A rare post on the struggles of a teacher trainer

I was recently doing some work with some high level teachers to prepare for a teaching methodology training that I will be facilitating in the coming month. Between the 6 of us we were asked to lead 12 session. We had 11 all picked out and so there was room for one more. On the table was the redundant (but often wanted) remedial reading --we were already doing a session on teaching reading in general-- and my suggestion of a session on reflective practices.

In my humble opinion, the reflective aspect of teaching is one that is crucial to becoming a better teacher. It is through reflection that we see into our successes and failures within the classroom. Often times I hear that an activity test or assignment was failed by the majority of students because "they're the slow section" or "they didn't study enough because they're lazy". Besides being horrible things to say about your students it also takes the blame off of the teacher, who, after all is the one guiding learning. Any number of things leading up to the assessment could have been the reason that students were not able to succeed on it. I view the need for remedial reading programs in this country as a direct stem from poor teaching practices, not student ability.

I was turned down from my idea because the Filipino had no idea what the session would look like. They tried to assure me that its in the teacher's nature to reflect.

I've been here a year. I know that its not. Filipinos want to come back from a training and tell their supervisor they learned how to help those non-readers, not that they learned how to think about how other people think and why you weren't able to meet that need. The teacher at the training may not even have the initiative of want to teach those non-readers, but dammit she's trained to do it now. Reflection is something that everyone can do, its easy, and doesn't require a lot of work.

Teaching these teachers (yet again) about how to do remedial reading in a classroom is like watching a drag show--its flashy and sounds fun, but its really just trannys dancing around and singing the same songs as usual. However without reflecting on their poor practices they can't see that all they're doing is the same Tina Turner routine over and over again.

With a reflective personality and better "regular" reading activities I think the quality of teaching could be improved. But even if you fixed this one thing you'd hit the brick walls of lack of flexibility perceived in lesson planning, poor resources, and a management hierarchy that holds the best teachers down.

I don't really like posting about the nature of the Filipino educational system because it is such a complicated issue with no clear solution, other than a complete overhaul, that at this point I try to avoid even thinking about it on a day to day.

As a reflective person, I've been thinking about my observations from the past year. I've seen that the teachers of the Philippines need something new. The ideas that we're peddling have reached a wall and there needs to be some new pieces added to reach new conclusions. In my future sessions I'm going to try include some new topics that all teachers could use, but I know I'm going to hit more resistance....

A Travel Nightmare

I have the worst luck when it comes to getting to the Bacolod Airport. Because of poor transportation timing I have had to change flights, sit at the airport for 10 hours, and pay cabbies far too much for their services. The main problem is that our airport is not actually in Bacolod but 30 minutes north in Silay. This means that to get to the airport you have to ride a shuttle van. As far as I can tell though, there is no set schedule for the vans. They just leave to get you to your flight on time.

Because I refuse to pray at the beginning of my classes with my Catholic students, God hates me, and thus will not allow me to get to the shuttle on time. So I missed my shuttle and had to pay a driver to take me to the airport (at double the cost of the normal shuttle price). Not only that but in negotiating the ride I was getting dangerously close to missing the check in time for my flight. Thank goodness for my driver who drove like a demon and made our 35 minute drive in 20.

So I'm at the airport in time waiting with everyone else who is trying to go to Manila. Because its the Philippines everyone is carrying giant boxes of pasalubong (like souvenirs, but food) and are all over the baggage limit. So the line is long and not moving; and because I freak out about missing flights I'm about to have a conniption in line and start yelling at the mother who won't keep her morbidly obese child on a tighter leash.

And then because I don't even bother to stand up during the school prayers, and God likes to play tricks on my kind of people, my plane decides to board early. So I'm stuck behind super-mom and her zeppelin-like son while they're calling for all passengers to board. So then I get the ticket, get through the minimalist security, and am power walking my way to the plane thinking about how nice it will be to get a nice little nap on the plane to take the edge off of the last hours of horrendous mishaps.

But because I blatantly don't pray, and I'm sure my students are praying for their poor, evil, Sir Tabor's soul, God has other intentions for this flight. The first thing being that I am greeted on the plane by Christmas music. The fact that Christmas music is even a genre of music makes me upset, let alone playing it in September. It is not beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and I don't want to hear music about it, thank you. Only slightly more annoying than the Christmas music is the sound of not one, but three infants crying. And this wasn't plaintive "Mom, I need a new diaper" crying, but the loud, intense "there's something wrong with me!!!!" crying of a baby in pain. The three babies seated within four aisles of my seat take turns crying for the entire hour and half flight, making sure that the cabin is never quiet enough for anyone to rest, relax, have awkward conversation with their neighbor, or even enjoy their Skymall in the peace which they are accustomed to.

So then we land and I bolt out the door of the plane to get away from these people who have clearly been sent by God on behalf of my worried pupils to set me on a right path. But just be sure that the point is clearly made my bag is the last one on the merry-go-round.

What my return trip will be like....I shudder to think.

Batch 268, Butterfliles, and Dancing Prisoners

Last week, while I was celebrating my one year anniversary away from home, I was also in Manila as part of the welcoming committee for our new batch of volunteers. 10 current volunteers were chosen to spend the week in Manila to act as resources for our 68 new trainees. As a group of resource volunteers our biggest revelation was that the only thing more boring than filling out visa paperwork, is watching other people fill out visa paperwork. Besides sitting in on info sessions on policy and culture we also got to answer hundreds of fun questions. Overall, it was a really fun week and one that I hope will be of value to our new batch.

P.S. every time someone calls them the "new batch" I'm reminded of this classic movie:
From there I went with a few of my friends down to Cebu to see what is slowly gaining a cult following, The Dancing Prisoners. They're gaining popularity through YouTube, especially because of their excellent Thriller dance and the Death of Michael Jackson. At this prison and rehab center they've hired a choreographer who teaches the inmates new dances and every month they present a show. They were so amazing! We all thought that there would be lots of distance (and bars) between us and the dancers, but instead we were within arms reach of them. After the dance they all line up for a photo op. By the end of the show you kind of forget that most of them have killed someone or something equally bad.
We had some extra time so we also went to a butterfly garden in the middle of the city. It is run by a man whose father was an ardent butterfly lover, artist, and explorer. His son has inherited the family house and continues to expand on his father's work. Besides seeing some beautiful butterflies we also got to see his father's art projects. His father was an avid painter and combined his love of butterflies and art and starting making art out of the wings of dead butterflies. He did 11 portraits of famous men out of small snipits of butterfly wings. The intricate details and tedious nature of working with butterfly wings made the art really special to see.
Needless to say I'm happy to be back home resting and prepping for my school's foundation week. Sept. 6-12 we are pulling out all the stops to put on a week of programs and dinner and speeches to celebrate our 12th year of operation. Its going to be something special. I'll let you know how it goes.

A Year Ago

A year ago....

It seems like another lifetime ago. Another world. A different person. But that's the way all my sentences seem to start this week.

Can you believe a year ago...?
Seems like it was just a year ago...
Where were you a year ago?

After a year in the Philippines (August 17th we landed I think) I've done a lot of new and fun things, met some amazing people, and done enough work for people to think I'm effective. I think at this time last year I was at my going away party drinking way too much and saying goodbyes to my old friends.

Time has been such a strange thing since I went abroad. In terms of Peace Corps I don't feel like I've been here that long. Every month there has been something new to keep me moving forward. In my work I feel like I've only just begun to be effective and doing the kind of things that I came here for. But a year is also long enough to start talking about America as "the old life" that I lived with "my old friends".

I don't know how I feel about this. On the one hand I see another year ahead in which I can accomplish so much more. I've got a calendar full of both work and play lined up all the way to December. At the same time I've got a year away the "old times". I think that one challenge maybe all volunteers feel is the feeling that for every step we take towards our new cultures and families abroad it takes us one step away from what we left behind. Its not fair to either group though to remain stationary for two years.

I hope that in the coming months I can keep the balance between old and new, America and Philippines, and work and play balanced.

Mid-Terms

This week was mid-terms. It went off without a hitch, minus the fact that most of my students failed. I don't know how I feel about this. A good teacher would probably attribute this to poor teaching on their part, regroup, and review the things they messed up on. I'm not feeling so generous to take the responsibility totally on myself though. Seeing as how I only made half the exam, and only taught half the class it can't be totally my fault, surely my counterpart can take some blame.

I also see a lot of issues with the students' performance on the test. After giving 7 exams this week I've noticed a few things about Filipino test taking. Most students will start off strong and go through the test, answer everything they can with their own knowledge and then go back to the top. I'm a very linear test taker and don't like to move on until I've finished a section so I applaud their flexibility. However, once they go back to the top that's when they start cheating. This is when eyes start wandering and mouths start to open. Because of a generally collective culture cheating is not so much considered "cheating" as it is "helping my friend". You should help your friends...even if you're helping them in a bad way.

What happens is everyone has one smart friend, and the smart friend is in charge of answering all the questions. Then they share their answers with the dumb friends. The dumb friends, because they're inherently dumb, don't think that maybe...just maybe, the smart kid doesn't know either. So then they all have the same wrong answers instead of right answers. Based on the answers to test questions I can tell who was sitting by who and who is friends with who (not that those things don't go together anyhow).

Then they don't think that things on the test may give them answers to other parts. You know how when you do a math test and you fill in the equations in the first part and then have to DO the equations in the second part? And then between the parts you just copy and paste the ideas from part one to part two? Yeah that is a connection that is missing. They'll get things right the first time, then not the second time. If you knew it once why not twice??

So I don't think I'm going to go back over IPA symbols, because its a fairly worthless skill in my opinion. But we're def. going to to some discussion on test taking skills and logical thinking.

No Longer Cute

During student teaching I tried so hard to make sure that I always looked very trendy and fashionable when I went into school. I'd like to hope that even those older teacher who wear the seasonal sweater vests and mom jeans started off a twenty-something, fun, "cute teacher". I'm sure we've all even had a "cute teacher"-- a teacher who not only teaches well but looks nice too--at some point in our academic careers. I realized this past week that I've lost my status as a "cute teacher".

I've turned into the teacher that I've avoided so hard. I have about 6 teaching outfits that I rotate through, all of which don't fit me right because of all the weight I've lost. So I typically roll into school in over-sized jeans and an un-tucked shirt (because tucking just makes you too hot). I wear my favorite flip-flops, which are not slightly colored have have about 1/4th an inch left of the sole. My trusty Kenneth Cole teacher bag is starting to come unsewn from overuse now too. Basically I look like a mess.

By the end of the day I've pulled my hand through my hair so much that its all messed up, I'm covered in chalk dust, and my feet have gotten dirty from the mud. I probably smell a little too from all the sweating, but that's not so much the case now in rainy season.

Although I know I could go lower, I think I need a make over before to stop my slow descent into ugliness.

Rainy Season

As I am constantly reminded by my students, the Philippines only has two "seasons"-- the wet and the dry. We're in the middle of the wet one and oh is it fun. During the day its pretty sunny but starting at 2pm it gets really humid and by 4 it rains. The rain stops around 5 or 6, just in time for me to walk home. During the night it usually rains too. This is nice because the rain keeps the temperature really nice and bearable.

The bad thing about the rain is that everything is always wet. My ceiling leaks a little bit and so there's now a puddle in the bedroom every morning when I wake up. On several occasions my pillow has gotten soaked too, which sucks big ones. The worst though is that I can't get sunlight to dry my laundry.

This week in my preparations for my trip to manila I had a lot of clothes to wash. After being washed, they sat outside under our overhang for three days and were still wet. In an act of desperation I had to pull out the big guns and use my "pinoy dryer". This involves taking a curtain off the rod, putting the rod across two chairs and then turning my electric fan on full blast. It took a full day, but my clothes were finally dry. Below is the proof so that you don't think i'm joking. Have fun!