Thesis Crisis

University of Rizal System Morong Campus

My miserable thesis lost in the university research congress held at Morong, Rizal. I am not expecting anything because my research, as my classmates told me, was invested with saliva. What my classmates meant was that I did not spent anything on my research unlike their projects which are mostly experimental—they spent money on materials and hardware while, they said, all I did was talk. Aaaahhhhhh…they’re right, by the way.

But I did defend my thesis against the panels whose name gave me head ache because of the titles attached to their names like, Ed. D, Ph. D and what have you. One of the panel members was a director of the Department of Science and Technology, and of course, DOST people are utilitarian and a research about an abstract thing like an assessment of student organizations and leadership is not something that they usually pay attention to.

The winners in the research congress were technical stuffs like solar powered and wind generator that is supposed to generate 15 volts and costs around 50,000 pesos to make…my team members were laughing because when we calculated the return on investment we found out that an average electricity consumer would be able to recoup the fifty thousand pesos investment in about a million years, add to that the miniscule ampere and voltage the project could generate…I mean the project is so unrealistic and so uneconomical and so common…solar power and wind generator are not new things. If these guys have invented a gas powered turbine using human and animal gas ( farts), I mean that’s something new and unique. I would even vote for them!

Another winner in the developmental category is an improved ram pump. When I was looking at the title of the research, I kept hearing Alvin and the Chipmunks singing “Come they told me…pa ram pump ram pump. A new born king to see…pa ram pump ram pump.” No kidding! The Christmas song kept playing in my head!

The ram pump is all about using water pressure to pump water, no motor, no power, just the pressure of the water to pump water higher than the source. I was looking at the computations which looked Hieroglyphics to me and it reminded me of one of those ancient inventions that never made it through because of the law of depression, I mean where in the world can you find a water source higher than your house and then use a ram pump to pump your water higher than your house! aor how can you use this for irrigation when the amount of water the ram pump could pump is so small compared to the source! I am not making any sense because it’s all about finding conditions fit for the invention which makes the invention next to useless. There are dams now!

Gave me head ache. Anyway, I’m just being sour. My research did not make it through but I had one consolation; one of the doctors shook my hand and told me that I answered all the questions very well.

I

Field Trip

Our church school held its field trip last Friday (Feb.1), and I had one of the finest days of the year yet. That is despite the fact that I was assigned to be the guardian to one pupil who I believe had an invisible cloak. My gulay, she kept disappearing and for someone whose attention span lasts a second, I can’t keep track of her! (Not blaming anybody anyone here, just talking out loud.) Add to the disappearing pupil is my daughter’s jealousy. Every time I took little Natalie (the disappearing pupil) to rides, I could see my daughter’s face wrinkling up like a dehydrated, dried prune.

Anyway, I did have fun. One of my childhood friends, the father of one of my pupils, was there and we’ve had a long talk. In fact we had the whole day talking about his work and my work. It’s one of those conversations that is more than chit-chat, I think it’s a deep longing for the days when me and my friends were young; remembering the reckless fun we’ve had.

As my friend and I were talking, I found out that this was his first time to be in Star City. And we were like a child again. We rode one oft those crazy rides like the little roller coaster, snow white and the seven dwarfs. I remembered the town ferias we used to go through when we were young. We went inside a haunted house where we scare the hell out of our wives and children, we were the one shouting and scaring and…it’s really fun.

We then saw this big boat like contraption twisting in the air and my friend smiled, I smiled, the next thing we knew we were in the air being tossed around like peanuts. My friend was shouting, “Stop it! I Give up! Oh, human excrement! Ooooohhhh Human excrement! (I’m being politically correct here). I was shouting too and we were both shouting because it was the most comforting thing to do! I tried holding my breath but maybe because of the speed or air pressure, I felt my chest was being dampened by a heavy object. So we shouted.

After the ride, we were like children laughing our hearts out. That was fun. Then we saw this upright roller coaster that twists in full circle, he looked at me, I looked at him and we both shook our heads. Enough for the day, our heart may not be able to handle the experience and we could both die of heart attack.

Renaldo Lapus

Renaldo Lapuz is a filipino. He made Philippine history when he joined American Idol last January. When I saw him sing I immediately knew he was a kababayan.

His song "Brothers" is now famous and there are variety of versions on You Tube from metal to mix to folk and his song will stay in people's head for a long time.

I sing this song to my students and it never fail to elicit laughter from them. They love the song and even the grade 2 is begiinig to hum this tune during my class. So to my kababayan Mr. Lapuz, thank you and more power to you.

American Idol Season 7 -

I like this version

BROTHERS FOREVER - American Idol - Season 7 2008

The original Version

level 42 mark king bass solo

This guy's bass playing awed and still awes me. I wsas in my high school when I saw Level 42's video "Lesson in Love and the arpeggio bass playing reminded of the buil in bass pattern on my neighbors old casio key board. He's good more class and groove than Red Hot CHii Pepper's Flea but less of the raw energy of Flea.

He's the best! I saw Victor Wooten's playing too and whether some say that Wooten is technically better,i love this guy's moves.

Hmmmm…I’m Flattered

I visited the campus last January 28 to check the status of my missing scholastic records. I already wrote a letter narrating what happened to my records so that I will not be harassed (I hope) by the registrars of the other universities where I was once enrolled almost two decades ago. I am happy because our campus’ dean of the school of education endorsed my letter and she even asked the school secretary to have it signed by the campus registrar and then delivered to the clusters’ main campus in Morong, Rizal. Well it’s not a special delivery, really. The campus registrar had some business to do there and my letter was just hand carried by her (I hope that’s what happened because I haven’t been to the campus since January 28). Anyway I’m thankful to the dean of education and the registrar, age and position in the student organization do have some privileges.

I also had my picture portrait taken, complete with the toga, for the yearbook and the graduation program (to tell the truth I felt emotional about the toga). After the photo was taken, the campus research head approached me and told me that my research will be included in this year’s university research congress, this is where they judge the best research and researchers for the school year. I was flattered because my research was chosen to represent the campus for the descriptive research category. It also meant more work on copy reading and revising!

I am scheduled for my final observation on February 26, 2008 and after this, it’s the walk down the aisle…hmmm…err…I mean I will be climbing the stage to receive my diploma.

Then after the graduation it’s work, paying debts and then death.

Talks

Rumblings…


I’ve had a busy week preparing test for my pupils. I never thought that it would be this difficult considering that I am teaching primary levels. But, it is. I have to make my test simple enough to be understood but also difficult enough to challenge my pupils.

I don’t know if I had done a good job. But after checking the test papers and seeing the result, I am satisfied with it. I know now where I have to focus on in my next lessons—prepositions, that monster. It is so difficult to teach prepositions because they sometimes defy the laws of logic.

I am having difficult time trying to manage my grade 1 students. They are unruly; they try to test limit of my patience. I’ve tried everything. But if you talk to them alone, and listen to their stories they are loveable. But when they are together, its like trying to fight the weather.

Maybe if I spend more time alone, talking and bonding with my students, they’ll…hmmm… pity their overage student teacher. Truth is, I’m getting attached to them especially the most difficult pupil in the class. He jumps on me, hold my hands. When we are not in the classroom, he treats me respectfully, always answer with “po” at “opo” , he rides with me on the motorbike…I don’t know, now I understand why some teachers never get married—they get too attached to their students.

I sometimes wonder what I am doing teaching English but after taking over a Filipino class, hmmm…I never thought that teaching Filipino would be difficult since it is my native tongue, but it is. It is difficult to teach Filipino, in fact, more difficult than teaching English. If a student asks me what’s the difference between “rin´at “din”, all I can say is that you say “din” when you are in Cainta and you “rin” when you’re in Morong-Cardona. I don’t know the Filipino grammar rules. I take Filipino for granted but simple things like the difference between “rin” and “din” (“too” in English), honestly speaking, stumps me.

I am…hmm…mad because when my school records were evaluated, the campus registrar found out that my scholastic record was missing from my file. I am a graduating student and I have to get my papers in order. The registrar referred to the guidance counselor’s office with the hope that they have the original copy of my files. But after a dusty search (to tell the truth I felt a little guilty making the new guidance counselor rummage through old files), the search was futile—my files was missing. Even the new Guidance Counselor was puzzled about the missing file. The former Guidance counselor unfortunately was moved out of her office rather abruptly leaving behind unorganized files and lots of rumors. I am beginning to think that because of my critical role as a former critical “Punong Patnugot” someone is trying to get at back me in the campus. Or, it could simply be my super-bloated ego trying to tell me that I am an important person in the campus, important enough to drive people to do evil things.

Naaahhhh….maybe the file simply vanished a la X-Files.

Writing

I am doing a little experiment on how to make my grade school pupil, especially the grades one and two, write. It is difficult enough to make them read, how much more to make them write! I have read some of John Holt’s idea about reading and writing and I seriously take his “doctrine” that motivating children to read and write is the primary concern of the teacher, and the rests are accidentals. (I don’t know if I said it accurately.) And somehow his ideas (not all of them) inspire me to try to be creative with my approaches to teahing.

To encourage my pupils to write, I usually give them a piece of bond paper, tell them to draw anything they like on it like robots, or cartoon characters or dinosaurs; anything that would stir up their imagination. And when they are already busy drawing, I would tell story of space battles, of wars, of a stray dog ripping my dog’s ear, a fairy tale or I would just make up things, anything to stir up my pupil’s imagination so that they could write and express without any inhibition. (Holt mentioned how Professor S.I. Hayakawa invented a technique in teaching writing to his freshman students—he tells his students to write about anything, any topic, for thirty minutes without stopping. Of course I am not teaching freshmen. I am teaching grade school children who are non native English speakers. But how will I know if this method works at grade school level unless I try it. The method may sound like Freudian or psychotherapeutic blah, blah…but ...who cares! It’s up to the teacher to be discreet on whatever their students may have consciously or unconsciously revealed in their writings.)

I am getting good results. One grade three pupil wrote 80, a grade two wrote 52 and a grade one pupil wrote 25 simple sentences in English, the minimum I got was five simple sentences that is grammatically more acceptable than some of my classmates (excuse me my math and science major classmates) writings. And all I did was to tell them to draw something, or to look at a book and write anything they can write about in there. (Sometimes I tell them that I could see sentences floating around the classroom like, “The light is on. There is a poster on the wall. Agybert is under the chair.” Etc.)

I am surprised at the result!

One of the difficulties I encountered was on translation. My pupils ask me to translate Filipino words into English. I ask them how they will use it in a sentence but I know that if I become too technical, they may loose interest in what they are doing. So, I just write translations of Filipino words into English on the white board. The good thing about this is that they are adding more to their vocabulary bank with very little effort on their part, but the downside is, problem will arise in usage. But these things, grammar and usage, are easy to fix as long as the pupil is writing. The most difficult problem to fix is when pupils begin to hate writing-- when they stop writing.

I limit my lectures to five to ten minutes because, honestly, they are boring!

I will continue to write some of my observations here on a weekly basis, and I welcome ideas, comments and suggestion on teaching no matter how unorthodox they are.

(Maybe I will include this on the narratives of my practice teaching. But then again who will read them in the campus! This is why up to now I am not motivated to revise my thesis on student organizations and leadership because I know it would not be read.)

I will try to write something about child behavior too, from my student teaching experience, that is, if I can or if I could.

My dehydrated and miserable classmates

I often bump into my classmates doing their practice teaching at the elementary school where I graduated. During the first weeks, they were energetic and they still look fresh and enthusiastic. After a few weeks, I saw them again and I was surprised at the deterioration. One kept asking. “Kuya George, am I still beautiful.” Of course they are all beautiful but they looked stressed, dehydrated and miserable. They told me that their cooperating teacher was being mean to them. This is the problem with practice teaching in most public schools—some cooperating teachers get back at the student teachers for the way they were treated by their former cooperating teachers.

Some cooperating teachers treat their student teachers contemptuously because they know that student teachers have no way of getting back at them. For some say this treatment is good because it builds the character of the student teachers, the thinking is like that of fraternity hazing. But in reality, like fraternity hazing that breed violence, these “violence” done against student teachers begets “violence.” It becomes a cycle. And somehow, in some way this cycle trickled down to the students and pupils.

I pity my classmates but there’s nothing that could be done about it unless the DepED sees this as a real problem and formulate solutions for it.

I have my problems with student teaching too, but not from my cooperating teacher, and definitely not from the school, what is giving me problem is my waking up in the morning and sleeping late at night. My gulay, I am a night person and waking up early is the most difficult thing for me to do!

I am hoping to find a night elementary school where I could work at my convenience, but then again, who would I be teaching? Grade school Vampires!

But then again, that could be fun…

Reading Class

I wonder if I am teaching at a public school and the principal suddenly checks on my reading class. There she would find some of my pupils reading their books behind the movable whiteboard, lying on the cement floor and some would be reading their books with their feet resting on the armchairs. I wonder what the principal would do or say. Hmmm…maybe I won’t last a month because I will be fired immediately for the reason that I can’t manage my class.

During my elementary school days, our English teacher would always, like a broken vinyl record player or a skipping CD, recite the rules on reading: Back straight, the book held by two hands at a certain degree, read with your eyes and not with your lips, no slouching, and no talking. These are the things that I remember about my grade school reading classes no stories, no authors, no poems, nothing, just these rules. So, I and my classmates--this is hindsight—may unknowingly understood reading as something done physically like manual labor or like an industrial arts activity with those procedures and steps—reading became a tedious, dull, mechanical, dreary activity. So, most of my classmates learned to read but they did not learn to love reading.

Now, I’m a teacher and I have hindsight not to commit the same mistakes my traditional reading teacher did (I don't blame her, by the way.). I now know, and I will compromise anything within reason to make my student read. If they want to read doing a headstand, I would allow it as long as I see that they are enjoying their reading. If they are debating, shouting, discussing about what they are reading, I will not and I do not stop them. I just tell them to keep their voices down.

It is becoming more and more difficult to make children read and if breaking all these military like, inane and useless rules could encourage my students to read, I would break them with no questions asked, no señor, habla de cartolina de kwaderno de artista, I would break them.
So, what would a public school principal do…nah, the question is what I would do if she forces me to adopt the traditional way of teaching reading. Here’s what I would do, I would kidnap the principal and then force
her to read a copy of Dostoevsky’s book and tell her to read it sitting back straight, two hands holding the book, read with the eyes and not with the lips….I am sure she would be dead before she even finish the first page.

It’s good that I’m teaching at my church school; I can experiment.