move the dates. Sometimes, I wonder if the purpose o0f the Unit Test is truly given to measure the achievement of the students or was simply put in place being an academic requirement set by the Dep-Ed. What skill are we going to test if there is not much we were able to teach. Well, this is something I have to endure.

I am printing now the rules for sonnet writing.

(7:22)

I was tired when I went home. Teaching consumes every energy left in my system.

Tomorrow we shall have some more on speech making.

Late in the afternoon, I started typing the messages I would like to send to my students. I am done that for Janelle and charisse.