Licensure Exams

I have taken the teachers licensure examination last Sunday, September 28, 2008 and I found the test so difficult that I don’t know if I’ll pass the test. A lot of people prayed for me and I prayed that God would answer all our prayers according to His will

I am grateful to ate Chayay and her mom, ate Violy, for giving me a copy of their reviewers. These reviewers helped a lot, and I was amazed because there are many questions (rephrased, of course) in the reviewers that popped up in the examinations.

Though I can’t remember the answers to these questions, I think the instantaneously-superinductive-recall (like a guess based on an educated guess) may (or maybe not) helped a lot).

This is how I did my review. Three days before the examinations, I answered all the reviewers and then I asked my daughter to check them. I could tell if I did well on the exercises because my daughter smiles when I got good scores and she shakes her head and tsk,tsk,tsked me every time I got a failing score.

The reviewer helped a lot; in fact, the test items in the reviewers are more difficult than those in the actual examinations.

But the torture of answering four hundred test items under time pressure is something I am not prepared for. After answering the first one hundred questions, my brain was already protesting. I was looking at the test booklet and I was thinking, this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy…how can the government do this to me and the rest of us…they are torturing us!

Anyway, the problem was that after the first hundred questions, I was already stressed and bored to death! My gulay, the little imaginary ants in my scalp were making me scratch my head too often that the proctor (a soon to be retired school teacher who can’t help sharing the story of her life) was giving me a kindly, sympathetic and an amused look. (She told us that when she took her Board Examinations it took more than a year before the result was released. I was smiling because I was imagining the number of people who manually checked the test papers of all the examinees during those days. Judging by her age, I think the fastest computer during those days were the mainframes with the punched cards.)

I was curious about the philosophies of education test items in the examinations. I cannot divulge the contents of the examinations because I signed a promise not to tell anything about the examinations but I’ll rephrase some them in a safe way.
There are a lot of –isms that I cannot understand!

For example:

1. A teacher from Mars is a Lobotomist. How should he/she/it plan his/her/it lesson plan.
I. Bring a set of hardbound Encyclopedia Britannica and eat them.
II. Bring a CD/ROM of Encyclopedia Britannica and eat it.
III. Kidnap your pupils
a. I and II is correct
b. I and III is wrong
c. I,II and III not sure of anything
d. I only shows nothing and the rest is also

2. How can you tell if a teacher is an existentialist?
He/ She shouts:
a. "Hey! Grade ones! Existence precedes essence!"
b. "Hey! Grade ones! Essence proceeds to nonsense!"
c. "Hey! Grade ones! Existence proposes convergence!’
d. "Hey! Grade ones! I am dysmenorrheal today!

I mean, no teacher nor does anybody hold on to one philosophical (or even theological) system all their lives, nor does any teacher ever, ever, ever asks what philosophical doctrine he/she adhered to in preparing lesson plans and most of all in teaching! Who cares about progressivism, pragmatism, existentialism a—who cares!

A lot of questions are too abstract to be considered knowledge at all.
Naaahhh….I’m just feeling a little nervous.

What if I fail the licensure examinations?

Here are my options:

I could commit suicide to avoid facing the humiliation of failing.
I could move to the mountains, also to avoid facing humiliations.
I could take an M.A. from a university that sells M.A. degrees. This is a good solution; most board failures do this—get an M.A. or an MBA. Its like if you can’t get a license to drive a motorcycle, learn to drive heavy equipment! You may not have a license but you can always bulldoze (or bully) them…I mean…

Or if I fail, I’ll just do what I do best…don’t care what other people say or think!

But if I pass the licensure…hmmmm…I'll be cook spaghetti!