That Monday, I broke into tears after seeing Twitter feeds coming from the Lumad Schools. The 6/6 tweet thread showed a timeline of military actions against these schools servicing IP students in Mindanao area. There seems to be senseless red-tagging of teachers and students who simply desire a kind of education which celebrates free-thinking, critical analysis & conscientization. That could have easily been me years back as a volunteer teacher/ community worker in Palawan, Tarlac or Romblon. And so I feel for their situation. Then of course, the news of Maria Ressa's Cyberlibel case. I've been following her in the news for days. I thought maybe there is a slight chance we could win this. I've given up on checking the number of Covid 19 cases in Pilipinas kong Mahal.
I cried more because for the first time, I've finally admitted, I want to kick my children out of my house and out of the Philippines. Yups. We talked more over lunch for a possible strategy.
Midweek, felt glad to be connected online with key folks from USQ. Learning something new keeps me afloat. Research ideas continue to pre-occupy me in some creative and maybe escapist way. The chance to read more and daydream, vibe/emails these with my very few friends while I'm WFH is one of the reason to get up in the morning. I relish these last few days of my full study leave.
Then came my webinar -- what a source of joy and more, source of rethinking. Analytics show that the webinar reached about 3,000 active viewers. Nice to read the comments. After patting myself on the back, I wondered about the questions from the teachers. I sense a general worry, a bit of desperation, and more, well-meaning questions to search for a one-time solution. The questions were quite interesting-- ranging from parent concerns/issues, formative assessments, how to handle a big class, how to motivate the unmotivated, mostly not even related to blended learning but real questions the concern teachers with or without the shift to fully online delivery of instruction.
Of course I had answers, but their questions left me asking why these questions? Why such worries? Why the need for templates of action?
As I've told my husband, why Im no longer into 'teacher training' perse, is that I no longer believe in one time big time trainings like how we used to organize it with teachers and daycare workers. Even more now. I said it's hard for me to actually teach teachers things which I just happen to learn on my own because that is mostly how I brought things to my class.
I've mastered the skill of lesson planning, the height was during my IB teaching days when I managed to put all the words they wanted to hear or see to make the evaluators feel secure that we teach what we ought to teach. In the end anyway, it's just a plan. What matters to me, once I face my class, or join my students at work whether seated on the floor, in front of the computer or on the ground itself -- is the experience of being with them, sensing what interests them, junk the need for coverage or sequence of skills and just see where they are and find ways to take them further from where they are. Or back in the days of community based teaching, no matter how I prepare my plans and pull out a stack of materials to bring to the sitios --- when I reach the families, it's either they are ready to engage or they are nowhere at all, or the numbers change from time to time. In such a case, you let go of your plan and targets and instead listen to their stories and concerns for the day. Then you try to turn those into learning events. I decided to take pictures and next session, I bring their copies and then we talk more -- engage their thinking and story telling. Then weave in questions of what to do next time we meet. The time spent while walking and crossing creeks those days, or even taking a shower or driving are precious time to think of ways to experience teaching and learning. I'd usually have a drop down list of the basics to be covered which I know I can pull from or mentally tick. Best parts would be the unplanned ones. I'd pick up something from this and that while in my travels or side projects or anything outside of my K-12 school life. It triggers an idea or two, then there it goes. You try to feel test a few things which seem to match your student's needs and most of all their interest. On some days, I feel we didn't learn a thing, but we just manage to make use of the time. Then there really are brilliant days of light bulb moments and projects where kids surprise me with what they were able to do on their own. Of course, those days when I battle my will with the children and some surrender, let the teacher's idea go and days when my ideas aren't picked up and so let's see. With all these, I've made more successes.
But then I ask why? Possibly, it's the luxury of small teacher-student ratio, smaller group of students to handle, there's time to write and reflect, time to share during conferences, time to discuss students' needs and talk to parents, time for trips, time to make grand projects --- all these afforded by a smaller class size. Schools aren't just there for children to learn, it is there equally for teachers to learn. There is so much growth in that if only we bank on the idea that teachers aren't perfect. They do not know everything. They can just be 5 steps ahead of their students for all we know. Sometimes when we thought what we knew for certain is a fact, isnt a fact after all. And therefore, in that imperfection comes the time to make mistakes, the time to search for read and ask a fellow teacher, what can be done better next time, and most importantly, the time to try again and do well. There is always, always the time to do better if only we open ourselves to that possibility that not everything can be learned in 1 hour, 1 semester, 1 schoolyear. What we thought as students have already mastered or may appear as such, wouldn't be there next time.
So I guess, I'll stick to the advice I gave in my webinar -- one of the major things we must consider are class sizes. If we managed to pull the K-12, pull the free tertiary level education, why not a reasonable teacher student ratio -- it makes the class manageable and more real collaborations going on, manageable paper work; why not lessen the lesson planning so teachers spend more time to empty their brains of an overcrowded curriculum or PD fatigue, so that when with their students, they get to really immerse and see possibilities.
I cried more because for the first time, I've finally admitted, I want to kick my children out of my house and out of the Philippines. Yups. We talked more over lunch for a possible strategy.
Midweek, felt glad to be connected online with key folks from USQ. Learning something new keeps me afloat. Research ideas continue to pre-occupy me in some creative and maybe escapist way. The chance to read more and daydream, vibe/emails these with my very few friends while I'm WFH is one of the reason to get up in the morning. I relish these last few days of my full study leave.
Then came my webinar -- what a source of joy and more, source of rethinking. Analytics show that the webinar reached about 3,000 active viewers. Nice to read the comments. After patting myself on the back, I wondered about the questions from the teachers. I sense a general worry, a bit of desperation, and more, well-meaning questions to search for a one-time solution. The questions were quite interesting-- ranging from parent concerns/issues, formative assessments, how to handle a big class, how to motivate the unmotivated, mostly not even related to blended learning but real questions the concern teachers with or without the shift to fully online delivery of instruction.
Of course I had answers, but their questions left me asking why these questions? Why such worries? Why the need for templates of action?
As I've told my husband, why Im no longer into 'teacher training' perse, is that I no longer believe in one time big time trainings like how we used to organize it with teachers and daycare workers. Even more now. I said it's hard for me to actually teach teachers things which I just happen to learn on my own because that is mostly how I brought things to my class.
I've mastered the skill of lesson planning, the height was during my IB teaching days when I managed to put all the words they wanted to hear or see to make the evaluators feel secure that we teach what we ought to teach. In the end anyway, it's just a plan. What matters to me, once I face my class, or join my students at work whether seated on the floor, in front of the computer or on the ground itself -- is the experience of being with them, sensing what interests them, junk the need for coverage or sequence of skills and just see where they are and find ways to take them further from where they are. Or back in the days of community based teaching, no matter how I prepare my plans and pull out a stack of materials to bring to the sitios --- when I reach the families, it's either they are ready to engage or they are nowhere at all, or the numbers change from time to time. In such a case, you let go of your plan and targets and instead listen to their stories and concerns for the day. Then you try to turn those into learning events. I decided to take pictures and next session, I bring their copies and then we talk more -- engage their thinking and story telling. Then weave in questions of what to do next time we meet. The time spent while walking and crossing creeks those days, or even taking a shower or driving are precious time to think of ways to experience teaching and learning. I'd usually have a drop down list of the basics to be covered which I know I can pull from or mentally tick. Best parts would be the unplanned ones. I'd pick up something from this and that while in my travels or side projects or anything outside of my K-12 school life. It triggers an idea or two, then there it goes. You try to feel test a few things which seem to match your student's needs and most of all their interest. On some days, I feel we didn't learn a thing, but we just manage to make use of the time. Then there really are brilliant days of light bulb moments and projects where kids surprise me with what they were able to do on their own. Of course, those days when I battle my will with the children and some surrender, let the teacher's idea go and days when my ideas aren't picked up and so let's see. With all these, I've made more successes.
But then I ask why? Possibly, it's the luxury of small teacher-student ratio, smaller group of students to handle, there's time to write and reflect, time to share during conferences, time to discuss students' needs and talk to parents, time for trips, time to make grand projects --- all these afforded by a smaller class size. Schools aren't just there for children to learn, it is there equally for teachers to learn. There is so much growth in that if only we bank on the idea that teachers aren't perfect. They do not know everything. They can just be 5 steps ahead of their students for all we know. Sometimes when we thought what we knew for certain is a fact, isnt a fact after all. And therefore, in that imperfection comes the time to make mistakes, the time to search for read and ask a fellow teacher, what can be done better next time, and most importantly, the time to try again and do well. There is always, always the time to do better if only we open ourselves to that possibility that not everything can be learned in 1 hour, 1 semester, 1 schoolyear. What we thought as students have already mastered or may appear as such, wouldn't be there next time.
So I guess, I'll stick to the advice I gave in my webinar -- one of the major things we must consider are class sizes. If we managed to pull the K-12, pull the free tertiary level education, why not a reasonable teacher student ratio -- it makes the class manageable and more real collaborations going on, manageable paper work; why not lessen the lesson planning so teachers spend more time to empty their brains of an overcrowded curriculum or PD fatigue, so that when with their students, they get to really immerse and see possibilities.
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