ICT day two and three

While most, if not all, if the teachers were eager to go home for the very long weekend, still they managed to stay to finish the workshop and to submit the required output for the seminar.

Many teacher especially the senior teachers enjoyed the workshop because they were not working under any pressure. This was because the principal almost half of the teaching force was in Iba, Zambales for the Division theme building. The number of attendees was manageable for us, the three facilitators.

The workshop was really meant to be hands on. We just prepared simple step-by-step instruction for the teachers to follow. The teachers were expected to finish the tasks with no or as minimal guidance as possible and with no time pressure. Because the workshop size was manageable, communication was not a problem. Peer cooperation also helped in making some of their   outputs better than what was expected.

  

(MT Garcia and Teacher Velasco doing their best to learn Power Point. They were able to submit the required output.)

Many teachers commented that the workshop was better than the past workshops (which I was also a part of) because there were no lectures. They hate lectures; I hate lectures. But once in a while we have to but in to correct and check mistakes.

(Grade six teachers Mam Juliet,Mam Malou, Mam Divine and Mam Joan (standing). 

The comments of the senior teachers were encouraging because they said they learned better in this workshop. Maybe it’s because the lunch was free :-)

ICT Workshop Day 1

When I came to the school a year ago, I was asked to be one of the facilitators for the school’s ICT program. The seminar then was held after school hours from 4 to 7 pm.  Most, if not all, of the teachers were already tired and were just playing along hoping that the seminar would end so that we could all go home. Tiredness and the desire to go home were the learning barriers. Also, the CMPC’s (notebook pcs) were so unreliable that most of the time was taken setting them up and fixing the problems.

(We were teasing Sir Diomeng because it took him almost three hours to type a lesson plan using MS Word. But he did finish the task, and he was able to submit the required output of the workshop.)

But today’s seminar was different.  The teachers were not tired, and the atmosphere was relaxed. It’s amazing how things get efficiently done in a relaxed and laid back atmosphere. Of course, all of us would rather have the semestral break, but we have to follow the department's order to conduct school based training.

I saw on the news that there were groups of teachers who were opposing this order. They said the teachers needed the break. I agree, but I DepEd is justified in saying that the summer vacation was enough rest for us, teachers.

Anyway, we were having fun teaching our senior (or senior citizens) teachers. When the seminars started a year ago, most of them were afraid to touch the computers for fear that they would break or damage them. Up to now, they still have this apprehension about computers.  The facilitators and I have to continually assure them that pressing the wrong button would not break or short circuit the computers. They would not blow up or something.

(Mam Virgie complained that she was having a head ache. It was not surprising because she was using a classmate PC that had 6" screen. Coaching them was fun. Jokes were always flying around.)

I also explained to one of them, with difficulty may I say, what a computer virus was.

The real challenge was how to change the senior teachers’ attitude towards computers and to challenge them not to be afraid to explore their computers.

Project Orion and why the Bozanian did not attack Earth

Project Orion was an ambitious and may I say crazy project planned by American scientists in the 1950's. The project was a top secret  military space program planned to do a preemptive invasion of Bozania . But the US military would not admit this.  

The spacecraft was an ambitious project. Here are the specs from Wikipedia:

	"Energy Limited" Orion	"Momentum Limited" Orion
Ship diameter (meters)	20,000 m	100 m
Mass of empty ship (metric tons)	10,000,000 t (incl.5,000,000 t copper hemisphere)	100,000 t (incl.50,000 t structure+payload)
+Number of bombs = total bomb mass (each 1MT bomb weighs 1 metric ton)	30,000,000	300,000
=Departure mass (metric tons)	40,000,000 t	400,000 t
Maximum velocity (kilometers per second)	1000 km/s (=0.33% of the speed of light)	10,000 km/s (=3.3% of the speed of light)
Mean acceleration (Earth gravities)	0.00003 g (accelerate for 100 years)	1 g (accelerate for 10 days)
Estimated cost	1 year of U.S. GNP (1968)	0.1 year of U.S. GNP

Orion's diameter was 20 km; a Nimitz class aircraft carrier has a length of 330+ meters. The gross tonnage of the space ship was 10 million tons for the limited edition (did not know what limited means, did not read the whole technical thing about the project); a Nimitz class aircraft carrier has a displacement of around 100,000 tons.

It was supposed to be powered by 30 million-1 megaton atomic bombs. To imagine this power, the atomic bomb that destroyed the city of Hiroshima had a 13-18 kiloton yield. This meant that this spaceship's fuel could destroy an entire galaxy.

The project was estimated to cost a year of the United States' GNP. During the 1950's the US GNP was .35 trillion dollars, adjusted to today's US GNP, the project would cost around 15.27 Trillion Dollars. In figures that would be 15,270,000,000.000.000.000. Give or take a few zeroes.

Simple mathematics would show that the Orion spacecraft was not a simple ship, it was in fact a city--it could contain hundreds of aircraft carriers plus other smaller ships. It was a ship designed to battle it out with the Bozanian skull ship Sky Rook. 

When NASA intercepted a Bozanian transmission on its planned invasion of the planet Earth, top US scientists scrambled to assemble a spacecraft that could meet the challenge of an interplanetary invasion. Though thetechnology available then was crude, but it sure was powerful and destructive.

 It was planned that Orion would be propelled by Nuclear pulse propulsion. This meant that a series of atomic bomb would be set off in intervals to move the ship. This is like like putting thousands of extra-super-explosive-powerful dynamites under a house to lift it into the atmosphere.

Anyway, the initial take off alone would create a nuclear fall out and could fry, irradiate, sterilize and blind people for miles around. Though global warming was not an issues then, the series of atomic explosions could block the sun for months resulting to irreversible changes in the earth's atmosphere. 

The project was given initial funding but was later stopped when the Bozanian backed out from their planned invasion. A floating radio active city is too much for them to take. It was later found out that their horns contained their sperm cells and naturally were sensitive to nuclear radiation. Mere proximity to the Orion could sterilize a Bozanian, and Orion, even just it debris landing on Bozania,  it could sterilize the whole male population of the planet. The fear of a ship carrying 30 million atomic bombs scared the excrement out of them.

Orion was scrapped. The project was later declassified and though the information the military gave to the media was baloney, the Japanese knew the real score.  

Thinking about Kant

Moral philosophy or ethics is one boring subject to read about. I sometimes wonder why I even bother to read about this stuff.  The theories are interesting enough, but when it comes to the exposition and the exemplification that’s when it gets sleepy. Anyway, I am interested in the work of Kant. Though I admit that I may not or, in reality, would not be able to understand his writings, I still try, maybe its because challenging. (I really tried but it’s is just too difficult to go through those jumbled words. Dr. Durant described Kant’s writing as “Jehovah speaking through clouds, but without the illumination of the lightning flash.”)

  

For Kant evil is a form of irrationality. When we do evil, our reasoning fails, or you are not just thinking straight. It is not about lack of knowledge or ignorance it is more of a failure in reasoning and not in acquiring information. Morality for Kant is not a question of knowledge but of the logical principles that ought to guide action. To be evil therefore, is to be motivated by principles of action that are illogical.

Another feature of Kant’s ethics is universality. Universality according to Kant is not just opposed to relativism but universality in the sense that it is also necessary. Kant wants ethics to be like mathematics. Whatever language you speak, whatever atmosphere you breathe, the principles of ethics for all the possible worlds are the same. Its like mathematics where all the mathematical statements like 2+2=4 is a self evident truth that cannot be changed wherever, whenever and in all possible worlds. 

Kant’s Categorical imperative.

The Categorical imperative is the supreme command or overrding command, from which all lesser commands follow. This is part of his view of the universalization of ethics: “Act that the maxim of thy action could thy will be a universal law.” This is Kant’s greatest contribution to moral philosophy that we should act according to the principles. When we act, we do not think of kindness, wrongness based on emotions and how it feels but based on logical principles. If you are kind simply because you are a kind person, and act naturally without thinking about whether it is morally right or not, you are not acting in an especially moral way, he claims. To be moral, you must set yourself the principle, “I should be kind,” and act kindly because you want to act in accord with correct principles.

He calls this acting from duty.

Reading about hypothetical imperative…if I could figure it out :-)

Useless thoughts about happiness

What is happiness?

Is happiness an illusion?

                                                      

                                                                    (Dali's Galathea)

If we really think hard about it, we may, in a way say, that happiness is an illusion. Here are some meandering thoughts about the subject that popped in my head because my teaching schedule was suddenly moved, I have vacant hours!

First I am thinking about time. Time is one strange thing (or concept) because it is always flowing. The theologian Paul Tillich described the flow of time “as a point without extension, the point in which the future becomes the past; when we say to ourselves, “This is the present,” the moment has already been swallowed by the past. The present disappears the very instant we grasp it. “

I was thinking about time because all our experiences flee in a second. As Tillich has said, “the moment we say, ‘This is the present,’ it’s already past. Most literature is written in the past tense. Everyday discourses uses more verbs in the past tense than in the present or in the future as one observes by watching the news, by simply taking about  events and even plans have to be based upon performances from the past.

There are many definitions of happiness but whether happiness is defined as lower or in higher hedonism (physical or intellectual), or it may be philosophical, or spiritual or an activity, etc…what ever definition happiness maybe, the sensation or/and the satisfaction it produces is still subject to the passing of time.

Time and happiness is a curios thing because if we really think about, we may be really just being happy about a memory. What ever our definition of happiness maybe, still does not matter, if we really think about it, our happiness is a mental (or spiritual) process of reliving or rethinking and even re-experiencing experiences in the past and recalling the sensations of those experiences. Movies have been made around these themes which reflects on the illusion or the illusionary nature of happiness is.

How then can we claim to have or achieved happiness?

Second, I am thinking about space.

Is happiness a state of mind or a state of being? What is the difference between the two when it is both predicated upon consciousness or a thinking mind? Really one cannot claim of being in a happy state or in a happy mood if he is in a non-conscious state.

One may aptly reflect on this and say, in a Descartian way, “I think I am happy, there fore I am happy, and I think I am happy therefore, I am happy!”

 Time and space are directly related with how we perceive sensations. Recalling places that have given us happiness or joy, even if it’s a physical, emotional, even spiritual happiness helps relives the sensation of happiness. That is why we have nostalgia; we feel nostalgic when we go to special places or when we hear special songs but still these sensations, whatever we may call them i.e. love, hate, spiritual awakening, etc, are mere acts of recollections! There are even circumstances where the memory of the experience produces more happiness than the actual experience of the happiness as experienced by the body because the sense data are enhanced by the sharing of the experiences of the other who have gone through the same experience!

It is possible to be happy to live in a spaceless world locked in memory? Maybe we have been doing it all along our childhood experiences, our spiritual experiences, etc.. maybe even to the tiniest detail of tasting our food.

Somehow, I came to the realization that happiness is really just data processing, reprocessing and filtering…hmmmmm...Oh the sadness of happiness ....

Teacher's day

I was thinking that it would have been much better to celebrate teacher’s day by giving the teachers a break, like declaring teacher’s day a rest day. But again the selflessness of the teachers was made evident when the teachers’ went ahead with the celebration. The teachers put much effort to teach and practice their pupils for their special numbers as a tribute for the teachers.

Gifts and tokens were given to teachers.

Special numbers.

More numbers.

More fun.

Though the event was tiring there was fulfillment with seeing pupils giving flowers and gifts to their teachers, showing their sincerity as only children could. The tiredness is relieved by the love that we felt this day.Even the most difficult pupil, when they approached us, teachers, with a smile and a mano, melted our hearts. We (or I)  felt their sincere appreciation of our efforts in teaching them even for just that fleeting moment.

We were entertained by the special numbers.

Pupils did the teaching today. 

(These two were teaching my subject, music. Their lesson was about chords.)

What brought the house down was when the parents did a surprise number. They danced to the remixed music of the 60's going to the 2010's. They were wearing recycled material for costume. Cost effective and may I say a  good campaign propaganda since they were also officers of the school's eco-saver's club.

A tiring but fulfilling day.

Former pupils greeting teachers by going around and flashing a greeting banner (if that's what it's called).

In the afternoon, it's was disco time.

Going home tired but fulfilled.

DARE

PNP Rizal Police Provincial Office and DepEd Rizal launched the Drug Abuse Resistance Education  (DARE) on August 23, 2011 at Taytay Elementary School.  The program aims to educate grade six pupils on the perils of drug addiction. The 17 part lesson includes their rights, their roles in the community, and building self-esteem among the pupils.

According to its official website, D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles, USA and has proven so successful that it is now being implemented in 75 percent of the federal school districts and in more than 43 countries around the world.

D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teaches children from kindergarten through high school  how to resist peer pressure and live productive and drug and violence-free lives.

The police officer assigned to teach DARE is PO2 Robert Cabilos of the PNP-Rizal Community Relations Office.