Shut Up, Teacher

A little essay I wrote out of frustration. I forgot about this essay until I found it in my computer's many many folders. Wrote it way back when I was doing my practicum. And looking at myself from two years ago, I realized that being in a conservative school has never diminished my beliefs.

It was a sunny late morning and the heat of the incoming summer was starting to be felt in our faculty room.
Flux of graduating students also went in and out of the room, as it was a deadline day. At my table, I was reading an article from a newspaper about the reproductive health bill and since majority of the teachers that were with me in that room were married and had have kids, I asked them if they were in favor of the bill. The teachers gave me an assertive answer, as they felt that there was nothing wrong with it and they were not killing anybody in using contraceptives. A teacher also asked me if I was for it, I said yes, and I also said my criticism on the church’s stand. However, another teacher whispered to me which dragged me away from the friendly sharing of opinions, “Do not engage in debate yet, you're still a student-teacher.” As she was saying this, the topic was still being discussed, and the said teacher asked me my motives. I said that I just felt agitated with the church’s logic. She nodded her head and turned her attention back to what she was doing.

As soon as I found a way to go back to the conversation, I looked closely at the highlighter marker pen that I was holding and said, “This highlighter's cool; it looks like a lipbalm.” I felt a sense of success as one of the teachers who answered me took my highlighter and examined it; they really welcomed the change of topic. They ate my bait.

As I went back to reading the article, I wondered on why student teachers are not allowed to give their views on pressing issues. Sure, I am young and I still do not understand a real public school teacher’s reality. But the issue at hand must surely be a part of a real school teacher’s reality, as the topic that I opened concerned not only the parents, but most especially the students, their students. I heard their god-knows-how-many conversations about their students getting pregnant at age 16 and younger, so why prevent a healthy discourse about a soon-to be policy that would have an effect in the educational curriculum? Should we as teachers be aware of these things? Should we stop ourselves in participating or even initiating a potentially intellectually fruitful conversation? I heeded the teacher’s call for me to stop babbling about the topic; I saw her point that I was not in the position to open the topic up, but I am sure that I am in the position to open up the topic as a concerned youth concerned with her fellow youth. It seemed to me that she was trying to impose the don’t-talk-because-you-are-the-state’s-robot type of silence on me. But how about her? She is in the exact position to participate in discussions, as the double-edged sword of being a citizen and teacher is on her shoulders. She is a full-pledged teacher; can she do what I can do? She is young; can she be as concerned? The school cannot be considered as an institution in a vacuum, and teachers cannot stay apolitical for so long just because the government is putting money in their pockets. We are political beings whether we like it or not, and it is our choice to be either become a catalyst of change or a perpetuator of state oppression.

How can we change our students if we keep silent? How can we contribute in making a better society for our students if we ourselves refuse to put into question the issues that will deeply affect them?

I went to the lavatory and saw the much senior teacher who took my highlighter. I asked her.

"Ma'am, is it just fine if we student-teachers initiate topics like RH bill earlier?"

"It's just fine. It's just fine for a teacher to air her views. What's forbidden for a teacher is to endorse a politician."

Two conflicting views indeed.

The teacher went out of the comfort room to go to her class, and I continued washing my hands. I remembered my reason for staying in education, “to make myself a liberal working in an overly conservative working environment.”

I stared at myself in the mirror with anger bubbling up my chest.

Administrators are Prudish People

With all the hoopla that was UbD, I was most enlightened by the seminar my school had days ago. It made me realize that UbD is actually very simple, lesson planning-wise and execution-wise. But apparently, its the administrators who are pulling us down. 

Pulling us into the pits of academic insanity.

We teachers (who have been cheated so many times already), agreed to the speaker when she said that UbD is supposed to be simpler. We filled our auditorium with the sound of our agreement and relief. 

We're close to hysterics, actually. *sigh*

But you know, administrators took it as a voice of dissent. Well, yes, it was a voice of dissent not only of probationary teachers but also of our more seasoned teachers. So, it didn't come as a surprise when our area head (and I love her) told us that the higher-ups of the institution took offense. And I say, they really should take offense and responsibility, because if we didn't have that seminar, then we wouldn't know that we are bullshitting ourselves, and that it could have been easier if they invited the freaking speaker earlier last year.

BOOOOOOOOOOO!

That seminar caused confusion. Are we going to push on with our plans? Are we going to use the plans from last year? But the topics for this year are different! Are we going to edit it? But I'm through! And the list goes on. 

These administrators shouldn't take offense if we teachers are airing their discontent, it shows their incompetence all the more. This confusion was their fault in the first place. If they have that seminar earlier on, then we wouldn't write trash lesson plans all in the name of compliance. They told us to submit our plans in the middle of the month, and then suddenly they will invite a speaker who would point out our mistakes and then they would tell us to rewrite our lesson plans? Fuck them all. Let them write the plans themselves. And it doesn't help that they gave us a more complicated template. 

We're not sado-masochists, people. So why make it so complicated?

What these administrators do not realize is that, at the end of the day, it is the teachers who would bear the burden of it all. If you go inside a classroom with a faulty plan, then you'll have a faulty class, observation, class performance, grades, and faulty national achievement test results. And when you have these faulty things, of course, they put the blame on the teachers who are just basically following directives from the higher-ups (who fucked up the whole thing in the first place). 

So, these administrators do not have the right to bitch about us bitching about how we hate the current situation. They run a private school and they have the f*****g power to adjust the FAPE format or reject the format altogether just because they can and it can be more beneficial to the teachers. But hell no, they made us do it without realizing that it is not what the proponents of UbD envisioned. And now that they are garnering the teachers' wrath, they get back to us? That's the problem with following uncritically. Shows their level of incompetence actually.

As for the lesson plans itself, it has been decided that whatever we have finished  will be left as it is and that the proper format (of EU and EQ) must already be followed in the two final quarters. But what I am bitter about is that these administrators stuck with the FAPE format. I mean, I consider that format to be a format of some humbug trying to be more significant than the proponents themselves. Why can't they accept that that format is so f****** wrong? Oh well, they don't want to admit that they're wrong so, might as well stick with it, yeah? Christ Jesus.

Teaching is good, innovation is good, and change is good, but if you are doing it the wrong way, might as well don't do it at all.

I Am Understanding by Design

This year, our school is going to embark on a journey called "UbD" or Understanding by Design. This thing has been around in a while in America, but here in my country, it was implemented last year in the public schools. But since I am in a private school, it is only now that we are catching up with this UbD fever.

I already heard this UbD when I was still a practicumer in college 2 years ago, and I always thought that it is a sort of planning the lesson but you think of the assessment first. Well, to be frank, I always thought that it's only a different way of writing lesson plans.

I'm as skeptical as skeptical goes.

So here is my school catching up the fever because the Department of Education directed that the schools follow this UbD way of thinking. But it comes with a price, you see. We the members of the faculty feel very cheated of our vacation because we need to spend it doing the UbD templates. And it is such a pain on the ass considering that we need to prepare those lesson plans and we need to implement it already this coming school year. I have always thought that curriculum planning takes years, and lesson planning takes time. But making the teachers rush their lesson plans for compliance is doing the teachers (and students) injustice. If the plan is faulty, then I'm very sure that the execution would also be faulty since the teacher doesn't know what the hell she is doing. And in the long run, the students would just become guinea pigs. Basically, we are doing the lesson plans in the dark. We are just hoping that even if the plan sucks, we would be able to pull off the execution right.

My students and I are all guinea pigs.

Yes, there have been seminars, but most of it didn't really help us at all. If it did, it only caused confusion and resentment among the faculty and the administration. We have this certain seminar in the school a couple of days ago, and we invited a speaker from a publishing house to help us tresh out this confusion. Turns out, this speaker have also attended UbD seminars in America with no less than the proponents of UbD themselves. And it was most enlightening, not only did we see the things that we are doing wrong (thanks to the lesson plan critiquing), but it also made us realize that crafting UbD templates and executing it is really just simple. And that simplicity made all the difference.

According to her, all lesson are done with A-Acquisition, M-Meaning-making and T-Transfer. Now, what puzzles me is that if I am going to look at a sample UbD learning guide, it only consists of the days and the things that you are going to do in those days.

Example:

Nutrition (Grade 6) Duration: 2 weeks

Day 1: Begin with an entry question (Can the foods you eat cause pimples?) to hook students into considering the effects of nutrition in their lives. (Making meaning)
Introduce key vocabulary terms and discuss relevant selections from the textbook. (Acquisition)

Day 2: Quiz on key vocabulary terms and selections from the book
Day 3: Students work independently to develop a three-day camp menu for younger children and offer them ideas for breaking bad eating habits


And so on and so forth. The speaker told us that that is the original UbD template. And we were like, "What the f**k?" because what we are doing with our templates is, if we are going to follow this thing strictly, wrong. What we did with our templates is this.

I.    Introduction
II.    Interaction
III.    Integration
IV.    Closure
V. Agreement

And I was like...are we a bunch of sado-masochists here? So I figured this was the f***ing reason why we are having a very hard time devicing our learning plans. We are deliberately making our lives harder. It got me thinking, where in the world did our administrators get their template? They said that it was from FAPE (Fund for Assistance to Private Education), and the speaker admitted that the FAPE template is actually more complicated than the original UbD template. I felt cheated. If we have an easier template, why did they opt to choose the more complicated route? One of my colleagues said that the FAPE template is designed for Catholic schools, but what makes the template so Catholic? What makes it more effective than the original? So we felt all the more cheated by our administrators, why is it that they only scheduled the seminar now? Why only now that some of us (myself included) are already through with our learning plans? They have the whole freaking school year last year to invite that speaker. And now, they only caused confusion among us, and resentment towards our admins.

We're this close to confronting the higher - ups.

 Like our speaker said, "UbD entails us enjoying life, simplifying life," but in my school, it is surely not the case.

A Late Post - American Idol Rant

American Idol just ended and, for me, it was more of a whimper than a blast.

It's so boring I want to cry. *snort*

I have always been excited about this season because the genre of the contestants are so diverse and all of them are really quirky. But obviously, the quirkiness scared the shit out of the voters. My bets were Naima, Casey and James, but when James got voted off, I rooted for Haley. And she got voted off too. It makes me think that maybe I'm just weird.

I'm this weird.

 So, here's what I think of the contestants.

Ashton - Okay, I don't have much to say about her since she wasn't around for long. But she's got the pipes, she only lacks, what, creativity? There's something amiss.

Karen - She wowed me with her rendition of "Hero" but after that, I was bored. Her voice lacked power in the succeeding episodes.

Pia - You know, if she is in my country, I'm so sure she would win because the ability to reach those messianic notes is always revered here. But apparently, this is American Idol, so it's rather sad that she went away. She is competition, really. She is a total package; good looks and talent. You rarely find that in our artists nowadays.

Thia - Even with the support of the Filipino community, this girl didn't really make a mark. Yes, she's got the voice, but you know, she needed to up her game. She is a boring as boring goes.

Stefano - Ohkay. I don't like him at all. He looks trying hard and he looks constipated whenever he performs. I always thought that he became a wild card because J-Lo likes him. He was one of the contestants that I wished would go away but was proving to be a turd.

Paul - I am conflicted with him. Sometimes he's good; sometimes he sounded as if he was a rat whose balls got squeezed. But it was sad seeing him go away.

Jacob - Now, here are some pipes. I liked him at the beginning of the competition, but as time moved on, listening to him got boring. It was always too over the top.



Casey - Okay, I like how he performed in the audition, and his performances were really quirky. He was one of the reasons I held on to Idol this season. I have no problems with his growls, but sometimes I was like, "what the hell is that clearing-the-throat-while-singing for?" He was very creative, yes, but sometimes it looked too forced and over-acting. If he had been more natural; then he might've stayed longer.

James - I'm also conflicted with James. He's got the pipes and like Casey, I always watch for whatever he might do in the stage. He's got creativity, and being a metalhead myself, liking him comes naturally. But you know, sometimes, I feel that he is a poser. He's too pop to be metal even if he sells himself to be the latter. But it was really a shocker to see him go. By the time he got voted off, I stopped watching AI altogether (Actually, as early as Naima's elimination, I have been only watching the thing passively, sometimes just reading the yahoo articles to keep me updated).

Haley - She's got the pipes. She's got spunk. But I never saw what she really wanted to be after AI. I can see almost everybody's genre after AI. Stefano's RnB, Jacob's gospel/soul, Casey's jazz, James is metal, but her? Na-ah. But I think she should be more on the rocker side. I always like her whenever she sings angry songs.

Lauren - During the early days of the competition, I always leveled her with Haley. Spunk and attitude and voice. I like her. Her voice is so crystalline. I thought she would be a tough contender. But, no, she lost momentum and I ended up wanting her to be eliminated. Apparently too, she stayed on...but I have no qualms.

Scotty - Okay. My mother likes her. 'Nuff said. To be honest, I never really liked his performances. I like his voice, yes, and I always wondered wtf is his voice that deep? But I find him irritating on stage. Not with his mike-holding, eyebrow twitching, arm-gestures and standing shenanigans. I like him better with a guitar because it minimizes those annoying things and my irritation at him. He's too boring for me. Every week I have been wishing that he be eliminated, but woe to me, he was freaking unstoppable. And he won AI. Woe to me again.



Lambert and Bowersox, now Lauren (just between her and Scotty). Why do my bets don't get to win?

I think I'm really weird. Not that I'm complaining.

But I just hope that next year's contestants would be as diverse and exciting as them, but not as ho-hum as the finale.

:)

Rain Is The Most Influential Person In The Whole Friggin World

I just can't believe that Rain is the most influential person in the world according to Time Magazine.

He is the most influential person in the world. *clap clap clap*

Give me a f****** break.

I know that Rain is popular in Asia and all, and that he had a Hollywood movie that flopped, but seriously, these things are not the things that make somebody so influential. He wouldn't even come close to Lady Gaga (I am not a her fan either), so why on earth did he top the list, sidestepping more important, and more relevant people?

I actually took Time's poll, so my ranting here is not some random bitching. I browsed and voted for some odd-200 people only to see Rain's initial results to be the highest among those said 200. I was confused, then was enraged when I saw that 6-digit result flashing, mocking my choices. Seriously, since when did he become more influential than Obama or to some extent even Osama? But still, I clicked that "Not Influential" button, hoping that there are still some sensible people around. But alas! Weeks after, I saw an article about him topping the list of one of the most influential news magazines in the world. I could have forgiven Time with Lady Gaga last year, but him? Really? Time! Christ Jesus.

That's the problem with online polls and internet connection. South Koreans have faster internet connections, so maybe the fangirls raped the influential button.

Oh well, we all know how fangirls can turn the tides of population and sidestep more deserving people off (American Idol, anyone?). And I don't care about Korean fangirls or any fangirls for that matter at my doorstep.

I will do this to any angry fangirl at my doorstep. Seriously, have a life.

I have yet to read the Time 100 issue, as I am hoping that the Time people will ponder still on the results. As for now, I'm hoping that he's not on top. It would be a slap on the face of some.

Vacation? What Vacation? Is that food?

I have been logging in and out of Facebook lately, and I could say that the students are already damn bored of their vacation that they are so ready to go back to school.

This, for me, made me realize that the school year is about to start and I still haven't got the hang of my so-called "vacation." I mean, I'm still fed up going to school because of paper work and that so wrong advanced English classes. It didn't help at all. The students are refreshed, but I'm still stressed and fed up. Go figure. It also doesn't help that we will report to work starting the 16th. My problem is that those three weeks before classes should be spent writing and refining our lesson plans and not warming the chairs in our auditorium listening to some "expert" blabbering about what we should do inside our classrooms.

Come June and the students are refreshed, eager to learn, but I am still pissed off.

On Vacation (Swimming Galore)

I do not like outings.

Yes, I'm not a swimmer, which is a shame really, as I live in a freaking archipelago. But waters and sunbathing aren't really appealing to me. Add to that people. I am really socially awkward, which is counterintuitive because my work entails me to reach out to people. Still, I prefer sitting alone in my home reading, than to be basking in the sun. But what can I do, this outing is a school outing, so, my wishes of a peaceful summer is actually out of the window.

This outing is the last part of the team building activity that we will have tomorrow, which for me, is really unappealing because I was at the school for the last two weeks. I haven't shed off my school smell and haven't even missed my school yet, but here I am, already asked to report again. I just don't want other people encroaching on my much treasured, supposed to be vacation. I mean, I will be with this same people and same neuroses for the next ten months. So a team building activity is not what we need, what we need is professionalism. I think that no amount of team building will suffice for the headaches that we have caused each other ten months ago.

Next Monday will be our official reporting, so I don't really get the point of scheduling it tomorrow and on Saturday. You know, they CAN schedule it May 16 onwards, but not on our freaking pseudo-vacations. Our lesson plans are already making us busy as it is, we don't need another superficial activity.

Anyway, I think I just need to bear with it, which is so uncool.

Advanced English Classes Blues

I have been ranting about my Advanced English classes two weeks ago, and thank God it's already through. I just do not like the idea of waking up during vacation when you are supposed to be sleeping in only to go to work. The pay, as I told you before, is far from appeasing me, actually, it rather adds up to my rage. However, the only consolation that I have is that I have brilliant students who really wanted to learn and develop their speaking skills.

Yep, I want them to talk sensibly. I want them to wow people every time they speak

This advanced English classes is, well, supposed to hone the whatever skills the students already have. These students already mastered the language forms in the classroom, so I decided to focus more on sharpening their speaking and listening skills.

Teaching these students is a whiff of fresh air. They are indeed very, very different from my unruly, crass, and unmotivated students from the past school year. They made me feel that I was doing something right, and that my efforts for them are not laid to waste. I listened to their monotone poetry reading turning into something more promising, I watched their anxiety as they delivered their speeches in front of the incoming Junior students, and I felt elated with their sadness when I told them that we can't have debate anymore because of time-constraints.

It was a challenge teaching them, yet, it was at the same time very fulfilling. And in a way, they made me become aware of the things that I do and don't do as a teacher. I realized that I am not at all the steel-tough teacher that my school wants me to be; I have always felt that I always wanted to reach out to my students, to be relevant to them, thus making a more harmonious classroom. It doesn't matter to me if they would consider the subject as easy, because, for me, it's actually the purpose of learning (and English is actually easy), that you are doing impossible feats in a certain aspect that you don't notice it anymore.

But still, all good things need to end. And come June, another set of unruly, crass, and unmotivated students will come my way.

I think I will miss this summer.

Grades Are One Annoying Part of Education

I am the type of person who doesn't give a f*** about what someone does, so when other teachers are questioning my classroom management techniques as a way of getting me in trouble, I get angry. It's not like I am the one who vandalized the walls, disturbed classes, howled and horsed along the corridor ad infinitum. Sure, I can give these students some slack, you know, because they are immature and are discovering themselves, but these students are 14-16 years olds they know and can actually do what is right. Like, I don't know, studying? You figure.

So, after all the brouhaha that was the student who was retained, another co-worker approached me and pressured me into giving the student a passing grade. And I was annoyed for the whole afternoon.

I have always believed that if you question a teacher's way of giving grades is tantamount to questioning the teacher's ability as a whole. Add to that the fact that if you are a new teacher, chances are you will always be the one who will be getting this pressure. It's not like I didn't do everything that I can in my power to help the student out. Because, you know, if the student doesn't want the encouragement, then you are not supposed to shove that encouragement through his throat like a penis. And you are not supposed to take the crap because of that. So what if the other teachers are tenured? Am I not a teacher too? Does me being on a contract make me less of a teacher? I don't think so.

Luckily, the topic was dropped. But I was hoping that this pressure on all sides will be escalated, and luckily again, that didn't happen. Because you know, I will still stand by my computation.

Lacuna Coil : Beautiful Distraction

It is said that even before Evanescence debuted, there were already a bunch of female-fronted metal bands in Europe.

Nightwish

  

Epica

Within Temptation

And this I didn't know, because I am more familiar with the American music charts. Anyways, I'm ignorant when it comes to European music, and I was like, "where the fuck are these bands when I was younger?" Well, they have been touring Europe while I was ignorantly sucking on Evanescence's or MTV's dick. Or cunt.

So I was deeply refreshed when I heard these bands. Powerful and soaring vocals, not to mention it has the kind of heaviness that I want Evanescence to have. One of them is Lacuna Coil. I love the contrasts between Cristina's and Andrea's voice. Though they say Andrea can't sing shit, I think that it adds to the beauty of the band's sound, actually. His voice is rough, but not death growl-ish. And of course, there's Cristina who absolutely looks like one of my instructors in the university.

The Best Thing From Italy Since Pizza, Pasta and Passionate Sex

Kidding aside. I actually tried to listen to some of their discography, and I think it's fantastic. It has this Middle Eastern feel in some of the tracks and all of it are radio-friendly. It's heavy enough for me to like it and while at the same time it doesn't alienate the more casual listeners.

Now that I'm missing Evanescence, listening to these bands is a rather beautiful distraction.