that strange feeling

A Little Derrida and Deconstructionism

2012-02-13T09:02:00.002+08:00

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was the founder of “deconstruction,” a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but also political institutions.

Derrida insists that the distinction between signifier and the signified cannot legitimately be made; for him, the means of expression is inseparably bound with its content. How something is expressed is just as important as its conventional meaning in determining those ideas to which it is connected and those from which it should be distinguished, as devices such as poetry, rhetoric and irony make clear. Consequently, there is, Derrida claims, no fixes conceptual order amongst signifiers.

Meaning is something that can only be distilled or interpreted from any particular situation: there is no objective structure as the structuralist had supposed. Indeed, Derrida goes further, for in his view a sign always signifies things other than which the author might supposed. There is an indeterminable network of associations stretching through time and use in which any given sign circulates. What meaning it has for any given person at any given time can only be interpreted by that person at that time, but they cannot claim any authority or objectivity for their interpretation.

(100 Essential Thinkers)

On Punctuation

2012-02-09T07:34:00.000+08:00

They celebrate punctuation day! (Photo not mine)

Okay, so what do I know about punctuation? Not much really because I don't like my blogging to be bothered by technicalities, and I am too lazy to check my grammar book on the proper use of punctuation. I just cruise along, and, if, I, make some pauses while...hmmm...writing, I usually put a comma in there. This, to a grammarian, may look weird, and, unconventional because too much commas makes writing choppy and crowded. But, one of the reasons why I use too much comma is that I think of them as natural pauses, sort of a musical rest, like when, I'm thinking about, words, I pause, once in a while, and think. Of course commas are separators, but for me, they, are...pauses, too.

Hmmm...about ellipsis...these three little dots that...is also one of my favorite punctuation. Ellipsis means there is something more to be said but instead of continuing the writer simply stops and put hmmm....The reasons?

1. He is too lazy to come up with words, too lazy to think.

2. He does not know what the heck is he writing about,

3. He is not sure of anything at all.

For one thing the following phrases is already obvious to the readers like for example: "What the...!", Or Holy ...! Of course I am not saying bad words but the effect of the ellipsis could be hmm...felt. So sometime ellipsis makes the writing interesting because there are gaps where the reader are made to psychologize and analyze what the in the world is going on in between! Well, too much ellipsis make hhhh..., ..., ..., ohhh..., ...like... maybe..., to..., maybe if.... see... it is creepy, really.

Anyway, another reason is that the writer just wants to quote parts of something like: "In beginning...Lambs book of life!" The writer quoted the entire Bible leaving some stuffs in the middle for the reader to:

1. Just leave as it is.

2. Open the Bible and read what is in between,

3. Just pretend nothing happened.

I used the Bible as an example because it is the book that I read often, nothing else.

I once saw a neighbor a fresh college graduate doing his, I mean her, resume and I saw that he, I mean she, used a lot of ellipsis.

I read her application as:

I am a hardworking college graduate interested in working in your company...

I graduated with a degree...etc.

I immediately told her that these three dots have specific use. Obviously she did not have any idea about the use of punctuation. She replied that these three dots made her resume look artful and interesting. I asked where she was applying for a job and she said she was applying for a job in a Chinese shoe factory in Taytay. I said...hmmm...ellipsis is good!

Do, read, your, grammar, book, and, try, to be a smart writer....but my tip is, doodle anything and then let the punctuation and other technical stuff bother you later, ..., ..., ...,...!

Anyway, my first morning class is about to begin in 10, 9, 8, 7...

Dangling Cables: Road Hazard

2012-02-08T10:32:00.000+08:00

I mean...we are already in the wireless age!

A couple of months ago, I was motorcycling along Taytay’smain road when I was hit by a dangling cable. If it was not for my eyeglasses,I think my eyes would have been gouged out.

I know that the electrical postsare not government properties and I don’t know if the local government has anypowers in regulating their use, but when it comes to public safety the governmenthas the right to intervene especially when wires and cables dangling from postspose danger to motorists and pedestrians alike.

Electrical posts now hosts TVcables, telephone cables, internet cables from different service providers thatis why they are overloaded beyond their capacity. Apart from over loading of cables,another things is that disconnected or cut cables are left dangling thus addingto the volume of spaghetti like wires that is not only a physical danger but isalso a visual pollution in the community.

It’s time the national governmentor the local government does something about this. I don’t have figures but Ithink there are many motor accidents especially among riders caused by thesedangling wires.

Jung, Dreams, not that Dreams

2012-02-07T10:35:00.001+08:00

People dream, animals dream too. Maybe dreams is what we have in common with them.

I am reading Carl Jung’s book Man and His Symbol sort of chipping atit page by page during my class breaks or as the opportunity permit, not a goodway to read though because of fragmentation. Anyway, the book got me thinkingabout dreams.

Anyway, I am just sharing a dream (or is it?)that I had when I was in my twenties. Even today I could not forget theexperience and though I always tell myself that I was dreaming then,really, I could not tell.

I was lying on the bed and waslistening to a song on the radio. The light was on. I was staring at the ceiling and enjoying themusic. I didn’t know how long I have been doing this. I closed my eyes. I couldstill hear the music. A little later, I felt my bladder full so I made aneffort to stand up, and when I lifted my head, I felt something hit my forehead. I opened my eyes andwas shocked to find out that my head hit the ceiling. When I opened myeyes, it was just a few inches away from the ceiling. I didn’t know if I was floatingbecause I was so scared that I didn’t even attempt to take a second look at theceiling or take a look down; I juts closed my eyes again and didn’t open themuntil morning.

The problem here was that I didn't feel falling asleep. I never was asleep; I was awake the whole time.

Dreams are just dreams and mostof the time I don’t pay attention to them. The simple explanation that I learnedfrom school and from reading is that dreams are just mental phenomenon or brainactivity that happens when we are sleeping. It’s a physiological thing: a way inwhich our mind processes experiences and impressions— a therapeutic purging activityof the mind.

But there is more to dreams…

Many if not most of our religiousbeliefs are revealed through dreams. Prophets, seers, mystics…I am not sayingthat the Bible is false or something but most of its stories especially fromthe Old Testament have dreamlike qualities in them. The Bible is full ofstories about dreams and how God revealed his wills and commandments. Anyway, don’twanna go in there…

I have experienced or maybe mostof us have experienced dreams that foretold what would happen in the future. Infact, one explanation I heard (or read) why there’s this feeling of déjà vu isthat somehow the seemingly-repeating events that are experienced came fromdreams; déjà vu is re-experiencing these dreams. People do experience dreamsthat foretell, in part or in whole, what will happen in the future (propheticor specific) it may be as simple as meetingpeople, finding lost things, to big events like winning lotteries or painfulexperiences like losing something or someone. Of course, rationally, thesethings are explained as co-incidences or chances because it is difficult toaccept how dreams, which are mere mental (or brain) activity could somehowviolate the law of physics; Dreams are confined by matter (brain), space, andthe sequence, as we experience it, of time.

Well, anyway my break is up…I'll come back to this when I have the time :-)

Satan, Demons and heroes

2012-02-06T12:10:00.002+08:00

Today, this movie would be considered cheap and poor. Funny rather than scary.

When I was in my grade school, myfather, a pastor, brought me along to our church’s evangelistic crusades. Themost popular way to evangelize during that time, the 80’s, was through filmshowing. I could never forget the movie that was being shown then, Burning Hell. I could not remember thestory of the movie or the actors, what I could remember was the fire, theworms, the suffering, the pain—it was a graphic movie about what the sinnerwould expect when they go to hell.

After watching that movie for many times, I started to have nightmares. I slept alone on my cot (or papag in tagalog) and eachnight I would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, afraid andsometimes feeling cold because of the fear of hell; I was wishing that I had myparents beside me. To battle this fear I would pray for the Lord Jesus Christto come into my heart to be my savior. This happened for most of my childhood,the nightmares, and every time I feel afraid, I always invite the Lord JesusChrist to come into my heart until I outgrew the fear of hell in me and until Ioutgrew the belief the name Jesus Christ was a powerful talismanic-incantation for dealingwith nightmares.

Of course scare tactics work i.e. for a time until one becomes too scared to the point of numbness. It was never my father's intention to scare the hell out of me. I am not taking this against my late father, I loved and still very much love the man. He was a pastor and all pastors suffer from, different degrees, messiah complex.

Anyway...

Graphic illustrations of thedevil as a horrible creature having horns and tails are used to scare the hellout of people. It was effective before in the middle ages, dark ages where people are superstitious, ignorant and illiterate. But in this age of cyber tech and relativism (whatever the hell is that word), cgi effects and the internet especially you tube where anybody may see gross videos of photo-shopped creatures that looked very real, I mean visually speaking, Satan or the devil has never looked better, and realistic, may I add.

In movies and in computer games,these creatures that look like satan or the devil are now heroes. Maybe people are starting to realize that because a creature is ugly, scary and gross, it does not necessarily make them evil. Really one of the faults of giving satan or the devil an animal-human description is that people focuses more on the look than on the nature of satan. I have a friend who looks like satan and he was called demonyo or satanas by everybody, but he was far from being evil. Take the snake for example, because snakes were thought to be the serpent that lured eve into the fall, they are killed out of fear because they are thought to be treacherous and fierce animals.

Lochner’s depiction of a horrifically beautiful scene seethes with the realistic bodies of the naked damned who scream as they undergo torture by legions of distorted, animalistic creatures.

Jahrakal, the troll warlord, one of the heroes in the Warcraft DOTA game.

Hellboy, A demon, raised from infancy after being conjured by and rescued from the Nazis, grows up to become a defender against the forces of darkness.

Anyway, my break is up...maybe I'll come back later and talk about what this beautification and heroification of demons etc. blah, blah, blah.....

absent

2012-02-03T09:29:00.003+08:00

I was absent from work yesterday becauseI was sneezing the whole night and it felt like a family of cat was purringinside my chest, prrrrrr….prrrrrr….prrrrrr…hhaaacchhhhoooo, haaaccchoooo! I hadrunny nose, watery eyes, and I was hearing pinging from both my ears. These wereomens that my allergy/asthma was about to hmmmm…come visit me again.

I took antihistamines and rested.

Whenever I have these symptoms,even though I am still well enough to report to work, I usually take the dayoff. I skip work and stay in the house to rest. If I force my self to go towork, the exhaust from the jeeps and tricycle plus the chalk dust and otherallergens would aggravate the symptoms and I usually end up with a full blownasthma attack that always result to my being absent for work for three days ormore. So, I don’t take chances-- last year a principal died when she sufferedan asthma attack in her office. Work is always there waiting but hmmm…I don’t wantto die in the school; I, like most people, hope to die of old age, for heaven’ssake.

Anyway, I am okay now.

Kill or be Killed: Death in the ring is not an accident

2012-02-01T08:33:00.002+08:00

Kill or be killed: Kim wrote these words on the wall of his hotel room.

Kim Duk-Koo (January 8, 1959 – November 17, 1982) was a South Korean boxer who died following a boxing match against Ray Mancini. His death sparked a number of reforms in the sport aimed to better protect the health of fighters. Mancini went through a period of reflection, as he blamed himself for Kim's death. After friends helped him by telling him that it was just an accident, Mancini went on with his career, though still haunted by Kim's death. His promoter, Bob Arum, said Mancini "was never the same" after Kim's death. Two years later, Mancini lost his title to Livingstone Bramble.Kim's mother flew from Korea to Las Vegas to be with her son before the life support equipment was turned off. Three months later, she took her own life by drinking a bottle of pesticide. The bout's referee, Richard Green, committed suicide July 1, 1983. (Wikipedia)

Carlo Maquinto, an undefeatedflyweight, is in comatose fighting for his life after a fight in Baguio City.According to the news, Maquinto dropped twice in the opening round and cameback strong and the fight ended in a draw. After the fight, Maquinto collapsedand was rushed to the nearest hospital.

I was listening to the news whenI heard the sports caster stressed that what happened was an accident. I am nota sports fanatic and I don’t know much about the technicalities of boxing, butI sure do know what an accident is and what happened in the ring was not anaccident, it was manslaughter at the very least.

To call what happened an accidentis indefensible. Accidents happen because theyare unforeseen and unplanned event. Itimplies a generally negative outcome which may have been avoided or preventedhad the circumstances leading to the accident been recognized, and acted upon,prior to its occurrence.

From the legal definition: accident is used for events that occurwithout the intervention of a human being. It is an event that no person causedor could have prevented—an act of God.

First, boxing is a sport with onegoal: hurt the opponent till he/she loses the game. The ultimate goal is to knock the opponentdown on the mat. If KO is not achievable, hit the opponent in the face or onthe body until the opponent is weakened or hurt to the point that the otherplayer is rendered unfit to continue the fight resulting to atechnical knock out. If a TKO is not possible, out score the opponent by outpunching him/her thereby winning the bout.

The fighters study tactics and strategiesand they also knew enough physiology to understand the most vulnerable parts ofthe body. They watch videos of great fights and learn the art of attack, defense and punching. Coaches are present to give tips on how to hurt the opponent better. There are doctorsand other medical people present because they know that fighters are going to behurt. The sporting event is a well planned and well organized gladiatorial event. Boxers being hurt inthe ring is the expected outcome and death is always a high probability.

To call what happened to Manquito an accident is really a wordplay used by commentators to defend this barbaric sport.

Of course, accidents happen insoccer, basketball, chess etc., but these are true accidents because it is not theintention of the players of these sports to punch or hurt fellow players.The thing here is that theintention of the sport is what counts the most.

Below is a table of reported boxing fatalities in the US alone: (Journal of Combative Sports)

Year	1890s	1900s	1910s	1920s	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s
0	5	16	30	8	30	6	16	13	7	7	12	10
1	10	10	11	18	15	8	16	12	14	10	11	12
2	11	9	12	23	31	9	19	15	12	8	7	10
3	10	10	18	21	19	6	24	14	4	9	5	10
4	12	4	8	22	13	8	8	15	9	5	7	9
5	3	9	11	15	11	10	11	11	11	8	14	7
6	8	16	7	16	17	18	15	13	8	3	6	7
7	19	3	11	21	5	12	14	6	8	6	8	3
8	10	8	8	21	10	18	10	7	11	7	2
9	15	9	11	26	4	21	13	7	11	4	6
Total	103	94	127	191	155	116	146	113	95	67	78	68

Another Research Questionnaire...

2012-01-31T07:35:00.001+08:00

What is this?

I was giving Camille, a grade sixpupil, the look. “Sir, the grade chairman asked me to give this to you. Thisis from the office." Camille said. "From the office" was the magic word here. I didn’t know if the effect that “thelook” I was giving Camille seemed humorous to her becauseshe just smiled and walked away. I smiled at her, too.

I am allergic to communications from“the office” especially documents that look like they come from the higheroffices. Who are not, I supposed. I’m allergic to them because there are times they arrive to the concerned teacher very, very late. There are some instances where teachers receive memos asking them to attend seminars the very day the seminar is supposed to be held. Anyway, things happen. Not anybody’sfault, I guess.

I looked at the documents and Iwas not surprised to find out that it was one of those things again: questionnairefor the paper of a Ph.D. candidate. The fifth or the fourth I have answered since Icame here. I took it and put it on my desk. (This is called the 3T's : tanggap, tupi, tago or in English: receive, fold, and keep.)

After a few minutes, anotherpupil approached me asking for the accomplished questionnaire. I told her, “Wait, I’ll readthem first.” I put the questionnaire on my desk and left it there to be perused afterthe classes. This was a Ph. D. research so even though the questionnaire was in Filipino, the language was wordy and wordy, maybe, to give the illusion of academic acceptability of some sort. I mean, dissertations are purely for academic consumption or mold and mushroom culture or paper recycling purposes. Who'll read them anyways...I have the theory that even the professors do not even read the whole thing.

After a few minutes, another pupil came and asked me, again, to submit the accomplished questionnaire because the office needed it, now! Of course, I had the urge to shout at the pupil (not her fault really, she's just the messenger) that this was a research questionnaire that needed my carefulreading before accomplishing. But, I was beginning to get irritated so I satdown, got my pen, randomly checked the boxes andthen submitted the "accomplished" questionnaire. There goes the Ph.D dissertation. I supposedno busy teacher would carefully read and think about and then accomplishquestionnaires like these. Just check them boxes and be done with the thing.

This made me think about thequality of these educational researches. Well, anyway...just thinking out loud.

Monday, Monday

2012-01-30T10:22:00.001+08:00

I sometimes wonder why most people hateMondays. Monday is an ordinary day; it has 24 hours, just like the other days ofthe week. It has a sunrise and sunset too. Now, what is it about Monday thatmakes us hate this day.

Maybe we hate Mondays because itprecedes Sunday. Sunday, for most of us, is a rest day, worship day. It is theday that we forget about work and spend our time to worship in our churches andto spend time with our family, friends and pets. We try to make up, in thattwelve waking hours, the moments we have spent away from our loved ones, spendingquality time with them. And Monday is just unlucky because it is the day thatfollows Sunday, an anti climactic day, sort of.

Me, I don’t hate Mondays; I justdon’t like it. Why? The school does flag ceremonies on Monday and Fridays. I amthe flag ceremony man in the school. So, I have to wake upearlier than usual; I have to prepare the sound system and make sure that the flagceremony starts on time. I am the first to arrive at the school gym and Iam also the last to leave because I have to keep the amplifiers, the equalizersand other sound system stuff back into the store room. I also had to make surethat exhaust fans are off; the gates are closed and the door to the storeroom lockedand secured. Am not really complaining, just telling my story here.

When I was still a student, Ihated Mondays because this was the day I usually found out that I had not donemy assignments and projects—promises to do homework on Sundays was an impossibility.I had to write paragraphs, answer questions, and read stuffs while my firstperiod teachers was busy writing something on the board. So, I was thinking anddoing so many things at the same time: dodging the teacher, writing, thinking, copyingfrom classmates etc. Monday was a really stressful day during my student’s day.Now as a teacher, whenever I do my discussions, I walk around the classroom and observe whetherthings are still the same; they are. I smile and sometimes laugh whenever I catch pupils who are doingtheir homework during my class hours because I was once in their shoes too. Of course,I reprimand them but most of the times I just smile, that is, if i'm in a good mood. Otherwise...they'll get hell from me.

Hmmm...being a teacher is not really that different from being a student, come to think of it. I still have to do lesson plans which most teachers do not do on Mondays and not on Sundays. So, this time, instead of dodging teachers, I am dodging the principal and master teachers.Hmmm...

Really, I have nothing to talkabout here. I am just making use of my break to write something on this blog, a habit, sort of. Anyway, here's a good song about Monday from the Mamas and the Papas Lyrics below, do sing along because these guys sure knew their harmony.

Monday Monday, so good to me,
Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Monday Monday, can't trust that day,
Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be
Oh Monday Monday, how yould cou leave and not take me.

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time

Monday Monday, so good to me,
Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time

Monday Monday, ...

Mess of pottage and few pieces of Gold

2012-01-27T10:44:00.000+08:00

A few pieces of gold!?

A few days back I saw on TV Rep. NielTupas Jr. giving the opening statement for the prosecutors of CJ Corona. He was(i.e. for me) an eloquent speaker, careful of his enunciation, had good timingwith his pauses and stresses; his mien projected authority and genuine disgustfor the man he was prosecuting. Unfortunately, he got one very important fact--that every Chrsitian and Catholic Filipino and human beings knew--wrong: the price recieved by Judas Escariot for the betrayal of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here's the last part of the speech that was filled with literary and historical spices made more interesting because of a biblical error.

“In closing, the message of the House, as the representatives of thepeople, is the same as that given by Oliver Cromwell when he dismissed England’s LongParliament on April 20 of 1653. Before God and country, we say: “It is hightime for us to put an end to you sitting in that place, which you havedishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice ofevery vice, you are an enemy to good government, as you have sold your countryfor a mess of pottage, and like Judas Escariot betrayed your God for a few pieces of gold. Depart I say, andlet us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Judas Escariot must be stirringin his grave (or in hell). My dear Congressman, even if you have quoted Cromwell verbatim you should have known better. As has been pointed out byBishops and Sunday school pupils, our Lord was betrayed by Judas Escariot forthirty pieces of silver and not a few pieces of gold. Now, for an ordinary mortal like me, this lapse is permissible but for a congressman who was invoking the Holy name of God to exorcise the evil of graft and corruption and betrayal of public trust out of the accused Chief Justice, you should have checked the Holy Book first because your exorcism may not be accepted by the heavenly authorities fortechnicalities!

He sure hell knew a lot about EnglishHistory but he knew not his Bible. Tsk, tsk, tsk, not good.

I think it’s time congress replace Tupas as the lead man of the prosecutionteam. Admit it, the guy is not good for the job. He is being minced by the defense team as well as by the senator judges especially Sen Santiago. If not for Drillon...hmmmm.

Anyway, the Chief Justice has a lot of explaining to do about his wealth. If the explanations are simple enough and could be understood by common folks like me, he has nothing to worry about. But if the explanations on how he acquire these properties are too long, too legalistic, too technical, and too confusing, chances are, he acquired his wealth the way corrupt men do: by magic.

SSR--Teaching Reading by Reading

2012-01-26T16:21:00.000+08:00

My co-teacher, the adviser of the last section of grade six, had a demo class on CLE-English class this morning. To prepare for the demo teaching, she collected many reading materials for children as part of her classroom exhibit. She had arranged the books at the reading corner of her classroom.

When I entered her classroom, I saw all of the pupils busy reading the children's book. Some of them were sitting, some were lying on the floor, some were in nooks and corners engrossed, lips were moving, some reading silently, others I could hear the whispers, some were pointing on the words and pictures with their fingers. Mind you, these are the last section of grade six where many have exhibited reading problems. I was looking at them and I thought...my gulay, precious moments, everyone was engrossed with reading...why bother them by teaching? I was reminded of an article I read about a strategy in teaching reading called USSR (Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading which was later shortened to SSR). So, I sat down, took out my paperback and read with them. I didn't know if the principal or other master teachers knew about SSR, but definitely some may not understand the set-up. But...to see these pupils engrossed with reading was priceless.

Here is an article about SSR from Education World:

"Sustained Silent Reading" Helps Develop Independent Readers (and Writers)

Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) -- or DEAR (Drop Everything And Read), as some people call it -- can be one more tool for developing lifelong readers.

Some people call it Sustained Silent Reading, or SSR for short. Others call it recreational reading or independent reading. Some have clever acronyms for it, such as DIRT (daily independent reading time) or DEAR (drop everything and read). Whatever it's called, many teachers set aside a block of time each day -- usually anywhere from ten to thirty minutes, depending on the grade level and the ability of the students -- for quiet reading.

Sustained silent reading can serve many purposes:

Most school reading is assigned reading. SSR offers students an opportunity to read material of their own choice.
During SSR time, many students learn that they can use their word attack skills to figure out new words -- on their own!
SSR can build students' confidence in their abilities to work through reading trouble spots.
Many studies of whole-class groups and of select groups of unmotivated readers show that SSR can result in students wanting to reading more.
The amount of time that students spend reading independently outside of school often increases as a result of SSR, parents report. Often children ask for books to read at home.
SSR can be one more element in a reading program aimed at demonstrating the joy that reading can bring and developing lifelong readers and learners.

"Research has shown that reading ability is positively correlated with the extent to which students read recreationally," according to the "Reading and Writing Habits of Students" section of The Condition of Education 1997, published by the National Center for Education Statistics. "Educators are increasingly encouraging their students to read and write on their own"

That report points to some optimistic statistics that support the need to develop students' independent reading skills, including:

In 1994, 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students who reported reading for fun at least once a week had higher average reading proficiency scores than students who reported never or hardly ever reading for fun.

Even Jim Trelease, nationally-recognized expert in the area of reading aloud to children and author of The New Read-Aloud Handbook, devotes a full chapter to Sustained Silent Reading, read-aloud's natural partner.

SSR TAKES MANY FORMS

In some schools, individual teachers include sustained silent reading as part of their programs. In other schools, SSR has been adopted schoolwide. In many schools a special time is set aside each day when every student (and every teacher and staff person, including the principal and the custodian!) is expected to "drop everything" and read silently. Indeed, the main thrust behind most SSR programs is to demonstrate to students that pleasure-reading is something to be valued by all.

In some classrooms, students select from a predetermined reading list. Or they select from a bin of books color-coded to indicate reading level. But most teachers give students the freedom to choose a book that they think they'll enjoy. Often teachers encourage students to select books that aren't too difficult. Many teachers train students in the "five-finger test" as a method of determining readability.

In the five-finger test, students are asked to select a page from the book to read to themselves. They hold up all five fingers on one hand as they begin to read. Each time the student encounters a word that is hard to read, her or she puts down one finger. If all five fingers are in the down position before a student finishes reading the page, the book is probably too difficult. The student probably should put the book back on the shelf and look for one that won't be so hard.

ENHANCING SUSTAINED SILENT READING

For some teachers, SSR is "private reading" time for students. Students can read anything and they don't have to report on what they've read.

Many other teachers provide follow-up activities for sustained silent reading time. Some teachers have students keep logs of their silent reading. Others bring together the class once a week to talk about what they've been reading. (These discussions can motivate other students; others might choose their next book based on the recommendation of one of their peers.)

Some teachers divide their classes into small groups, so students can share their thoughts about the books they're reading. Sometimes teachers provide a question that will serve as the focus of the group discussion. The discussion question might support the curriculum, focusing attention on the climax, or the author's point of view, or some other element of literature that the teacher has introduced in class.

In some classes, teachers invite students to work in pairs during SSR time. A pair of "reading friends" might select a book to read together and talk about. Kids can even take turns reading pages (but then it's not sustained silent reading anymore!). As the students read, they talk about their expectations, their surprises, the things they like and dislike. "Reading friends sometimes look back through a book together, retelling poignant, funny, or important parts," said Lucy Calkins in an article in Instructor magazine. They read with their friends in mind, marking places to share, she adds.

Some teachers combine SSR with dialogue journals. Students share things in their journals about the books they're reading. (Some teachers call this SSW -- sustained silent writing.) Or the teacher might sometimes provide a question for everybody to respond to in their journals. Then the teacher responds to each student's journal entry. Teacher responses often include another question that will prompt deeper understanding of the material.

Some people think dialogue journals and SSR are a bad mix. SSR should be independent reading uncluttered by follow-up, they say. But supporters say that dialogue journals can help students see the value of writing as a form of back-and-forth communication. Journals provide good handwriting practice too; since teachers will be reading and responding to journal entries, students know they must write legibly! And SSR and journals together show students that reading and writing are part of everyday life, supporters add.

THE TEACHER AS MODEL READER

Whatever the case, whether SSR is a private time activity or a discussion or writing motivator, most experts agree that one thing is essential to its success. It is crucial that teachers participate in the process as role models.

SSR time is not a time for teachers to correct papers or plan the next day's lessons. Teachers should be right there on the floor (or in another comfortable spot) -- modeling a lifelong love of reading. If students are expected to fill out a reading log after reading, teachers should do the same. If a weekly "share time" is part of the SSR routine, the teacher can serve as a model by talking about the book he or she is reading. Teachers can model the thought processes that accompany reading by talking about how the main character changes through the course of the book, about the author's use of language, and about surprises and disappointments they encounter as they read.

As much as students need to learn to be good independent readers, they also need to learn how to respond to books and how to share their feelings about books with others. Modeling prepares students to carry on good book conversations. It enables students to carry on good independent book talks when they come together in pairs or small groups for that purpose.

If the teacher models, the students will follow!

For some teachers, SSR is a time to model good writing habits too.

If teachers ask students to write about their SSR activities in a dialogue journal, those journals can provide an opportunity to model writing skills. (Few teachers correct journals; most use journals as private, uncorrected communication. They use the journals as an opportunity to learn more about their students and as an informal measure of growth.) In dialogue journals, teachers can model by spelling words correctly in their responses to students that the students had misspelled in their entries. Teachers might even ask a question that requires a response that will include the misspelled word -- a tricky way to see if modeling really works! Modeling can also be used to point out students' errors of usage and capitalization and grammar.

If the teacher models, the students will follow!

DepEd junks RAT(how appropriate the acronym was), DAT: Its abbbooouuttt TTIIMMMEEE!!!!

2012-01-24T13:45:00.000+08:00

What do you see? What do you see? What do you see?

I saw on the news yesterday thatDepEd is junking the RAT (Regional Achievement Test) and the DAT (Division AchievementTest) retaining only the NAT (National Achievement Test) as the gauge of pupils’performance. I wonder why it took this long for the department higher echelonsto junk these useless and redundant tests. The logic behind the DAT and theREAT is that it is meant to be preparatory and a simulation of the NAT. Thetests are also used by the regional and the division offices to gauge theperformance of their divisons, districts and schools. I say craaappppp! From first hand knowledge and folklore, these tests are badly preparedrecycled mimeographed paper with contents cut and pasted from last year’s and the years after ad infinitum…theword validity and reliability definitely took on a whole meaning with these hmmm... tests.

Anyway…

I began teaching in the public school lastyear during the second quarter grading period, and I was concerned when I learned thatwe, the teachers, had to accelerate our lessons so that we could prepare for the RAT, DAT andthe NAT that will be given in the last quarter of the school year. This meantthat lessons that should be taught during the fourth quarter would be crammed with the third quarter lessons. Now, I am not a Ph. D. or an Ed. D. or a D.D.(not Doctor of Divinity but Doctor of Documents); I am just a lowlyelementary school teacher with enough common sense to know that cramming two grading periods (two quarters) of lessons into one grading period ( one quarter) is like cramming two kilos of riceinto a one kilo container. Something is bound to happen like spilling andwasting or wasting and spilling. Now, my humble inquiry which required adumbration is how in the world this system could help learning ?

I wonder Wonder Woman! Anyway...

My experiences with crappy tests andexaminations made me arrive at these conclusions:

1. Crammingis not learning. (Obvious) When an examiner crams, he/she memorizes by rote.Once the tests are over, all the data crammed in a head, like a person who hasdiarrhea and constipation and loose bowel movement all rolled into one, all thesedata are regurgitated down the mental toilet bowl to be disposed of likeamoebic feces. The experience leaving the learners exhausted but relieved and with the wrong concept ofeducation: get high score on tests! Cram, cram, cram, cram! I n the name of the Lord of the Rings, tests arejust words disconnected with reality and life; they measure not the whole.

2. Persuading(pressuring) pupils to get high scores on tests is harmful to the pupils. Why?Education is not all about tests! Education is not all about getting highscores on tests! Education is not about getting tests on high scores! Educationis about acquiring knowledge (or wisdom) by an individual after studyingparticular subject matters or experiencing life lessons that provide anunderstanding of something.1 Sadly, becauseof ranking (an evil, evil concept in Philippine education) schools are morefocused on doing well with ranking than with educating. Cram, cram, cram, cram…

3. Teachersget the wrong idea. When teachers are told to focus their efforts to preparingtheir pupils to do well in achievement tests, they don’t teach; they review.What is the problem with this? Well, instead of focusing on concepts,internalizing lessons, promoting creativity etc. what happens is that pupilswere made to recall names, dates, figures, process, definitions, situationsetc. over and over again by taking review tests over and over again until the children develop psychological pre-examination stress syndrome.

Theidea is to learn!

Anyway, DepEd Secretary Luistro is correct with junking these superfluous performance tests. Less is better.

__________________

1. Look up the definition on the net, forgot the link...too lazy to check browsing history.

Impeachment blah,blah, blah...

2012-01-19T16:31:00.002+08:00

The legal expert versus the illegal expert :-)

I was entertained (though I admit that Iunderstood only a small fraction of his gobbledygook) by the performance of Corona’s lead defensecounsel former justice Serafin Cuevas on last night’s impeachment trial againstthe Chief Justice. I was impressed by his knowledge of the technicalities andthe intricacies of the law (not really surprising because he is a formerjustice), but what really got my attention was how he stymied the prosecution bypointing out glaring (i.e. to lawyers) errors in the manner of questioning ofthe prosecution’s witness Atty. Vidal that lead to Senate President/JudgeJuan Ponce Enrile commenting that the prosecution cannot impeach their ownwitness. If it were not for the interpolations of other senators especiallySenator Drillon, the prosecution would have totally lost the whole day in favorof the defense i.e. from the spectators perspective.

Maybe that is why the Romans preferred assassinations than impeachment: less talk and inexpensive.

I do not know law or legalities or any of thatstuff; common sense is what I, like most common folks, rely on. Common sense dictatesthat decisions made by a collegial body of 14 justices cannot be attributed or credited solely and held against solely to the chief justice unless the chief justice has somemagical vulcan-mind-meld-hypnotical-mesmerical- power over the rest of his colleagues to vote favoring GMA. The justices have their own reasons--noble or ignoble--to favor GMA, and it is difficult to imagine the CJ to sway all the justices; the fact that there are dissenters who favored Pinoy--for noble or ignoble reasons-- shows that there was deliberations and discussions about the decisions. I think this article of impeachment is an insult to the rest of the justices.

Why not, in the name of consistency and fairness, impeach therest of the justices who voted for decisions favoring GMA? I mean, they all voted favorably.

I am not saying CJ Corona should not be impeached. What I’msaying is that this article in the impeachment complaint seems to be hmmm…somehow…wrong. Illuminate me please...

No, no's for the public school teachers

2012-01-17T16:34:00.006+08:00

Last time, I posted the privileges of public school teachers,this time I am posting the other side of the coin: the prohibitive activitiesof public school teachers. Again this is from the book School Administrationand Supervision by Gregorio c. 1961 p.369 ff.

This is an old book and there may have been corrections andrevisions made.

1. Keepout of Politics

Public school teachers and school officials are forbidden toengage in politics. They may vote, but they may not use their officialauthority or influence to coerce political action of any other persons, or showany pernicious political partisanship, or become active in making membership ina political party known that they become in the eyes of the public identifiedor connected with the fortunes of the party. They must also refrain fromcommenting on the political situation in the country.

2. Restrictionon Business Activities

Public school teachers and schoolofficials are prohibited to engage in any private business, vocation, orprofession, or be connected with any commercial undertaking, without writtenpermission from the Director of Public Schools and the Secretary of Education.[Employees of the Department] should not act as agents for, or be financiallyinterested in any commercial venture, the business of which is to furnishbooks, school stationery, magazines, periodicals, athletic goods or othermaterials for school purposes.

This does not apply to anauthor’s royalty, provided the employee has obtained permission to engage inwriting for money.

3. Smoking Prohibited

All department employees areprohibited to smoke in classrooms, corridors and on school grounds duringschool hours.

4. Payment of Debts

Public school teachers and otherschool officials who willfully fail to pay their just debt are subject todisciplinary actions. They are expected to arrange satisfactorily their privatefinancial affairs with their creditors. The school and the school officialsshall not be made collection agencies for commercial firms.

5. Relation of sexes

To avoid suspicion, teachers andschool official should never be alone in a classroom with a pupil of oppositesex. A high reputationof our teaching force should be maintained. It isimperative that parents should not have any doubt that the morals of theirchildren are fully safeguarded in the classroom and on the school grounds.Teachers or school official should never take advantage of his position tocourt to pupil or student.

6. Making gifts to official superiors

It is improper from an officer oran employee to make donation or present any gift of substantial value to anofficial to whom he is subordinate. It is likewise improper for any official toaccept any donation or gifts as aforesaid offered or presented to him by anyperson or persons in the Government service subordinate to himself.

7. Inflicting corporal punishment

Corporal punishment is notallowed in any classrooms. It is unlawful for any classroom teachers or schoolofficials to inflict or cause to inflict physical pain or injuries to any pupilor student, nor should he make deduction in their scholastic ratings for actsthat are not clearly not manifestations of poor scholarship.

8. Tutorial Services

The Code of Ethics for PublicSchool Teachers and Officials states that no teacher or school official shouldaccept directly or indirectly for tutorial services to any of his pupils orstudents remuneration other than the compensation authorized for his servicesas teacher or school official. In other words, receiving double compensation isprohibited.

Musings about the test

2012-01-16T16:45:00.002+08:00

The school was done conductingthe reading inventory last week, and I hope we will achieve better resultscompared to last year’s. This week, we will be conducting the third quarterexaminations. Time flies so fast and a few weeks from now, the school year willbe over. Anyway…

The thing about tests is thatthey are also indicators of the teachers’ performance. So, when the results areannounced and comparisons made, the subject area and the grade level thatperformed poorly are put in a…hmmm…rather uncomfortable situation. There are a lot of hecklings and alibis and promises to do better….

Last year, when the rankings from the grade level performance to theschool’s performance versus the other schools from the district, we did quite poorly.

Anyway, the year is endingand I hope I do better this year than last year’s, if not…hmmm…I may end up sweeping the schoolyard.

Bourne Legacy and other films shot in the Philippines

2012-01-12T15:25:00.001+08:00

Rachel Weisz on the set of The Bourne Legacy in Manila.

The shooting of the fourth installment of Ludlum's Bourne series The Bourne Legacy started yesterday. Many Filipinos are excited about the film; it's not everyday that a big budgeted major Hollywood production is shot here in the Philippines. Aside from the prestige, the shooting of the movie would create job opportunities for the community where the film is being shot and also generate revenues for the involved local government units and government agencies. Another benefit of Hollywood movies being shot in the country is that it would promote the Philippines as a tourist destination, sort of a product placement.

The story ofBoracay, I think, is the best example of what a movie could to do in promoting a tourist spot in the country. Boracay then was an unknownbeautiful island where the 1970 Hollywood WWIImovie Too Late the Hero, starring Michael Caine, was shot. Since then, foreigners took notice of the island especially the powder white sand beaches and soon after that Boracay became a favorite destination for foreign touristespecially for the budget conscious backpackers. And because of this popularityamong the foreigners, many local investors saw the potential of the island to becomea world class tourist destination and the rest, as they say, is history.

I am a bit at a lost about the tourism hype of the Ludlum movie because it is being shot in the areas of Marikina City Market, San Andres Market, Navotas Fishport, Ramon Magsaysay Blvd., Ayala Avenue, Nagtahan, Pasay Taft, Intramuros and Jones Bridge. I don't want to douse cold water into the enthusiasm about the potential exposure the movie could generate for tourism because many (if not most) of these places are not your typical tourist destinations . That is, unless the expected tourist market we have in mind are urban survivalists interested in simulating post-nuclear war survival scenarios or journalists who are interested in doing documentaries about Metro Manila's nefarious taxi drivers (not all of them of course).Or, I could be wrong, maybe there are tourists interested in third-world- urban tourism, sort of.

Anyway, the movie is not yet finished, and there maybe beautiful places that would be included in the movie like Palawan, Boracay, Bohol etc. Or, they would pan the camera so as to avoid the eyesores, etc.so its too early to tell. I maybe wrong of course!

I expect that the DVD of the movie would be available from your trusted DVD Bootleg vendor way before the shooting is over. Also one of the benefits....early, early, pre- screening.

Anyway I am curious about Hollywood films were shot here in the Philippines. Here are some of them: (Wikipedia)

1. Missing in Action (1984) : Chuck Norris, Directed by Joseph Zito

2. The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) : Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, Directed by Peter Weir

3. Platoon (1986): Tom Berringer, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen, Directed by Oliver Stone

4. Thirteen days (2000): Kevin Costner, Directed by Roger Donaldson

4. Apocalypse Now (1979): Marlon Brando, Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

5. Enter the Ninja (1981): Franco Nero, Sho Kosugi, Directed by Menahem Golan

Reading Inventory and some observations of the obvious

2012-01-11T15:55:00.000+08:00

Photo not mine.

This is the third day of thePhilippine Informal Reading Inventory (PIRI) posttest that we have beenconducting in the school. I am assigned to administer the test to the lastsection of grade five; the last section contains the not-so-bright and the specially-difficult pupils. This is the idea behind class sectioning, homogeneity: the brightest and the neatest pupils go to thefirst section while the dirtiest and the not-so-smart pupils go to the lastsection. There's this systematic gradation (or de-gradation) of the pupils...Well, anyway, nothing I can do about this scheme of things.

While administering the test, I made some mental notes, sort of an unofficial observation of the obvious, and here are some of them. This is the English Reading Test.

Pupils who read very fast have poor comprehension.

They want to impress the examiner by putting their feet on the pedal and reading very fast. There are times that I have to stop and remind them that the testis not a speed reading test and that this is a comprehension test.

One of the reasons whythis is so is because parents (even teachers) put emphasis on reading fast, or fast reading. Ihave seen parents brag about how fast their child read, and some even go tothe extent of making their child read aloud in front of uncles, aunties,cousins, neighbors and even strangers.

I think almost everyone went through this hmmmm...quite embarrassing moment in their lives. Whenever parents get together, it is inevitable that they brag about how well their child do in school. Even I passed thoughthis ordeal when I was in Grade 1.

Many parents (and maybe even some teachers) think that fluency in reading is proportional or directly related tohow fast a child read. That is, the faster the child read, the more fluent he/she becomes in reading. There maybe some truth into it, but not entirely because there are children who read slow yet have better comprehension and there are children who read fast but have poor comprehension; come to think of it, children that read fast have poor comprehension.

Well,anyway, what I think is better for parents and even teachers especially fromthe pre-school and primary level children are to focus on reading comprehension.Of course this is laborious because this means more interaction, throwingquestions and having more discussions and more effort on the part of the parents and the teacher.

Maybe this is why many children and even adults think that reading is nothing more than a public performance or a necessity rather than it could a personal pursuit.

Some pupils read very slow but have very good comprehension.

This surprised me because I have always though that slow readers have poor comprehension. Of course, I am not saying this as a general rule, but there are enough exemptions to make me re-think my assumptions about slow readers.

Generally speaking, most non-readers are over aged pupils.

This is obvious because most of them stopped schooling for sometime because they were embarrassed by their reading problem.

Reason is out of order

2012-01-10T16:11:00.001+08:00

The Feast of the Black Nazareneended this morning. As I was watching the news, what I saw amazed and puzzled me. I could not understand how this black image of Jesus Christcould evoke such devotion and fanaticism to the common and even to someeducated and sophisticated Filipinos.

I was discussing this phenomenonto a co-teacher, and I told him how ironic it was that a religion that produced great philosophers, logicians and systematic theologians that started the scholastic ageand changed paradigms in education and changed western civilization would exhibit among its adherents suchdisturbing exhibition of blind fanaticism. I mean, the Catholic Church was the seat of philosophy and the temple of scholasticism for many centuries. Of course, this was history and had no bearing to the phenomenon at all.

One question that kept popping in my head was, "are these people even aware of the official teachings of the Catholic Church?"

But it's not the theology that bothered me; it was the lack of reason.

The adherents seemed to be unaware of the dangers of mass hysteria. Put a very large number of people together in a confined space, add the humidity, stress, anger, etc and all it takes is just a little spark, a shout, a commotion, and what you have is a stampede. In fact there was instance of a mobbing when an alleged snatcher was caught. If the police were not there to keep the peace, that alleged snatcher would have been torn to pieces. I saw the anger on the mob's face and they were shouting, "ipako sa krus!" I mean, what in the world was that all about! Of course, I am not saying that because of this incident, the feast had lost it religious significance, but what would a non-catholic say? And what would the True Catholics say?

I was imagining if it was the true Jesus Christ being paraded there...hmmmm.

Many were injured and it’s worryinghow some parents compromised the safety of their children by bringing themalong into the procession. There was a boy who fell from the center island headfirstand was injured. It’s good that there were many Red Cross volunteers to help,but still, how could a parent do such thing?

One priest said it very well when he differentiated devotion from blind fanaticism and that a devotee could come to the church any regular day to touch and pray to the image.

What was disturbing about this phenomenon was that most of the astrologers, witches, faith healers who were selling their services and their potions and amulets around the church claim that their powers came from the Black Nazarene. Here the marriage of the belief in the powers of the Black Nazarene with animistic belief of astrologers and faith healers was fused into one syncretic faith, a unique Filipino folk Catholicism that the common Filipino accepts without question and seemed to be unopposed by the orthodox teachings of the Catholic Church.

I mean...

This is hard to explain and it is impossible to reason to anyone about this. Reason seemed to be out of order thatday.

The trash and garbage left by the devotees and the fanatics, I think, said it all.

Reading Test and some stuffs about dyslexia

2012-01-09T10:58:00.001+08:00

Today and the following days, thepupils will be subjected to battery of tests. Today we will be administeringthe Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (PIRI) to the pupils and next weekwill be the periodical tests.

PIRI is divided into two parts,the oral reading and the silent reading both for English and Filipino. Theteachers administer the test (about a 100 word selection) individually, timing thereading rate and then asking comprehension questions to the pupils. The comprehensionquestions are then checked for correct responses, then the results are evaluatedand, based on the results, the pupils are then classified into independent readers, frustrated readers,and the non-readers.

After the tests, the reports are thenconsolidated first at grade levels and then at the school level.

The process looks easy, butconsidering that each class numbers more than 50, the task is quite arduousespecially if there are slow and non-readers among the testee.

Encountering slow and non-readersat the intermediate level especially in grade six is quite frustratingconsidering that they have had four years of primary education to learn thefundamentals of reading. It is also easy to blame the primary level teachersfor not doing their job, but that is quite unfair because there are factorsthat are beyond the teachers’ control.

Although most teachers are stillof the opinion that reading problems are basically intelligence or cognitive problems,i.e. it is equated with children having low IQ. But that is not generally thecase, there are pupils who are quite smart but have problems with reading. Many teachers are still unaware of dyslexia.

Here's a site from a dyslexic http://dyslexiamylife.org/

To some dyslexic, words appear as jumble of letters.

Dyslexia is not necessarily an IQproblem, it is a perception problem. Thereason why a child has difficulty reading is that his/her visual or auditoryperception is deficient. Some of the symptoms are:

Letter or word reversals when writing.
Difficulty repeating what is said to them.
Poor handwriting or printing ability.
Poor drawing ability.
Reversing letters or words when spelling words that are presented orally.
Difficulty comprehending written or spoken directions.
Difficulty with right – left directionality.
Difficulty understanding or remembering what is said to them.
Difficulty understanding or remembering what they have just read.
Difficulty putting their thoughts on paper.

What causes dyslexia?

Ineffective reading instruction
Auditory perception difficulties
Visual perception difficulties
Language processing difficulties.

Some suggested remediation are:

Remediation:

Simplify tasks so only one new discrimination is made at a time.
Make each simple discrimination automatic before the next one is introduced.
Overteach ‘b”, then overteach ‘d”, before presenting both together.
Each discrimination that causes repeated errors should be worked with by itself until the problem is overcome.
Trace, then write, the confused letter or word and pronounce it as written.
Use short frequent practice periods. Lengthen the time between practice sessions as the material is retained.
If the child is confused about his own left/right, use a ring, watch, ribbon or band on his writing arm. Color cue side of desk or paper or word as a starting place.
Gradually increase the difficulty of material to discriminate. If errors are made, go back to simpler practice.
Suggestions for Improving Laterality:
Trace hands on paper. Label “right,” “left.”
Play “Simon Says” – “Touch right foot; raise left hand,” etc.
Child follows the directions in drawing lines up, down, right to left, etc. and in touching parts of body.
Child connects dots on blackboard to make a completed pattern; repeats process on paper.
Child shows hands in sequence pattern: left, right, left, right, etc. Use marching as a variation.
Child names objects on right and on left. He moves to different parts of the room and repeats.
Arrange story pictures in sequence, left to right.
Use lined paper for writing.
Use weighted wristband to designate right or left hand.
Tracing activities, left to right. Mark left with small “x.” Use color tracing to repeat.
When beginning writing the lessons, teach the child to begin as close to left edge of sheet as possible (then can move only toward the right).
In reading, use markers, “windows,” and other left-to-right directional aids.

For more info about dyslexia and other reading problems:

http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/learning/dyslexia.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia

http://www.specialednews.com/reading-problems.htm

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/04/reading-problems.aspx

http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/t6.html

Looking Back

2012-01-08T16:05:00.001+08:00

Hey! You'll stumble and fall...

There is nothing wrong aboutlooking back. In fact there is a Filipino proverb that goes like this: “He whodoes not look back will not be able to reach to his/her destination” or somethingto that effect. Of course, this proverb is not literally talking about lookingback or even introspection. The proverb, really, is about gratitude. I think this is a much better rendering ofthe proverb: “He who does not know to whom he is indebted to will not be ableto reach his/her destination”

Looking back reminds of our failures, inadequacies, heartaches...

One of the reasons why it’s notgood to look back is because we will be, again, reminded of our failures,heartaches, pains, sorrows, disappointments etc. The fact that we are now in the New Year should give us thepsychological Rubicon, a point from which we could commit ourselves to beginwith a new slate, that is, to moveforward.

But if we think we have had a wonderful2011, I have to warn us not to look back that much at the last year. Why? Theproblem is that we may become proud of our achievements and think that we didso well that we may become complacent. The proverbial story of the tortoise andthe hare may well illustrate my point. The hare raced and got so far ahead ofthe tortoise that when he looked back and saw the turtles slow progress, the haresmiled; it laid back and fell asleep thinking that his gain was enough to see him through the race. But, lo,behold the lowly tortoise finished ahead of the hare. The tortoise did not outrunthe hare, for the turtle would not be able to do that; the turtle out-persevere the hare. It’s notabout speed, its all about perseverance!

It's not about speed, it's all about perseverance!

Another peril of looking back is that looking back can leadto going back. The story of the Israelites wandering in the desert is a goodillustration of this. Every time Israelites encounter difficulty, they alwayslook back to their captivity in Egypt. They kept on complaining how much betterit was in Egypt because, at least, even if they were contemptuous slaves of theEgyptians, they were fed; they have shelter, they were safe. Lot’s wife is alsoa god illustration. Remember when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, God toldLot and his household to walk away and not look back. But Lot’s wife could notresist, she looked back and was transformed into a pillar of salt.

Looking back may lead to going back!

The only reason why we should look back is to learn from our mistakes, and, that should be only a glancing look.

So, always look forward and focus on what's ahead…

Exams, Test...

2012-01-07T13:27:00.000+08:00

Last section of Grade six.
I am amazed by these pupils for what took the teacher days to make took them just under twenty minutes to finish. It's frustrating to think that after all the the test makers' efforts, some pupils do not even make an effort to read the test items; they just circle letters randomly, and they do not even try to answer essay questions.

The thirdweek of January is the scheduled examination week for the third quarter grading period. So,teachers are supposed to be making their tests now. We should now be writingour table of specifications, making questions based on the table and having itchecked by the master teacher of the subject. But...hehehe...teachers' weekends are sacrosant.

There are some things that tests and examinations cannot measure. I teach music and paper tests for music cannot measure the pupils' musicality.

Things to remember in making a test: Prepare test questionsbased on the lessons taught or tackled within the grading period, organize thetest from easy to difficult, vary the test type from multiple choice, matchingtype to essay; distractors should be related to the correct answers so that thepupils would find it quite challenging to get the correct answer and not justuse simple common sense to figure out the correct answer, and make sure theinstructions are simple and easy to understand. Basically, these are the thingsto remember in test construction

Validityand reliability are things best left to the teachers of Measurement andEvaluations.

Tests aredifficult to construct now because purely objective tests are discouraged.Gone are the days of purely objective test.

Testitems like this are discouraged:

1. Whatdo you use to cut wires?

a. WireCutter b.Hammer c.Screw Driver

Today’stest items are situational.

Example:

1. MangPedro and his family was watching TV when the electricity went out. He lookedfor cause of the black out, and he found out that main switch’s fuses wasbusted. He bought replacement fuse. What tool should Mang Pedro use to removeand replace the fuse?

a. Pliers b.Hammer c.Screw Driver

Imaginehow difficult this is especially for subjects that use English for instruction.(Lucky for me, all the subjects I teach use Filipino.) Justmaking up of the situations takes a lot of time plus making sure that the itemsare grammatically correct, etc., then the encoding. The result: a threepage-legal sized-front and back test instrument (or whatever these examinationsare called by educators).

I havenothing against “situational” tests except foe the extra effort it entails forthe teachers. Anyway, the advantages for the pupils are many. Primary is thatit promotes reading comprehension. Logical thinking is enhanced. It promotesskills in recognizing cause and effect, making predictions, processes, etc.

It’s justthat this kind of test is so difficult to construct especially for a lazyteacher like me.

Just Tired and Letting it out

2012-01-06T16:43:00.000+08:00

Photo not mine.

It’s the end of the day, the end of the week and I am so enervated that I feel I can’t get up from my chair. I am sitting, feeling my headthrobbing from the hours of incessant talking. So, instead of grabbing my motorcycle key and broom-brooming the heck out of the school, I had to sit down and rest for a few minutes. Resting while typing and talking and inundating all my blah,blah,blah to this blog while five pupils are cleaning up the room.

Teaching does not tire me; in fact, I enjoybeing in front of the class teaching, singing and cracking jokes and laughingwith my pupils. What really zaps my energy is the constant struggle to keep mytemper at bay.

What pisses me off is the seemingly lack of appreciation from my pupils for the effortI give to be as respectful to them as possible, giving my best to be cool and to level with them so as to lower the tension and lessen the communication barrier during the class, but there are pupils who sometimes misinterpret thisas acquiescence and they take advantage. They literally test the limits of my patience. So, I have to continually remind them, sometimes firmly, about the teacher-pupilrelationship especially inside the classroom.

God knows I try my best to holdback. I even go as far as to humor my pupils just to diffuse my anger and make myselflaugh at the intolerable rudeness and disrespect of some of my pupilsespecially those from among the lower sections, but there are times that theseholding back gives in and it's inevitable for emotion to flare up. This is inevitable. But I and all teachersmust learn how to control this inevitable eruption especially the tendency and the temptation tophysically harm a pupil i.e. to whack them on the head or throw things at them, or, in my case, the temptation to throw them out of the door.

This happens to the best of us. That’s why whenever there’snews of a teacher physically harming a pupil, I empathize with the teacher. Ofcourse it does not mean that the teacher is justified in hurting his/herpupil/s. I empathize because I know the pressure, and the energy and theeffort it take to hold back cumulative stress. These pressure and stress are factors why teachers lose it and hurt their pupils. Parents should understand this. I don't believe that teachers are mean, sadistic human beings. Teachers lose composure because of the work load, the records and the forms, the unscheduled visitations from supervisors and superintendent and other minor department gods, school and inter school activities, the complaining and the attention seeking-gossip mongering parents, the collections, disrespectful and rude pupils that make the teachers feel degraded thus losing their sense of self esteem, the negative atmosphere in the work area etc. add these all up and you have dynamites waiting to explode. I am not complaining, but all I am saying is there are factors that affect teachers behavior, their minds and their effectiveness, and that teachers have different tolerance for stress, humiliation and physical labor.

But hurting pupils is inexcusable. Teachers who lose it and are guilty of physically hurting their pupils should be made accountable and should be meted out the penalty deserving their actions, but these teachers deserve to be understood too. Teachers who are sex offenders and abusers are exceptions; they should be summarily shot IN THE GROIN if proven guilty!

Anyway...

Thank God for the weekend. Istrongly feel (most teachers would agreewith me) that the weekend should be an inviolable rest day for the teachers becausefive days of teaching is murder, sucks the life out of us teachers, literally slowly (or if you have heart problem, instantly) killing us, while the two days reprieve give us the opportunity toenergize, to build up the reserve power to continue on teaching.

Anyway, I’m just tired and I amnot harping on anybody or complaining about anything in general or in particular. I am just tired and I wantto rest. I just want to rest.

I amthinking of resigning from teaching in the church so that I could enjoy my weekend, but that's another thing..

I just want to rest on the weekend; I believe that's not so difficult to understand :-) Outta here...

On Motivations and Idols, Icons and other nonsense

2012-01-05T11:00:00.001+08:00

As a motivation for my industrialarts pupils, I did a simple arithmetic on the amount of water lost due to aleaking faucet and I translated this loss into money. I hope they get an ideaof the amount. I think this is a good way of motivating them to learn somesimple maintenance job in their homes.

Hmmm…this is weird really. Whiledoing the math, my mind (the other one that is because the other part of mymind is engaged in teaching, does not mean I have schizophrenia or something)wandered off to looking at the pupils, looking into their eyes and thinking of what they were doing and at the same time thinking of how their minds process themotivation that teachers (and parents) throw at them.

I am not talking about motivationthat teachers use to prepare their pupils’ interest to the lesson at hand; I’mtalking about the motivation thrown at the children about what they do, whythey study; the things that fuel or nudge them to strive.

Got me wondering…

The norm for graduation orspecial events is to invite successful (most of them financially successful)people to talk to inspire, to challenge and to share their experiences on theirway up to achievement, to share the challenges and how these challenges wereovercome and, of course, the meat of the speeches the secret/s to theirsuccess.

Of course, the audiences are allears, taking note and processing the speeches with the thinking that maybe theycould duplicate in whole or in part some of the successes achieved by thespeaker/s.

Hmmmm…but this got me thinking…

Let us take for instance MannyPacquiao.

The press has been building a myth around theman as an icon of success. He is being hailed as a paragon of a successfulsports figure, businessman, politician (though personally I think this is nothis court), and even that of a faithful family man. This is beside the factthat he has sired a child at least with one woman. I mean his action likemanipulating the mother of his illegitimate son into agreeing into adisadvantageous settlement showed Pacquiao’s insensitivity and irresponsibilityby denying this son the right the child should have enjoyed as a son, even anillegitimate one, both financially and emotionally. Never the women who I thinktook advantage of Pacquiao, it’s the child.

Anyway, justshows that Pacquiao is not the Bible toting and Bible quoting person that he issupposed to be. He is a human being after all.

Anyway, almostmost of the leaders and motivational speakers I have heard (not necessarily listened to) have used Pacquiao as a model.Nothing's wrong with this, per se, but I still believe that there are more betterperson to idolize than him. But is it possible to duplicate MP's sucess?

How about Billgates? How about the late Steve Jobs? How about the cousin that became amillionaire? How about Lady Gaga, How about Alvin and the Chipmunks? How about…

I don’t knowabout this…but I think when a person starts to have idols, or models to look upto, they, somehow, lose something in them. Of course, it can be argued that byloosing something in themselves, they, in the process have gained something inthemselves. This is like nature abhorring vacuum or the principle that no twothings (or entity) could occupy space at the same time.

Anyway, asidefrom the parents and the teachers who are inevitably the firsts people thatdirectly influence the primary development of an individual’s identity, theseidols or icons (pop or cultural or intellectual or religious or cartoonscharacters or what have you) have great influences on the further development ofan individual’s identity including his/her understanding of the world orreality (going way over my head here).

Of course, inthe development of an individual’s self or identity, it is impossible to happenwithout the influence or interference of factors, this is inevitable. It isimpossible for an individual to come into his self awareness without theinfluence of everything around him/her.

What is, Ithink, happening is that when looking up to someone as a model, the self has togive something of its own. In the development of the self, there is thetendency to think that the mind is a blank slate, a tabula rasa, but there isthe thinking that this is not necessarily so. The mind is not exactly blank butit has built in or aprio ri transcendental something that makes the mind anactive organ and not just a sponge or passive organ where information orexperiences are inputted.

Anyway, where amI?

Having someoneto look up to both positive or negative, means that a part of an individual’sidentity is lost or if one is an admirer of the tabula rasa theory, some howthe individual’s self awareness is redirected outside. This is not necessarilybad nor is it necessarily good. Like I said before, this is just inevitable.

Anyway, as theindividual age this influences or models or icons start to assert its supremacyover the individual. There are then tensions that happen in the person’s selfawareness. There are parts of an individual that rejects this invasion of theself, by these influences, while there are parts that fights for itsassimilation.

To the artists,as is true with development, the first stage is imitation. Anyway, (my-co teacherinterrupted and I lost my already disorganized train of thought) there will come a time when the self, somehow, needto assert it’s own self, it rebels and wants to eject this influences toestablish its own identity. I don’t know but maybe this is similar to what iscalled the identity crisis, maybe it is. Who cares…

Got me thinking,somehow, to the listeners of these motivational speakers, or when looking up tosomeone as an ideal or a paragon, most of them want to duplicate the success butmost of the time they lose themselves.

Blah,blah,blah,gosh, my one hour break is over and being called by my pupils…how time flies!

If you got this far and maybe wandering what in the frak (got this word from Battlestar Galactica Reimagined) am I talking about, I congratulate you...really I'm just passing my break time :-)

But if you're looking for Freudian slips...do have fun :-)

The Privileges of Public School Teachers

2012-01-04T10:58:00.001+08:00

Our school's teaching force.

My co teacher, who's taking anMA in ED Management, was reading a book; she was obviously preparing apresentation for her MA class. I took a look at the book and it was an old bookabout educational supervision and management, sort of a principal’s manual.

Anyway, there were interestingthings that I learned from my reading some of which I already knew some ofwhich I did not know. Anyway, I’m just sharing some excerpts from SchoolAdministration and Supervision by Gregorio p. 363 ff. This book wascopyrighted in 1961 so there may be some changes that have been effected sincethen. Anyway, here are the excerpts. For brevity, I did not copy all the details except for items which think are not that known to some public school teachers.

Here we go:

As Civil Service employees, thepublic school teachers, supervisors, and administrators are enjoying specialprivileges. All privileges of the teaching personnel are prescribed by law.Some of these privileges are the following: (I did not cite all the relevantlaws for this is just an overview of what I have read. For complete informationI suggest you read Gregorio’s book.)

1. Teachersas persons in authority.

This means that teachers cannot be attackedphysically when performing their duties. This law protects theteachers from being physically harmed by parents and other individuals who mayhave grudges against them. .

2. Maternity Leave. {I think there are already provisions for paternity leave]

3. StudyLeave.

Public schoolteachers are encouraged to raise their educational qualifications. Study leaveis intended to assist teachers in securing personal and professionalimprovement and to retain in service those teachers who are efficient.

4. Outsideteaching.

The Departmentallows public school teachers to teach in private evening classes in not morethan 12 hours a week in addition to their regular loads in their own schools.

5. Vacationand sick leave.

6. Compulsoryinsurance. [GSIS is the main insuring agency of the government.]

7. VacationPay.

Teachers areentitled to pay during the Christmas and long vacation.

8. ServiceCredit.

A teacher on theteacher’s leave basis is given service credit when he is asked to work duringthe vacation period. This service credit maybe used to offset past and futureabsences due to illness and other reasonable causes.

9. SalaryLoans.

10.FreeMedical Consultations.

11.Costof living and hardship allowance.

Public schoolteachers are entitled to cost of living allowance. The teachers’ salaries shallkeep pace with the rise in cost of living by the payment of cost-of-livingallowance.

Likewise, specialhardship allowances are to be enjoyed by public school teachers in some areasof the country. In areas towhere teachers are exposed to hardships such as difficulty in commuting to theplace of work or other hazards as determined by the Secretary of Education.

12.Compensationfor injuries.

13.JoiningTeachers’ Organization.

Public schoolteachers shall have the right and without previous authorization to freely toestablish or to join organizations of their choosing whether local or nationalto further defend their interest, subject to existing laws, Civil ServiceRules, and policies of the State. The right established shall be exercisedwithout any interference or coercion.

14.EnjoyAcademic Freedom.

Teachers are freeto use any method of teaching they think best for their pupils. Likewise, theyare free to experiment and express the result of their experiment.

15.WorkingHours for Teachers

Teachers engagedin actual classroom teaching are required to render not more than six hours ofactual classroom teaching a day to give hime/her time for the preparation and correctionexercises and other work incidental to his normal teaching duties.

They mayberequired to render more than six hours but not exceeding eight hours of actualclassroom teaching a day upon payment of additional compensation at the samerate as his regular remuneration plus at least twenty five percent of his basicsalary.

16.RetirementBenefit.

17.Tenureof office.

Regular or permanent public school teachers and officials aregranted stability of employment and security of tenure.

First day...

2012-01-03T12:30:00.000+08:00

First day of work and my day of firsts…

I reported to work late, still reeling from vacation. Thefirst person I saw at the office was Ate Annie, the school’s all around girl (Imean she does it all).

When I was parking my motorcycle, the first class to greetme was grade VI-section 6. (Or was it section 3?)

The first thing grade chairman told me was that she hassomething that needs my attention, the school publication. Of course, shegreeted me Happy New Year first.

Upon opening my room and seeingthe dirty plates and glasses and all the junk scattered that were still holdover from last year’s, signs of a teacher leaving his classroom in hurry forthe Christmas vacation, the first I thing I did was to open my (not really minebut since it was on my table, allow me to call it “mine”) computer and check myFB status. Well, superstitions be believed, this meant that I would be an FBaddict for a year.

I was told that the MasterTeacher in charge of checking the records was asking for my rating sheet. Mygulay, why did I not do it last year?!

There were few pupils and some teacherswere still absent. They were, maybe, be still on holiday mode.

I will be checking my lessonplans now, that is, if I can find it.

Videoke Blues

2012-01-02T11:50:00.000+08:00

When I attended my wife's family reunion in Gumaca, Quezon, we hired a videoke machine. I was shocked when I saw that the video being shown was a PowerPoint presentation of the supposed achievements of a Quezon Province congressman. What was worse was that I am informed that all barangays were given these machines. Reminded me of the Nazi Goebel...(Photo not mine)

We got home from Baguio from ourNew Year’s break at 3 o’clock this morning. We rested for a while and then we slept.After a few hours, we were rudely awakened by a neighbor singing, at the top ofhis voice, Blue Bayou, a classic by Linda Rondstadt, complete with the mispronunciationsand the Visayan accent.

I have nothing against Visayanaccent, heck I am a half Visayan myself, but, really, one cannot help but be amused(well in this case, irritated) by this. I used to sing Karaoke too, but, thatwas when I was still living in sin, unsaved, condemned and fallen from grace.But when the realization came that the Karaoke was in C Major while my singingvoice was in B minor, I quit. I stopped and instead went on to play guitar inthe church.

I have nothing against Karaoke. Imean, karaoke singing is fun especially the ones that tells the singer’s scoreafter the piece. And for some, an artificial girl’s voice telling them thatthey got 99 for their singing is already an affirmation of their singingtalent. That is until I tried the machine and I got a score of 50, I doubt thescoring method these machines use.

But, but, but… Again I havenothing against Karaokes or videokes. I have nothing against singing too. I believesinging is a basic human right. But singing and Karaoke are two differentthings. All human beings have the right to sing. I mean all. This right isinviolable and is on top of our basic human rights.

But just like any rights, it isregulated by common sense and common decency. One does not sing while his mouthis full; one does not sing dirges in birthdays; or one does not sing happybirthday in funerals (except when it is the deceased birthday). These rules, orconventions, are built in our heads. It’s a priori, deontological and these areexamples of Kant’s categorical imperative.

Anyway, when it comes to karaokeand videoke machines, I think it is time our legislators create guidelines andlaws. Normal singing voice is ok. No problem even if the singer’s voice isflat, sharp, atonal, alto, soprano, tenor, round, sandpaper-like, etc. It’sokey. No problemo. But when these voices are amplified and accompanied bymachines with their artificial-mechanical-robotlike midi accompaniment, well,things change. The harmless singing becomes…not harmless.

Really, kidding aside, videoke,like firecrackers, should be regulated because sometimes, one cannot tell thedifference between bad singing and nuclear explosion and the damage to the ear drums that they cause is almost identical. Really, sometimes videoke singing does more damage than physical, they have deleterious psychological impact too.

2012-01-01T09:32:00.002+08:00

Happy New Year!

Thinking about Time

2011-12-31T12:09:00.002+08:00

This is the last day of the old year and the day before the New Year and this is the best time to think about time. So, my post will be mostly about time.

Chronos was a Titan god, the beings that were in existence before the Greek gods. He was the god of all time and the universe. Chronos became ruler of the cosmos after he killed his father Ouranos. Zeus, his son, in turn overthrew him thus ending the reign of the Titans.

Time is linear.

This is how we normally think of time, a one way movement from onemoment to the next moment. There is the past, present and the future. The pastis what happened after, the present is what is happening now, and the future isstill anticipated. We have knowledge of the past, we have knowledge of thepresent, but we could not know the future until it becomes the present.

This idea of timeis self evident in natural processes from aging to cooking to making coffee. Weage from birth to date; we cook by following a process from step 1 to step xuntil the food is cooked, but we cannot reverse the process. The same withalmost everything we do i.e. there are processes that cannot be reversed.

To illustrate:

Linear A.

past present future

The past is were everything happened or everything we experienced happened in an earlier time. We have knowledge of our experiences from the past through our memory. The present is what is happening now. The future is what we anticipate. Though we can not know the future, but because of the of causality, we have idea of what the future may be. (Many do not hold on to the necessity of causality, the skeptic David Hume is one of them. His assertion is that it is not logically justified that the future can be predicted by events in the past. He was criticizing induction, the primary process we use for learning.)

Anyway, if we look at time this way, since the past has reality or has become realized, and though they seemed illusory because we have knowledge of them through our memory, this diagram of linear time shows possibility of time travel but only in one direction: to the past.

Actually we do this mentally all the time through recollection but we cannot mentally travel to the future because the events are not yet realized. Hence, when we mentally think about the future, we really think of possibilities or of possible worlds. (This is the subjectivity of time, we have different experiences of time.)

Where am I?

So if we invent time machine it could only travel to the past because the future is still blank. But we cannot travel before the invention of the time machine. (Why invent a time machine at all?)

Linear B:

past present future

This is like consuming time. It's like a rail road where the future is realized and we are just experiencing the present. Time travel is possible for the future. But time travelling is limited to the time the time machine is invented. (So, your time machine is stuck?)

Linear B.

past present future

If we are an observer outside of time, reality would look like a tableau. Everything is all laid out, so technically, there is no past, present or future. These tenses of time are mere experiences of time.

Book illustration.

Linear A.

Its like reading a book where the pages are being written as you read but the read pages are preserved.

Linear B.

It's like reading a book where all the pages are written except the read pages are lost.

Linear C.

Its ike a reading a complete book. Pretty much everything is determined.

Time is Circular

Time is circular.

Circular time means the past can be become the future and the future can become the past. The main idea behind circular time is recurrences. This idea of time is dominant in many religions in the Orient. The belief that everything comes around is evident in the belief of karma and reincarnation. many philosophers have taken this idea of circular time especially those who are influenced by Hindu and Buddhist philosophies.

Time is spiral

sorry for the drawing...

This is a sort of a combination of linear and circular time. Yes, we experience time in a linear way, that is we have past, present and future, but this idea also includes the concept of recurrences. Yes we experiences recurrences but we there is a distance or separateness from the previous recurrences.

The Classics

Let us look at some of the great thinkers idea about time.

Aristotle: "Time is the measure of change...but time is not change itself"

Pretty much orthodox.

René Descartes : He argued that a material body has the property of spatial extension but no inherent capacity for temporal endurance, and that God by his continual action sustains (or re-creates) the body at each successive instant. Time is a kind of sustenance or re-creation.

Descartes idea of time is best illustrated by this 80's Twilight Zone Episode written by Theodore Sturgeon.

Isaac Newton argued very specifically that time and space are an infinitely large container for all events, and that the container exists with or without the events. He added that space and time are not material substances, but are like substances in not being dependent on anything except God.

Time contains event, but time is not dependent on anything but God.

So time is like a canvass where events are painted, But even without the painting, the

canvass still exist. This is quite comprehensible.

Gottfried Leibniz argued that time is not an entity existing independently of actual events. He insisted that Newton had underemphasized the fact that time necessarily involves an ordering of any pair of non-simultaneous events.

According to Leibniz time necessarily involves ordering of events...time needs this ordering and without it, time cannot exist.

Remove the painting and you remove the canvass.

Of course, there are those who deny the existence of time and there are those who are not bothered by time.

Immanuel Kant has a very different idea about time. Kant proposes that space and time do not really exist outside of us but are "forms of intuition," i.e. conditions of perception, imposed by our own minds. To understand this a little bit more, Kant reacted to the theory of knowledge prevalent that the mind is a passive organ that absorbs experiences and through this process we acquire and organize knowledge. the famous motto is Locke's tabula rasa to which Kant opposed. This is his Copernican revolution, sort of.

Kant reacted by proposing that the mind is not a passive organ but an active one. It does not merely absorb impressions but it has the ability to organize these impressions. To do this, Kant proposes a priori knowledge that is transcendental. (Getting lost here... "I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even before we experience them.";;Kant)

Anyway, to make it short, time and space are a priori forms in the mind that made it possible for our mind to actively organize and grasp ideas or impressions. Ouwardly we experience Newtonian time but also there is an element of Leibniz, the organizing aspect or function of time.

Anyway... this is way too abstract.

Hmmmm...

Time and God.

Is God timeless?

This proposes that God is outside the flow of time. To Him, everything is in the present. This means that everything is determined. This view sacrifices freedom.

Is God eternal?

God is subject to the flow of time but he is not affected, as nature is, by time. This sacrifices many of God's omni- attributes. God is limited because God is not in control of time; he is subject to time. God's knowledge is also limited because he can not look beyond the present. This view puts emphasis on freedom.

Anyway...hmmm...

Happy New Year and do take the time to reflect about time...but most of all, whatever our idea and philosophy of time is...I mean...hmmmm... I think a simple Happy New Year is enough :-)

Meanderings on Time: Physical Time

2011-12-30T10:43:00.000+08:00

The New Year is significant tomost of us because it signifies an end and a new beginning. So for most of us,the ending of an old year means looking back and reflecting or hind-sighting onwhat happened within the passing year. We take time to take a look at the goodthings, achievements, and even the failures that transpired in the last year.

We make assessment and we make resolutions for we believe that we cannot change what happened in the past be it good orbad, but we could make changes for the coming 365 ¼ days; every new year is anew beginning.

Of course this is a stupid idea, but who cares...

an hourglass...primitive clock

But what is time?

Time is how we measure the passing of events and how we organize these sequence of events. Time is measured inhour, minutes and seconds, and with today’s technology, time can even measuredto smaller units like the millisecond. It is also measured in days, weeks, months, years, decade, millenniums, and etc. We may have different time zones, different clock settings but basically we all have grasp of this definition of time.

With the invention of the clock, ourconception of time has become related to speed. We think of time as directlyrelated to movement like production, schedules, plans, trips etc. Time is aunit just like any other unit by which we measure things like the gram, meter,inches and feet if you’re an American, or as a basis from which we computethings like profit, speed, velocity, etc. This is our shared understanding oftime, the physical time. So, this is time for most of us:

1. Bornon _____________.

2. Studyfor _______________.

3. Goto work at __:__ then leave work at __:__.

4. Goto church on ________.

5. Celebratebirthdays on _______________.

6. Getmarried on _________________.

7. Retireon ____________________.

   8.       Dieon ______________________.

   Of course we do not know the exact time for all the items in the list, but they are pretty much determined.

A big schedule!

People waiting for their train schedule in China. Looks like they are wprshipping the god of time.

I think with the invention of theclock, our whole understanding of existence and being changed dramatically: wehave become the slave of time. I was reflecting upon the never ending debateabout determinism versus freedom, but I think one of the factors that favors determinism(in all its shade) is when we have all become slaves of physical time, hence,even the freedom we think we have is even more belittled by the imposition ofschedules upon us by physical time. Though we think we have freedom, but inreality we have lost all that freedom that we think we have when our lives, evento the minutest details, are subject to schedules.

Of course physical time isconcerned with measurement and measurement is limitation. Anyway, time has become a factor in measurement and this is thecommon conception productivity: production x labor x time x interest x etc. : time is money.

Since the industrial revolution...our conception of time.

This, I think, is one of the reasons why the studyof the humanities, the arts, the process of reflection, philosophizing, allother creative and conceptual activities are treated with contempt by peoplewho understood time in terms of physical and financial productivity. This fact is lamented by educators because most of the curriculum created today focuseson production and productivity thus relegating the arts and the study of thehumanities into the backseat. It can be said that the soul of human study is slowlybeing killed by the study for the quest for the continuing improvement of productivity. Introspection, reflection. philosophizing, conceptual creativity...creativity, they are second to useless in this age utilitarianism.

Anyway…where am I?

So, Time is something (for lackof better and understandable term) that is outside us. Its invention, mean the measurement of physical time, is a way for us ofunderstanding and relating to the physical world around us, from going toschool to observing atoms.

Time is a factor.

I imagine time as a conveyor belt that movesus from one place in time to another place in time.

So for me (or for us) timeis linear, ever moving forward but our consciousness of it is measured by thepresent.

Time is a conveyor belt that brings us to the end of our journey: death. Of course we believe that death is a way of bringing us outside the conveyor belt into timelessness or into an infinite conveyor belt but is not subjected to the physical deterioration of the movement from one point to another. You know, I think, sometimes annihilation is much, much better.

And what is that present?

Day? Hour? Minutes? Seconds?

Paul Tillich said it very well:

The moment we say, “This is the present,” the moment has already beenswallowed by the past. The present disappears the very instant we grasp it. Thepresent cannot be caught; it is always gone. So it seems we have nothingreal—neither the past nor the future, nor even the present. Therefore there isa dreaming character about our existence…

Dali's painting says it all...

Crazy ha...

New Year's Meanderings...

2011-12-29T10:03:00.000+08:00

2011 is about to end and just like most human beings I am thinking or trying to make a list of what I would like not to do this coming New Year. The emphasis is on not because I think I did a lot of good things this passing year, but I also think that I did a lot of bad things.

Hmmmm…thinking…hmmm…I would like to have things!

1. Buy a Laptop computer.

I think I am the only one who does not have a Laptop Computer. So, this year, I am going to buy one. A good laptop costs about 30-40 thousand pesos. So, to buy one, I would have to buy on credit which means that atop from the 30-40 thousand pesos principal cost, I have to shell out another 20% for the interests for a one year installment plan. (I had no Credit Card so I have to ride.) At teacher's salary, this means cutting my take home pay by around 30%. Take out the bills, my daughter’s tuitions, medicines, what’s left… that mean we’ll be eating…hmmm…tuyo, kamatis, sardinas, itlog, talong…a whole year of deprivation just to have one damned laptop!

Come to think of it, our old HP Pentium 4 desktop is still ok it may not be that fast, but it still gets the job done.

2. Buy a new fancy cellphone!

I am not much of a cellphone guy. My fascination with CPs stopped when I bought my very first cellphone, Nokia 5110. My 5110 cost me 5 thousand pesos then, which was a lot of money during the 90s. I then thought that I had the best cellphone in the world only to find out the next day that a new model 3210 was already out. I had a 5110 while everybody else had 3210s which cost twice as much as my 5110 but it basically did the same thing except the 3210 had more games. Then after 3210 came, theres 7110, 3310, 5210, 8210...all phone did the same thing, basically. But the flood of celphone models made me realize that theres something wrong here: its not about communication, basically!

Anyway, I am going to buy myself a fancy celphone. One with a touch screen, camera and other fancy stuff that I might not need but will impress the hell out of people. I now could eat in fast food chain and text people as if I have acute myopia keeping my celphone near my face and flashing the Apple logo to all the fastfood customer...I mean I could do that!

But then that could mean eating camote the whole year...

Anyway, my Nokia still works fine. This phone was given to me by the church's youth almost a decade ago. It still works fine; the only part I replaced was the battery. May not look much but still does the same thing, basically: communicate. This phone has one feature that is absent from all fancy cellphones: it never gets lost.

I have left it in classrooms, seminars, church pews... always when I come back to look for it, it is there where I left it. My celphone is also immune from comparison and envy, and I have no worry about snatchers and it could also be used as a defensive missile.

3. Buy a new motorcycle

Naaahhhhh....no eating for two years.

4. Buy a decent classical guitar

This one I am thinking seriously. But then again buying myself a good classical guitar is like buying a bad guitar player a good guitar.

5. Buy good books

This I could afford but second hand books are just as good.

Anyway, what I plan for this year is a year free from debt. I plan to save, if that is possible at all.

Island Hopping Christmas

2011-12-28T12:13:00.000+08:00

I had a good time with my family this Christmas break. It would have been a perfect Christmas holiday if my missionary brother and his family were here with us. But I know that their absence was more than made up for by the knowledge that they were doing God's work, and they were with us in spirit. Of course it would have been better if we were able Skype with them, but the broad band signal in Alaminos was so poor that it was not made possible.

We went island hopping at the Hundred Islands Park in Alaminos, Pangasinan. This was not the first time I had been to Alaminos, I had visited the place a couple of times since my sister and brother in law started their ministry at Alaminos Baptist Church; this was my first time to go island hopping.

Though the waves were a little rough when we left the shore, the bobbing and the water splashes added thrill to the ride. I was a little concerned because I do no know how to swim, and I was thinking if ever the boat capsized, what would I do or who would I save first, to think that I do not even know how to swim! Of course my fear was unfounded because we all had life vests, but I could not help thinking about it.

I was really amazed by the natural bonsais that I saw on the rock ledges. Though I didn't know what kind of tress they were, their size, shape and proportions impressed me ( a non bonsai guy, may I say). Anyway, I am thinking of buying binoculars so that next time I go on an eco-trip, I would be able to make the most of the sights. Of course a DSLR camera would be fine too, but that is way, way beyond my salary.

My sister was pointing to an island and she was telling me that it was shaped like a turtle. This was another way of enjoying the hundred islands, looking at them and letting your imagination run wild as to what they were shaped to look like. But here was the problem, the boat's engine was so loud that it made it impossible to have a conversation.

This made it almost impossible to think and to share ideas about the sight. The shared experiences of the moment were virtually lost, drowned by the engine's noise. What remained was your own impressions which would have been enriched by the shared impressions of the others. Once on the island, away from the boat, it's futile to talk about a particular sight that had passed because looking and sharing your impressions were not the same as describing and talking what you have seen...just not the same.

My sister and nephew covering their ears because they were sitting near the engine.

The trip was enjoyable except for the noise of the boat's engine. I wondered why nobody ever though of putting mufflers on those engines. Of course, to some tourists, the engine's noise maybe a good thing...

Anyway, we all had fun. God be thanked. Next year, the family is planning of going to Thailand to celebrate Christmas with my missionary brother's family...that is, Lord willing.

GMA Over Acting

2011-12-09T11:30:00.003+08:00

Please...ambivalent is how I will describe what I feel about her.

I was not that interested with the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo drama. Though the news was filled with updates, I was really just a passive listener to what’s going on in the country’s colorful political arena. But what is happening to GMA is an irresistible topic of conversation and it matters not whether you're interested or not because everyone has a say about it.

Anyway, as we were having our grade six teachers meeting, the discussion drifted into the GMA incarceration. Most of the teachers (others were silent) expressed disgust at how Gloria Macapagal Arroyo played into the people’s emotion. The former president and her spokespersons made the common Filipinos believe that she was suffering from a life threatening illnesses what with all that special effects like neck brace and wheel chair.

GMA’s lawyer, a man called Lambino, defined life threatening as dying of old age and if I follow his logic, all of us have life threatening illnesses. Well, that’s what you get when lawyers speak about medical condition: lawyers playing doctors and doctors playing lawyers. Only in the Philippines!

What is sad, and not unexpected if I may say, about Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is that she is not getting any sympathies from the common Filipino with the exception of paid sycophants, drivers, maids and others who directly benefited from her. Senator Ping Lacson said it very well, “nakakaawa si GMA kasi walang naawa sa kanya.”

In contrast to what happened to Estrada, when the news that the presidency was taken from him by GMA, the masses showed their support to him to the point of threatening a revolution.

Karma is what the common Filipino think about what is happening to her. But, I think, the more appropriate concept is "gaba."

Short Circuit

2011-12-03T11:36:00.009+08:00

My classes were over for the day. I was resting in the multi media room ,which is beside my homeroom, when a pupil approached me and told me that one of the electrical outlets in my classroom “blew up.” I asked what happened and she told me that one of boys inserted a pair of scissors into the socket.

I was puzzled because PO2 Robert was in my room conducting a DARE class. Anyway, I stood up and went to my room. The DARE class was over so I did not catch PO2 Robert to asked him what happened.

I asked for the culprit and when he was brought to me, it was Christian. I asked him what he did and he just looked at me and gave me the most (hmmm…) innocent look that I have seen since I started teaching.

Some of the boys were behind me giving Christian the scare.

Anyway, I was exhausted and I didn't want to add to my stress by losing my patience. So, I just smiled and told Christian, in a serious teacher voice, to sing me a Christmas carol to cool my anger off. He looked at me with disbelief. “Okay,” I said, “either I am going to report you to the principal, or ask for your parents to come on Monday to have a word with me, or you can sing me a Christmas carol to cool my anger off.” The boys behind me were laughing while egging him to sing.

I was upset, but I didn’t want to be angry at something that had already happened. I was relieved that he was not electrocuted.

Christian didn’t sing but he did laugh; we all had a good laugh.

Anyway, one of the Master Teachers dealt with him more properly, I should say.

So, I had to go to school today, a Saturday, to change the fuse.

Fernando Amorsolo

2011-11-30T05:10:00.002+08:00

Fernando Amorsolo y Cueto (May 30, 1892 – April 24, 1972) is one of the most important artists in the history of painting in the Philippines. Amorsolo was a portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes. He is popularly known for his craftsmanship and mastery in the use of light. Born in Paco, Manila, he earned a degree from the Liceo de Manila Art School in 1909.

Amorsolo is best known for his illuminated landscapes, which often portrayed traditional Filipino customs, culture, fiestas and occupations. His pastoral works presented "an imagined sense of nationhood in counterpoint to American colonial rule" and were important to the formation of Filipino national identity.

Sketch of a woman, whose unfinished style is representative of Amorsolo's sketching.

He was educated in the classical tradition and aimed "to achieve his Philippine version of the Greek ideal for the human form."^] In his paintings of Filipina women, Amorsolo rejected Western ideals of beauty in favor of Filipino ideals and was fond of basing the faces of his subjects on members of his family.

"[The women I paint should have] a rounded face, not of the oval type often presented to us in newspapers and magazine illustrations. The eyes should be exceptionally lively, not the dreamy, sleepy type that characterizes the Mongolian. The nose should be of the blunt form but firm and strongly marked. ... So the ideal Filipina beauty should not necessarily be white complexioned, nor of the dark brown color of the typical Malayan, but of the clear skin or fresh colored type which we often witness when we met a blushing girl."

(From Wikipedia)

Sad Day Today

2011-11-29T09:07:00.007+08:00

Mrs. Nora Echalas one of the principals from the district of Taytay 1 passed away yesterday. She was the principal of Hapay na Mangga Elementary School. Her passing was a surprise for all of us because when she observed our classes a couple of weeks ago, she looked well.

According to Mrs. Lulu Gerardo, our principal and district supervisor, Mrs. Echalas was alone in her office when she had an asthma attack. She called out for help but she did not make it to the hospital. She was 42 years old.

It was a sad day for all of us. I did not know her well because she was new to the district. But I was acquainted with her during the district school journalism seminar because she was the district consultant in Filipino.

I and the teachers of TES give our condolences to her family.

Amaya

2011-11-26T15:56:00.002+08:00

Amaya is a popular epic-historical TV series shown at GMA Channel 7.

To show that GMA is serious about the cultural and hsitorical aspect of the series, a documentary special was shown to show to the viewing public the effort the network had gone through to make sure of the historicity of the series.

Historians were consulted to make sure that the character had some historical parallel. Anthropologist, archaeologists and other experts were interviewed to add authority to the claim of historical accuracy to the settings and the implements etc.. Ancient Filipino languages experts also contributed their knowledge of ancient Filipino language so that the dialog would be appropriate for the time setting. Hence, the dialogs are anachronistic.

DepEd and National Historical Institute even promoted the program for its historical and cultural value. Blah,blah,blah...But they missed one important and obvious detail.

For heaven's sake, she is a meztiza. I have nothing against Marian, but she looks like a Spanish seniora, an alien (not that alien).

The fictional epic (as in epically inspired by Korean epic historical TV series featuring epic historical women) was supposed to be set in the Visayas before the coming of the Spaniards. Hence, common sense, or logic, or my brain, tells me that pre-Spanish Filipinas should look like pre-Spanish Filipinas.

This is how I imagine a pre- Spanish, pre-Vicky Bello, pre-Glutathione Filipina should look like.

What I mean is that I believe, even historians, anthropologists, archaelogists, biologists and lobotomists would agree with me that meztizas were not supposed to exist before the Spanish era.

Of course, they have artistic and creative freedom...I am just asking!

Friday Blues...(not that Blues)

2011-11-25T10:53:00.008+08:00

Friday and feeling a little down. It’s because of money, lack of it. No matter how I try to be a little aloof, or stoical (?) about money, still the lack of it could sometimes put me down. Hmmm… The feeling is quite natural especially in this age where the temple of materialism and consumerism abounds promoting materialism and consumerism, what else? One pastor calls them SM or Satan’s Mall. But I wouldn’t go that far…maybe Satanic Malls would be better. Just kidding. Malls are amoral, they have no idea what is right or wrong or evil or good, etc. They are just buildings filled made up of matter for heaven’s sake.

SM Mall of Asia (MOA) is a shopping mall owned and developed by SM Prime Holdings, the largest mall developer and owner in the Philippines. SM Mall of Asia is the 2nd largest mall in the Philippines after SM City North EDSA, 3rd largest shopping mall in Asia and the 4th^[1] (Ref. Forbes' World's 10 Largest Shopping Malls) largest shopping mall in the world.

We just received our Christmas compensation and even before the money could land on the table (I put my salary on the table in front of my daughter and wife, and we all do the budgeting to let my daughter see how every cent is accounted for). Before the money landed on the table, it already went to bill enevelopes. But there were still some debt unpaid, waiting for the next compensation before finally being settled, I hope. At least I have given my wife and my daughter their Christmas money. But as my co-teachers and master teachers always tell me, “at least there is money that passes by your hands” (Sounds better in Tagalog).

Money sure can't buy happiness but at least they could buy stuffs.

I was planning to buy two sets of guitar strings, nylon and steel, for my guitars, but I guess it will have to wait for hmmm…ever. Good guitar strings are quite expensive. I hope instrument makers will develop strings that do not break or lose their tone.

Guitar strings, especially nylons, lasts long but they tend to become dull and lose their tones because of the stretching and the contracting.

One of the reasons I miss my childhood is that I missed the naiveté (not the nativity) of Christmas. I grew up during the martial law era. Life was quite simple then because there were not that much stuff around. There were no TV lifestyle, or reality shows that promotes hedonistic living; shows that makes one want to rob a bank so that he/she could get money and at least get a taste of high living. Most of the TV shows then was Marcos proclaiming something on the TV, all stations both TV and radio. Even Voltes V was banned from being shown; may corrupt the youth’s mind. I suspect Marcos was afraid that some genius would create a robot or something that could challenge his security force.

Out you go...you Japanese invader. I think one of the reasons why many Filipino supported Cory Aquino was because they despised, deeply hated Marcos for pulling Voltes V out of air . The family was not forgiven and the act not forgotten. Voltes V is a cult here in the Philippines.

Compared today, there are a lot of stuff everywhere. Of course its not that I miss the martial law days. What I really miss is the childness of Christmas.

Anyway, I am thankful for Christmas because, really, Christmas means grace…and I should be writing my lesson plans!

Dividing the world

2011-11-23T21:31:00.009+08:00

I see things. You see things. We all see things.

There’s a chair.

I see an ugly chair. You see an expensive antique furiture. We all see a chair.

I see something to sit on. You see an investment. We all see a chair.

We all experience and perceive a chair.

But what is that chair?

The chair is what we see. We all see a chair. We all see the same chair. We all see different chairs.

Easy enough to explain what a chair is.

Here we must explain two different worlds.

The world we perceive. Everything that comes to our senses is what reality to us is.

This is called Phenomenon

But there’s another world…

The world beyond our perception, beyond our knowledge.

The world we will never know--noumenon. The noumenon are inhabited by the Noumena. Noumena are things in themselves.

What we perceive are only properties of the chair; we do not percieve the real chair. We will not be able to perceive and apprehend the real chair--the thing in itself.

Crazy, no such things as noumenon.

Then if there’s no noumeon; we know everything. Because everything we know, we perceive--apriori, a posteriori.

But we know, we do not know everything; we can not know everything.

Noumenon. The world beyond our perception. The world we will not perceive but we know it must exist.

Noumenon is Heaven!

Or Hell...

Or God

Philo indigestion :-)

Pitter-patter of the rain

2011-11-22T09:40:00.007+08:00

Listening and watching the rain is relaxing. When I look at plants and trees, I could imaging them smiling and dancing as the drops of water refresh them...Or, I could just be hungry or crazy or something. Also, I imagine champurado, lugaw and dvd marathon.

In my room having my in-between classes break enjoying the pitter-patter of the rain. This is the kind of weather that I really enjoy, wet, damp and cold. I observe that in this weather the pupils slow down. They tend to huddle together and keep still. Unlike when the weather is hot, they tend to move around a lot, fanning themselves. They gather together near the windows to catch a cool breeze here and then. They fight over seats near the electric fans. When it’s hot, they are restless; when it’s cold, they are relatively calm and relaxed. Of course, when it rains or even drizzles most of them are always asking when the classes would be suspended.

My daughter enjoying the rain. One of the things I enjoy is motorcycling or bicycling in the rain.

I remember when I was in grade school classes were suspended based on storm signals. Those days, its not unusual for me and my classmates to go home in knee deep water . But today, because of Typhoon Ondoy and the flash floods it brought, the authorities are not taking chances; they suspend classes when they think the threat of flood is becoming imminent without that much respect to typhoon signals. I suppose its better to be safe than sorry.

But now, the pupils have gotten used to classes being suspended because of rain and flood that even a drizzle gives them suggestion of classes being suspended. Teachers don't like suspension of classes because we would be obliged to have make up classes on weekends.

Rain and Christmas is in the air. This is a bad combination, wet and cold-- bronchitis; that is, if one is not careful with his/her health.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to wake up in the morning because of the cold air. The nights are getting longer and the days are getting shorter. Christmas songs that used to cheer me up when I was a child are now giving me depression. Gaawwddd, really, I think I am becoming a scrooge.

But, it’s okay, as long as the children are having a good time.

_____________________________________________________

Pupils: “Sir! When is our Christmas party?”

Me: “January 5!”

Pupils: “Sir!!!!”

Me: “I am expecting gifts this Christmas?”

Pupils: “Will give you chewing gums!”

Thoughts about God, deconstruction, and other weird thoughts

2011-11-21T10:39:00.004+08:00

If Horses could draw, they would draw their gods like horses.--Xenophanes of Colophon.

Of course, he was deriding the Greek polytheism. Our conception of God depends on our conception of ourselves. Our relationship with God depends on how we relate to ourselves. We cannot, though it is always emphasized, as I perceive it, create a purely "doctrinal biblical" relationship with God; there's always subjectivity.

I don’t know why, but every day, every damned day, the thought of God kept nagging me. I don’t mean to be blasphemous or sacrilegious or sacrilegiously blasphemous or even an anti-Christ but there’s something irresistibly nagging and itchy, mentally itchy, about the thought of God. It’s like the patches of dandruff on my head that my hand kept scratching and flaking even though the dandruff has long been cured, temporarily, that is. (Why do dandruffs keep coming back?)

Not my dandruff, just a random picture I downloaded from the net. There's an itch in all of us to try to grasp existential and metaphysical (wow, don't know these word myself but they do sound good) things. To go beyond the unknowable. Either the itch is drowned or suppressed by dogmatism and legalism or the itch is entertained by exploring the itch (I don't know if I'm making any sense here) and uncovering the flakes little by little.

I grew up in a Christian family who was once a Roman Catholic then was converted to Southern Baptist. And the family’s, especially my, conception of God has always been what I would call an orthodox (again the word may not mean correct or right, it may just simply mean “what the majority accepts as true”) conception of God. God is almighty; God is omnipresent; God is omniscient; God is perfect. If you are good, God will answer your prayer; but, if you have been bad, God will not listen to you. Then there’s the Trinity, hierarchy of Angels. The doctrine about the afterlife: heaven and hell, or we may add purgatory. And other logical, supra-logical and counter intuitive stuff that ordinary human beings would just call WTF.

(What is That For?!)

When I started exploring a little theology (dangerous, should have kept myself away), fancy theological-philosophical stuff like theodicy, justification, sin, ethics etc. popped up which made theology a more or less an armchair discipline i.e more of a philosophical enterprise, and, as is known; philosophers have one tool for doing philosophy, the armchair.

Philosophers have one method of doing their thing: sitting down and thinking. They have no laboratories, no test tubes, flask, rulers....they do everything in their heads. Their thought experiments produced profound results and world changing, paradigm shifting ideas; and their butts, I'm sure, produced humongous callouses.

One thing about theology is that, well for me, it started in my head a chain of events…a sort of…not really doubting, but a deconstruction of God and other heavenly stuff. Deconstruction is simply questioning assumptions; as the word implies, it means taking things or assumptions apart to see if the assertions are true, or if they make sense, or if they show identity; or sometimes, by deconstruction, we may arrive at conclusions that words are just words referring to words predicated on words. In search for meaning, by deconstructing, we may find at least a modicum of truth or sense in the endless peeling of the onion skin, to speak of.

What's behind every question?

Of course, there are people who are afraid of this kind of activity. They are afraid; they are afraid of what’s at the center of the onion—nothing but skin, everything is but layers of skin.

Guess this photo is for sale. Anyway, we should not be afraid of exploring the question of God. We should not even be afraid of deconstructing our idea God. Children do it all the time and it sure does not affect God in anyway at all. Our awe and wander should of God should not be boxed and encapsulated with doctrines and dogmatism. All these things, dogmas and doctrines, are relative formulations based on the the word of God. And these things do change as each age have different challenges that faces them. Heck, there are medieval doctrines that would not be acceptable today and there are doctrines today that would be heretical to the medieval mind. Example for our generation is gender equality, environmental issues...But there are core doctrine or dogmas that do not change. Nothing wrong with doctrines or dogma or even tradition, they are good; they help. But they also confine...

Child: Where do flowers came from?

Adult: They came from plants.

Child: Where do plants came from?

Adult: They came from seeds?

Child: Where do seeds came from?

Adult: They came from fruits?

Child: Where do fruits came from?

Adult: They came from trees?

Child: Where do trees came from?

Adult: God made them.

Here’s where things get a little fuzzy-wuzzy and where we adults simply prayed about not encountering.

Child: Who made God?

Adult: God has always existed.

Of course, we would rather have the child ask about Bible characters, Bible doctrines, Bible promises, Bible commandments…But children are more profound than that. They are not still. I mean their thinking is not yet confined to Biblical doctrines or dogma. So, the question continues…

Child: Who made God?

Adult: God was never created. He is, was, and will be.

Child: Who made God?

Of course, I know the answer to that question. God is.

The questions continue:

Child: Who made God?

Most adults give up because they dare not tackle the question of God because its taboo. But for a child, nothing is taboo. This is a child deconstructing God, or our conception of God for us.

Children ask what is God, where God came from, who created God and not who God is. This is the first fundamental theological question or the starting point of a theological exploration that we all (or most) encounter as a child.

Most religion based their beliefs in God or Gods or Deities on revelations like holy books, nature, dreams, visions or other hmmm....levels of "inspired" revelation. Of course, the best way to preserve this beliefs is to codify them and pronounce divine inspiration on these codified belief whether it be written down or memorized oral traditions.

Anyway, where am I, so, it is understandable why it is necessary for some people to do their own exploring about God. Honest labor, I should say. But these explorations and the conclusions they came up did not sit well with orthodoxy so many of these ideas or conception about were either banned, exhumed, burned; their authors killed, anathemized, anathemized and killed and burned, or ..well, they were removed from existence because their views about God do not sit well with organized religion, tithing and love gifts.

Anyway, a thought entered my mind...Its just painful to realize that he Bible promises to answer all our questions about the mysteries of God and life only when we die. I do admire philosophers for their courage to look into these things, these mysteries...

Of course, we all should humble ourselves before God. After reading this, you may now begin to doubt my mental heath or my spiritual health. This is my faith:

I believe in the God revealed in the Holy Bible.

I believe in the inspiration of the Bible.

I believe in God's grace and in God's justice.

I believe that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin mother, lived as human being, preached God's kingdom and healed people, died for me and mys sins and because of this, I am saved.

I believe Jesus is God incarnate.

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I believe in the fellowship of all Christians.

I believe that heaven is spending eternity with God.

I believe hell is spending eternity apart from God.

I believe in prayers and I submit myself to Christian disciplines...except excommunication.

Not that much systematic theology in here...but I believe my Faith is pretty solid.

I also believe that God gave us the mind and the freedom to explore, think and just let our meander once in a while into the unknowable.

Mid Life Crisis 2, Retirement, Bad Report Card, Spitting Image

2011-11-20T16:11:00.010+08:00

As I approach my middle (sort of a countdown), I try to not think too much about stuffs; relax is what I mean. The problem is that I do think. Maybe it’s a hormonal or a psychological call it whatever name it may be called; but, lately (though I tried to not to) I notice that I am becoming more of a worrier than a thinker. Not that I am much of a thinker, anyway.

I know worrying is not healthy, and even to some Christians worrying is a sign of weakness, floundering faith, and some even say it’s a form of lesser sin—missing the mark, I suppose. But thinking or worrying is one those things, bodily function or mental activity, that I (or anybody) could not just shut off. I mean, I for one would like to have the mental switch that I could manipulate to switch off thinking or worrying—I mean you cannot worry if you’re not thinking, vice versa.

Where's the damned switch?

Reaching forty, or the fear of it, I am now thinking of retirement. Job promotion is not my mind, retirement is. I mean, I have only twenty years of teaching, most teachers take ten or more years plus graduate studies to get a pay grade hike, for me that is just too much. Not thinking of graduate studies, I stopped with 12 units in ED Management, who knows in the future. All I want is job security and when I retire a little lot in Quezon Province to plant camote.

The nightmare!

Vision or delusion of wealth, achievements or grandeur has left me twenty years ago! All I am looking forward to is a quiet retirement. That is one of the reasons why I am encouraging my daughter to study--a selfish reason, really. That is why I am trying, with my salary as a teacher 1, to provide for her a school that I think would suit her—a Christian School, not necessarily cheap and charitable or "Christian"--its really the perception that the school is good, that' all there is to it.

I hope for her to be independent so that when it comes to my and her mother’s retirement, she is already well on her way off. My greatest fear is that, like most Filipinos, she would be a dependent i.e. living with us with her husband and children. For heavens sake...pleeeeaaaassseeee nnnnoooooo. I pray not. My Goooddd....nnnnooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

I am not looking to her to be our retirement insurance or thing like that. I know most parents think of their children as retirement plans, not me. I just want her to be happily married and doing okay, not rich, just okay, maybe a teacher, an engineer or an embalmer...whatever makes her happy.

Where am I going?

I got my daughter’s report card, and I was really disappointed. I am not expecting her to have grades worthy of a scholar, a genius, (not in our blood, anyway). (I came from a family of weirdos, but we are not really that smart.) No, I am not expecting such things. All I am expecting was progress, tiny, little, bitty, microscopic progress. (I SEEK PROGRESS AND NOT PERFECTION--shouting my motto as a teacher.) I was her former teacher and I am her father, I know what she is capable of, but the progress I am expecting was not reflected in the report card.

Hmmm…worried. No matter how I tried to be philosophical and objective, I just cannot get over the disappointment.But, I am more of a pessimist than an optimist and as they say, pessimist are never disappointed.

I am thinking of shouting at my daughter. Preaching to her about hell and damnation in Gehenna or whatever place it is till my tonsils fall off--start from Genesis to Revelation plus the Apocrypha . Or, I could smash her head with books till her head bleeds.Or plead with her like Mary pleading for the life of Jesus...or stuffs like that. Heck, I could just make her stop schooling.

Hmmm...think about these things till they dry off.

I have been trying to cool off for two days now. I am not at home, I am at the school writing this. I can’t stand looking at my daughter, not that I don't love her anymore,—not angry, really, just disappointed—come to think of it, I don’t know which is worse. I have been quiet for two days now...thinking, simmering, and letting the steam off.

But then, introspection sets in. I am seeing in my daughter myself: the same lackadaisical attitude towards school, contempt for authority and even irreverence and dislike for religion, religious people and religious nonsense . My God! She is me.

That is why I am worried.

I am already starting to feel better...

But I know she will come about. I know because I know there's a lot of me in her (and a lot of her mother in her)…rebellious, hard, but I know when to quit the foolish stuff and start taking the bull by the horn and crushing the balls by the scrotum...

Mid-life crisis

2011-11-19T12:16:00.005+08:00

About eight months from now, I will be 40. I am half a year to (my) middle age: it’s all downhill from here. The realization that it’s the age where my body starts to break down; my metabolism slows down; my body does not produce replacement cells it ought to keep the body working properly, makes me stop for a while and think about nothing, sort of, about my life.

The decline could be slowed down by exercise and proper diet, but, still, it’s all downhill from here now on. Pains and aches do not go away that easily. Wrong food could wreck havoc on my day for instance eating too much beans gives me rheumatism and head aches. My body becomes my frail master.

Hindsight becomes the predominant thinking and foresight takes a backseat. Maybe it’s because there’s not that much to look forward to. In the middle and thinking, half of my life’s spent. Now, what I am going to do? Thinking about the past mistakes and wishing that my daughter would not make the same mistakes that I have been through; the thought is so stressing that mere thinking about these things tires me out.

I think this is quite normal especially for people going through middle age.

Now, I want to take it slow. I ride my motorcycle slow. I wake up early and jog. I wake before dawn to have a longer day. I sleep early to have a longer night of rest. I try not to think that much. I listen to music more; look at trees and flowers with a feminine appreciation for things of such beauty. Appreciate the chirping of birds and look at the sky with awe and childlike wonder, as if that is still possible.

Of course I try not to think about death. But it’s a subject that becomes certain, or looms with certainty more than anything when I am about to break the psychological boundary of midlife, 40. In my youth, death hardly touches the surface of my thinking. I used to think that thirty is old. Forty five, the age my father died, is the limit. I am still young, and I dare not think about tomorrow. But now, I realized that thirty is young and dying at forty five is waste. As the thought of death looms, the looking back at the days of youth becomes painful.

Haaaaa…I need to have more fun. Now, I realized that a person should not spend his youth drinking and partying instead he should drink and party in his mid life.

Of course, I am too old for that now.

MP, Boxing, Heroes, etc...

2011-11-13T16:16:00.006+08:00

To tell the truth, I am pretty disappointed that Manny Pacquiao won against Morales. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a traitor nor do I hate MP. It's just that the predictability of the match is so predictable (I don’t know if I’m making any sense here) that the fight is just not that fun.

I don’t know if anybody notices it, but MP’s fights are getting longer and longer and I, and most of his fans, I guess, are looking forward to the hungry, I will knock the hell-out-of-you MP of the past. His matches are beginning or are already more of a business venture and entertainment than really raw boxing. Not that there’s something wrong with it, but really I miss the animal in him. Maybe he already feels his age.

Time may come...

But anyway, as a Filipino, I am still proud of the man.

The media hype...

I have one thing about all of this though. I have nothing against MP, and I assume that he is the man the press portrays him to be. But I doubt that…The way the press promotes him, the media hype which I call the mythologization of Pacquaio has it negative side to it.

Champion and the myth

There are other heroes. There are other Filipinos who, I think, deserves equal media treatment as MP. Many of this heroes are overshadowed by boxing. There are those who do well in the arts, academics, public service, science, etc.

Let’s face it; he is not the poor boy from GenSan anymore. He is already the billionaire Pacquiao and his success story is a good and an inspiring story. Unfortunately, his story, though inspiring, if we take into account probability, have very little chance of being duplicated. If we keep on promoting his life, we may end up killing many aspiring young boxers.

In November of 1981, Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim dies after brutal fight with Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini (below, in 1999). The tragic death forever tormented Mancini and changed the sport of boxing.

More and more of our youth, especially from the poor are trying their lot with boxing. There’s nothing wrong with it, but definitely something is not right when the youth tries to emulate the exception in boxing with little knowledge of the tragedies and failures in boxing. Of the many boxers that our country produced most of them, if not all of them, fared badly. With his business acumen and native intelligence, only MP made it to international superstardom and the million dollar club.

Really, I just wish a day without news about Pacquaio. This has to end...somehow. His last fight against Marquez is not convincing. He should retire now.

Stumped, TV Shows

2011-11-11T21:19:00.006+08:00

Stumped…

Maybe I should say something about TV shows.

AGB Nielsen People Ratings (November 4 to 8, 2011) – Now nearing its finale, “100 Days to Heaven” takes lead over “Amaya” in Mega Manila People Ratings.-Starnometer

As I am writing, I could hear the theme from “100 days to Heaven.” The TV drama was about a notorious lady who owns a toy factory. The lady died and when she met St. Peter, she was given 100 days to correct or to make amends to all the people she had wronged when she was still alive.

The series will end today, 11-11-11.

While we were having dinner, my wife and daughter were pretty excited about the ending. My wife was even a bit sad that the series was about to end. Even though I do not like watching Pinoy series because I am more of an X-files, Fringe, Smallville person, I was forced to be a passive audience. Hard to admit but I have become a fan of 100 Days to Heaven. Maybe it’s because the series reminded me of that old Michael Landon series Highway to Heaven, about an angel who needed to earn his wings by helping people.

Maybe its Coney Reyes’ acting, maybe it’s the little girl’s acting, maybe the TV network is transmitting subliminal suggestions…

Anyway, the story was trite and the theme song was a popular song from long ago that has become a standard for funeral, not that song was bad or anything. I guess if a song becomes a standard for funeral marches, that song has reached the pinnacle of its success.

The ending has a touch of the Revilla drama..."ipakukulong ba natin ang ating kapatid?"

Hooopps...as I was typing, 100 Days to Heaven did not end today. This was expected. Local networks had this habit of extracting the last, very last drop of advertising revenue so, I guess, the series would be extended for a week. Or they would change the title to 1000 Days to Heaven.

Iglot is also ending today.

Iglot - Description: Iglot (lit. Talking Scrotum or nagsasalitang betlog) is a Philippine television drama series created by GMA Network.

I was not a fan of the series for the obvious reason: I did not like the creature. It was stiff, the feather (I mean the fur) too artificial, looked like rayon wool to me. The eyes looked like marbles. It didn't even looked like a stuffed toy. It moved awkwardly.

This creature was not even the center of the story. The writing got so bad that the only thing that kept the show afloat was Claudine Barretos' mediocre acting.

Lamarck, Paper Mache, Just Having Fun...

2011-11-05T13:32:00.012+08:00

I was sitting and reflecting… letting my imagination run amok, looking at my pupils’ papier mache projects. I was wondering where did my pupils get the inspiration to make papier maches of creatures that have no legs or arms…reptiles and nematodes like snakes and worms are legless, so, no wondering there.

I was looking at the ovoid shaped-mega cephalic-limbless- benevolent looking-cute-but weird creatures that they have papier mached.

Mind you, I have nothing against these art works. They are great. I am proud of them. They are the product of my pupils’ efforts and imaginations. I didn’t give them specific instruction on what to make or not to make except that they should not submit to me a papier mache of amoeba or germs. (Crumpled paper with some paint on it!)

Any creatures will do. So, I am happy that they did not create boring stuff like a detailed, lifelike paper mache of a flying grasshopper, crouching tiger, flying eagle, mating rabbits, etc. I gave them artistic freedom. So, they created what they wanted to do and not what I wanted to see. I respect the subjective in art.

Anyway…I love these artworks because I see beauty. The real beauty in them: effort, creativity, humor and fun! (Form, symmetry, center of attention, balance etc...these word should not be discussed with children because these words are confining. A philosopher once said, "You cannot get substance from form."

I was writing my lesson plan when a pupils came to submit this. At first, I was confused. What did I miss? I was tempted to say things like "is this a mutant yema" or "wow, this looks like Java the Hut with hepatitis C!"But the enthusiasm and the smile on her face was so contagious that I smiled and said, "very good!" I gave her good grade because she met my requirement: she had fun doing the project.

I ask what kind of animals or creatures are these? According to them, these creatures are from a computer game called Angry Birds. Being prone to computer game addiction, I stopped playing games. So, I was a bit at a lost about the new fad in online gaming. A couple of months back, I got so addicted to Plants and Zombies that even my bodily function was affected; I almost developed stones from not getting up to pee. So, I made a resolution to stop playing computer games…hmm, maybe, at least until the classes are over.

A good pillow...

Reflecting upon the papier maches...the name Lamarck popped in my head. Lamarck was known for his theory of heretibality of acquired characteristics. Before Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, natural selection, mutation etc. Lamarck proposed his theory that acquired characteristics can be passed to the offspring. Okay...look at the picture below:

Here's from the experts:

In Lamarck's view, we must imagine a situation in the past where the best food for browsing mammals was higher up in trees, the lower vegetation having been eaten by other animals. The ancestors of the giraffe—which we should imagine like antelopes or deer—needed to adapt their behavior to this changing environment. As Lamarck wrote, "variations in the environment induce changes in the needs, habits and modes of life of living beings ... these changes give rise to modifications or developments in their organs and the shape of their parts" (p. 179). So Lamarck imagined that over generations the habit of continually reaching for the higher browse produced in the giraffe's ancestors a lengthening of the legs and neck.

The giraffe with the short neck dies of hunger; and in the process, they eventually become extinct. The giraffe with the long necks would naturally survive. Of course there are stages in between, their offspring maybe mixed some with long neck, some with short neck but according to selection, the short necked offspring would eventually die out because they could not adapt.

This one reminds of the pet alien creature from John Carpenter's earliest sci-f movie Dark Star. Again, they enjoyed doing it...good grades from me.

The Lamarck view of evolution is that animals (or creatures) develops or modify their organs to adapt to their environment. So, if an organ is not used, these organs die off naturally. Like if an animal (or people) do not use their arms, the arms atrophies and die...maybe they will even fall off, as in, "Wow, me arms fell off. Guess, I am not using them that much!"

What made this one special is its mass. When a pupil gave it to me, I almost lost my balance. This was made from 100% recycled paper. No wire or bamboo stick skeleton, pure muscle, so to speak. I had fun...good grade from me.

So with the brains. "Aaccchooooo!" Look at that big snot that flew out of my nose! "Son, that's not a snot! That's you brain. Guess you are not using it that much anyway."

Of course, its true that organs that are rarely used are wasted away but according to Lamarck, these dying off, the wasting away of unused organs could be inherited. Goes both way, if we follow Lamarck, trumpet blowers should have developed large lungs, thick lips and enlarged testicles. According to Lamarck, these acquired characteristics could be passed off to the next generation.

At first glance, I almost shouted, "Bert! Is that you? What did they do to you? Ohh noo.. where's Ernie?!" I thought this was Bert's head. Again...what's important is we all had fun.

So,it is important to check what your ancestors line of work to better understand some of your features. Like, If you have fine delicate fingers, your ancestor could be a pianist. If you have thick lips and you walk like a duck, your ancestor could be a tuba player. Or, if you have an abnormally large big feet, your ancestor could be a spartan.

My co-teacher, Jayson Marquez, and I were discussing these two. On the right is a cobra while on the left...hmmm... we came to an agreement, an amoebic poop. Artwork that makes me think and write...sort of... is way,way up there in my creativity scale. Most definitely, deserves an A from me.

Anyway...where was I? Lamarck....if Lamarck is right. These legless creature will...this is how we could look like: the future homo sapiens...the homo cyber potatoes. Why? More and more people are spending their time sitting down in front of the computer, game boy, PSP, etc...you do the math.

Ghosts, Candles, Tradition, All Souls Day

2011-11-02T08:30:00.009+08:00

While watching TV last night, my daughter asked why we don’t put lighted candles at our doorstep. This is tradition. I used to do this but I stopped because things are getting pretty expensive here in RP and wasting few pesos to light candles to remember the dead seemed like a waste.

I told my daughter that I didn't light candles because lighting a candle to remember relatives that passed away is too external, too showy for my taste (if you have no money, act like a high faluting snob), and they are dead anyway surely they would not be able to appreciate it. If it will make you feel better, I told my daughter, "I will light a bonfire at the front yard so that we will have better illumination than candles. A bongacious way of commemorating our dear departed ones, drives away mosquitoes too."

Do you see the silhouette of a lady? Look again very carefully. It is somewhere above my head. The lady appears to be smiling.

I don’t know where this tradition came from but it’s obvious that candles give off light; light is used to illuminate a path especially a meandering path. Hence, the sojourner can easily find his or her way home. Filipinos believe that when people die, they just don’t go to heaven or hell or purgatory or the park. They linger here on earth to accomplish some unfinished business or to ask for justice or to simply pissed of their loved ones by making their presence felt. This is called paramdam in Tagalog. Hence, these lighted candles are supposed to guide the departed souls back home. If one does not light candles at their door, drifter souls could enter the house and haunt the residents.

My daughter asked me again, why we don’t visit any grave. We all watched the news and saw the mayhem in cemeteries. Children were getting lost, the elderly having high blood pressure because of the heat, the noise, the mob, the CO2, and the vendors. People were looking for their loved ones’ graves and not finding them or finding them only to find out that the remains were ejected and a stranger was occupying the niche. Would you exchange that for the comfort of the home? I asked my daughter.

I think the more sane Filipinos visited and cleaned the graves of their loved ones ahead or later than the holiday. This is much better because this avoid all the inconveniences I mentioned above. Also, they have the privacy, the silence and the intimacy of the moment, so to speak, and this makes it better for them to hear the dead talking back, not literally...hmmm... well, maybe literally.

Here is another view. Do you see it? The silhouette of the lady seemed like smiling! Look above, near my head. There, there, there..did you see it?

My daughter was worried, so to assure her, I told her that my father, her grandfather, was buried in the clan’s cemetery lot. He was interned with the rest of the de la Pazes from Cainta. So, aunties, uncles, cousins and relatives would be cleaning the lot. As far as I could remember, my mother, father and siblings were not really observant of traditions.

Here is the close up of the flame. The image is now forming in your head. Are you seeing it now? The silhouette of a lady.

While I was stoking the fire, I heard a neighbor shouting, “Hoy! Hoy! Why are you stealing the candles!””I went outside and asked, “What’s the matter pare?” “A little boy stole our candles. I was watching TV and when I look outside, I saw a flash. A little boy stole our lighted candles!” He was quite pissed off.

Stealing is a part of the tradition. Not really stealing, but stealing for fun,sort of a prank. Usually people let go of this small prank thinking that lost souls are at it again.

A few decades back, I used to play guitar to accompany the mangangaluluwas. Mangangaluluwas are people, usually old ladies (or mature ladies to be pc), who go around houses singing songs for the dead, serenading the dead, sort of. The owners of the house are expected to give money or food or something to the singers. It was a good way of earning a few pesos for a few hours of strumming. Of course during those days, I felt ashamed of being seen with the mangangaluluwas. I was afraid of what others would say. But looking back, I am glad I did it because it was fun, and I have stories to tell.

Anyway, according to these ladies, in the provinces, while the ladies were singing for the dead, the men would go under the houses and steal chicken eggs or the eggs and hen or the basket containing the egg and the hen. I asked the ladies, "Isn't that wrong?" They answered, with a smile, "Yes, if you're caught."

The tradition is dying if not, it is already dead.

Did you see it?

If on the first picture you saw a silhouette of a lady, better have your head checked.
If on the second picture you think you are already seeing the silhouette of a lady, better have a your eyes checked.
If on the third picture you did see the silhouette of a lady , you are one gullible human being
If on the fourth picture you did see the silhouette of a lady, you are no better off than number 3.
If you did not see any silhouette of a lady at all...you have reading comprehension problem.

Enough!