A Short Personal History of my Ever 1st DP HISTORY 11

I started feeling a bit luckier than the others since for one I only have 3 students and  I have a lesser teaching load since a bigger part of my brains should be doing LC work which I foresaw to be kicking in start of 2^nd Q.  Then of course Unit 1 topic on Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany--it was interesting enough for me and I have at least background knowledge about it. Luckier me that I inherited the ever reliable polidong Unit plans of Ms Salvan who happens to be the best DP teacher according to DP Coord.

What I needed to know AND DO is  how to balance doing these: conceptual teaching vs essential content delivery vs  a bit of inquiry vs historiography=source analysis & historical investigation (whatever that means). Most importantly, I needed to OWN the experience of being a first time World History teacher. 

Sabehen na nateng nakapagturo na ko ng Kasaysayan, subalit saan? Sa UPOU=Phil Hist na pinakapangit kong eksperimento bilang guro sa isang unibersidad. Sa Builders, konsepto ng chronology, time periods, form and function, change over time ang mga nagawa ko subalit ang nilalaman ay di ganeto ka tende tulad nang nilalaman ng World Hist.

But then, being the oldie teacher that I am,  I usually set mediocre expectations (pwede na mode) for my first sy because to my mind, the first year in any kind of school setting is about making all the mistakes. What mattered most is for me to be able to see these mistakes right on and still make time to do something about it within the schoolyear at least.  But being a more experienced teacher, I expect myself to draw from my wealth of PCK and easily bounce back so that I meet my students at least halfway.=ergo I don’t waste their time. This is owe them and my ego (hellow, ang tanda ko na kasing guro).

Freedoms

Well there isn’t much wiggle room, really. The plans were handed down and I was expected to accept it and teach it…like some UP course outline/ syllabus already ironed out by prior experts and department heads. Who am I even to question that? It was the safest mode to operate  while I grapple with making sense of my LC. But then later on I discovered, there were items in the  unit plan itself which I did not completely agree with. I chose ideology to be the key concept during the first unit and this second unit’s statement of central idea I find too lame. What I did was to look into other curriculum sources online about Imperial Japan.  So my compromise is this: I’ll stick to at least ¼ of the initial plan. 

Obviously, my plans were ever changing from the original and remains to be a work in progress at Managebac and never a hardcopy version for submission to DP Coord.  Beyond figuring out the content was the bigger question of how  or ( will I)  use the content to  prepare for Paper 1.

Ang sagot: walang kamatayang OPVL=hope-PEEVE-HeLL…walang kamatayang pagsasanay sa paghahanda sa eksam. Bweset. Pet peeve ko kase ang baduy na explicit skills instruction at ang pag-check ng OPVL ay tipong aaralin ko pa kase may iisang paraan sinasabi ang IB.

Is this about resisting change=learning or just resistance to IB?

Challenges

It turns out my PCK has more PK. There was a lot of CK to contend with—too many sources to read and I can’t quite keep up. Bote nalang may DP Course Companion and  IB-DP packaged textbooks at sa ganito rin pala kumikita ang DP, haha. I was able to cope with the first Unit, being at least 2 steps ahead of the students when it comes to doing engaged reading and seeing content conceptually, devising work to address needs of my students.

Then came unit 2=total 0 knowledge of Imperial Japan.  I kinda panicked since I should be able to intergrate exam preps for Paper 1=ang dakilang subalit pinakboring na exam na nakita ko sa buong buhay ko.  It was like the purpose of doing the teaching and learning relied heavily on skills development and application of what to IB was necessary and it can only be done in the manner IB says so!!!! To what extent can one be flexible, and open ended and to what extent will teaching be test /IA driven. And I think at DP, it was the IA’s which are driving the teaching and learning more than ever.

What about my sense of ownership over what I think must be taught and learned? What about the student’s  view about their own questions and how these can be addressed? How to convince myself that a big part of what I should be skills instruction=ATL’s vs inquiry and project based learning?

Aleta, isang munting paalala: This is not about you..this is about teaching the subject matter. Get that into your thick head= ergo tolerance, obedience, stick to the mold.

But then my teaching history hardly show proof of sticking to the mold.

Future Directions
I think I just need to relax a bit and seek help from the experts: MM and CS--the most seasoned teachers of TBA. It is good enough that I have a wealth of PK, a PCK of Social Studies and Inquiry Teaching therefore definitely this will be the basis of growth of PCK, the IB kind.

The new unit on China should be interesting at least. Again, rely on the fact that "Interest" drives learning and instruction, according to Dewey and Pestalozzi.