LONGING

Longing, a word I dare to imagine because just the thought of it makes me feel like daydreaming.

I love to watch the dusk and the dawn; the beauty phases of the sun rising towards the middle of the sky and the candidness of the sun as it disappears from the horizon in between late afternoon and early evening. To me, these scenarios are two of the most fascinating phenomena God has made to remind every human being of His glorious existence and of hope.

I also love to traverse nature. I unsweatingly enjoy its beauty by journeying the lands. I trek from one mountain to another; from one farm to another; from the vegetations to rice fields to plantations. To me, the smell of the soil as it mixes with the seemingly distinct smell of the chlorophyll of all the leaves of every plant, of its twigs too and its petioles, is like a perfume reminiscent of my personal realization of how much treasure we have around us.

I cross the seas and the oceans. I travel along the rivers and float in the middle of every pool, pond or lake that I have been through. The waters have shown to me such wonderful celebration of sparkles as the sun hits them. The diamond like glitter they create is indeed an exciting and tingling occurrence. The fishes that swim in them and the plants that sway underneath ornamented by the beautiful corrals of varying shapes, sizes and colors live like the most free living creatures. I enthusiastically applaud their freedom from any form of bondage and of limitations.

I am engulfed by the seemingly endless sky -- an eternal pit in reverse. As weathers change, its colors too does. Sometime perfectly blue, in other times almost total black. In one occasion, gray and in another like velvet with sparkles of brilliant little diamonds. Birds fly. Winds blow. Rains fall. Clouds show and go. Twisters form and hits and says good bye. All of these make the sky a vital composition of unlimited possibilities reminding mankind that anything is possible.

Above all, i love to watch the unique faces of every person enjoying these beautiful matters. Their eyes, brows, lips, nose, hair; their hands, limbs, legs; the sound of their voices when they speak; the unique vibrato of their laughters; the commanding gestures they make; the varying facial expressions they put when reacting to something; the clothes they wear and the different combinations they make; the manner they use when communicating with one another; the kind of connection they establish; the important relationship they found.

All of these seemed to be captured by my brain a thousand shots every minute and stored automatically in my brain. All they need is just a stimulus that would make me be reminded of the exact pages of these beautiful albums -- a stimulus that would serve as the hand that knows where the group of direct pictures have been archived making me recall almost every detail of such incidence. As I lay down my eyes on every thing, I pass through history. Experiencing them is simply going through time and saying "so long" inevitably to all of them. No suspended animation.

The essence of the 7-day creation story is seemingly clear to me now. Indeed, men deserve to be created when everything has already been done. This is because human beings are the ones on top of all of these. Human beings, just like me, are the only ones who know how to look at every thing, to wonder, to realize, to appreciate, to capture, to store, to look back, and to long...

Hmm, I wonder..

CAN TEACHERS AND STUDENTS BE REALLY GOOD FRIENDS?

I have been asking this question since the onset of my teaching career. Should I make friends with students? How can I separate my personal status with that of my professional side? Is it not susceptible to abuse by either party? Is there a need for friendship? Can it be deterred before it even starts or blossoms? Should we teachers tell friendly students to back off at whatever possible subtlest means? A lot more questions are currently in my mind. Some I do not even know the reason why such questions come into my mind.

Teachers are human beings. Teachers are supposed-to-be second parents of the students. Teachers have feelings. Teachers are social beings.

Students, on the other hand, are human beings too. Students are those who supposedly extended their trust to the teachers being hired by the school where they are enrolled. Students have feelings too. Students, just like teachers, are social beings.

Both peoples have backgrounds, biases, inhibitions, ambitions, longings, aspirations, needs, wants, everything. Different or similar as the case may be, they somehow cross paths and agree; at times, they clash and disagree just like any other human being whether relatives, family members, club members, co-employees or whatever group of individuals a person may belong.

But still, between teachers and students, there is the underlying concern on the act of separating personal relationship from professional relationship; from being a mentor to being a friend. How can one clearly establish the boundary so that other questions on biases especially on some specific decision makings will not be jeopardized by this cause?

When a teacher becomes too close to a students, some will notice that. Good if it starts and ends at that. What worsens the relationship is the possibility that others might put malice or especially creative interpretations on it like on the specific issues of favoritism. Is the teacher mature enough to be very objective in his or her dealings with friendly students that the same decision will be arrived at even in the absence of friendship -- the teacher being critically careful to the merits of the factors affecting the situation? Besides, are teachers the only ones who should be concerned about this or should it be also the concern of the students?


One known remedy to this seeming nuances on teacher-student relationship is the call for a "distance". Still, the term distance is very relative. How far should the distance be? Is this condition numeric in meaning? a mere figure of speech? If numeric, how far? one meter? two? What?

When I student tries to open his or her thought to the teacher, how personal should the manner be? Should the teacher refer the student to the guidance counselor? Or should the teacher embrace the chance to know the student more? But how should the teacher handle this? One-on-one? In the presence of another student? In the presence of another teacher? What is right here? What is not? When will these considerations end? What are they in the first place?

Further, when does that point of being a teacher stop to give way to the real person inside that teacher to establish friendship with another fellow who happens to be his or her student? On the other hand, when does that point of being a student stop to give way to the real person inside that student to establish friendship with another fellow who happens to be his or her teacher?

Whew! Is there really a chance for this? Ah, so difficult to think about. Critical issues will continue to haunt the existence of this kind of relationship. As long as no one knows the boundaries and limitations, no one will be able to stop asking why.

The final question now is: "Is being a teacher a curse against or an opportunity to broaden one's network of friends?" I just hope it is the latter.

THE AGONY OF ENDING A SCHOOL YEAR

Imagine a school campus from june to march:

students walking, chatting, giggling, reading, playing, eating, doing things to be noticed...

doing projects, surfing the internet, typing, reciting, waiting inside the classroom, loitering along the corridor.

talking to teachers, crying, sobbing, boisterously laughing, clapping, calling someone from the other end..

copying preparations of a classmate, trying to pass through the class when late, saying and writing creative excuse letters.

reading the notes during report sessions, trying to get a glimpse of a classmate's answer during examinations..

queuing to pay fees, securing signatures on the clearances, getting test permits, wearing the school uniform..

entering the classroom with full of students, seeing chalk writings on the board, spending extended time in the comfort room spraying colognes and fixing hair and make up.

Then, imagine the campus without all of these?

Buildings only, vacant classrooms, closed laboratories and libraries, canteens with only chairs and table -- no food and people..

Ah, devastating, silent, eerie, cold, heart breaking, meaningless..

Ah, makes me cry now. Can't continue writing this blog. I miss them all.

Indeed, agonizing..

You Are My Biggest School Achievement This Year

Every year, I always take the initiative of trying to identify the most memorable and awesome achievement among the things I have done from June to March -- the whole school year. The achievement is focused on students. A name must come out topping all others as soon as I submit to the office of the registrar the Collegiate Grading Sheet.

My purpose of doing this is to make sure that I have helped someone especially from among the roster of students with whom I had the opportunity to directly teach them in any of my assigned class load either during the first semester or the second semester. Usually, I base my judgment and choice according to the leap of improvement from prelim to the final period.

When I say leap, it refers to the degree of positive change in the grade of the concerned students. Say, in prelim a students gets only 55% and during the finals, same student gets 80% then the leap is 25 points.

There were two students whose names lingered in my mind. They were Darren and John. Allow me to expound on these two.

First, with Darren. Darren is a shifter from BS Business Administration to BS Information Technology. The shift seemed to be almost beyond comprehension at first knowing the real difference divide between BSBA and BSIT. But, as soon as classes started, Darren showed a great, consistent performance. He immediately topped the class. His outstanding analytical and, later, programming abilities became his keys to the top. He was tagged by the class as "optional".

On another note, his popularity has made him even more down-to-earth. He never failed to respect the intelligence divide between him and the majority of the class. He would show willingness and enthusiasm to help and critique the works of his classmates. He was loved and figured to be a dependable comrade by his classmates. He even became more responsible and continued to pursue greater heights. He is indeed one-of-a-kind. Still, bubbly and accommodating.

The second one is about another student who really took the lllleeeeeaaaaaaappppp. His name was John. I have not noticed his presence until midterm. He was shy and silent. He was more of an observer than a contributor. He made me remember and realize that he was part of the class when he came to my desk to clarify why his grade score was lower compared to one of his classmates when the paper showed that he got two points higher in the exam than the latter. I gave him my explanations which he accepted. He made me think. His action made me smile. I was happy that a student did that to me. I thought that he was concerned and that he values his efforts well. Indeed, as days went by, he became visible to my eyes. I would start calling him during recitations. Soon, he was mentally part of the class.

But despite my varying strategies, one afternoon, upon going through my class record, I realized that among my 30 students, 12 seemed to be having difficulty in absorbing the lessons discussed in the class during our scheduled lecture. I thought I needed to decide to offer to all the Logifor students my intention to offer free-of-charge remediation measures during their vacant period (which fell on Tuesdays and Thursday from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon).

I took the initiative of looking for one of those twelve specific students who I thought needed to benefit from my plan. Call it fate or destiny, as I sat down at the canteen to take my afternoon coffee break, I saw John. I told him my plan and the benefit of attending it. Without any feeling of hesitation, he immediately showed the much desired willingness. Again, such gesture made me more convinced that this guy was diligent and willing to soar to higher limits. I told myself, I, on my part, will do my wittiest abilities to ensure that their expected outcome of the remediation measures will be achieved before the final examinations. On his part, I asked him to tell his classmates in advance so that by the time I inform them about this during our next class, they would have already pondered on it making them ready with their pertinent decision.

At first, there were only 4 students attending the special session. They were John, JL, Gob and Jade. I had a lot of fun doing the extra chore. It was like picnicking. We had food and softdrinks while learning. The approach became more personalized.

Slowly, this news broke among those who did not bother to attend at all. That, as such, after having known the pre-final grade and having heard from the initial list of participating students their appreciation and the way things were being done there, the attendance increased. Additional attendees were: Sheena, Roshelle, Marjory, Irish, JA, Rhea, Kimberlyn and Angela. At times, Darren would attend to help me out.

Days passed by. Slowly at first then seemingly increasing in momentum. More exercises were given and solved. Improvements in performance became more visible.

Looking back, his prelim grade was 54%. This was before we started the remediation sessions. His midterm grade was 57%. Again, this was very shortly before we started the remediation. During the pre-final, his grade became 60%. My first indicator that the remediation measures I have been conducting -- which he made a perfect attendance in -- was effective. This was the first time he got a passing mark in my class.

Finally, on the day prior to the giving of the final examination, I told those who were interested to know their respective score-goals (the score each of them needed to get in the Final Examination so they could at least get a 3.0 passing mark) to visit me in my office. Once again, John came first together with two of his friends. We found out he needed only 15 points.

On Monday morning, March 17, I gave the final examination. It started at 8:00 AM and ended at 12:00 noon. It was indeed a long and comprehensive exam. The afternoon of the same day was used by me in checking the papers. John got a score more than four times of what he needed to just pass the subject.

When I encoded the score in my MSExcel worksheet, I was amazed to know that he got 67% final grade. Ahh, indeed, with hardwork, determination, support and the belief that one can do it, triumph/success is near and possible.

To John and Darren, students like you are the reasons why I continue to enjoy being in the academe despite the somehow low monetary remuneration. You are my trophies -- the real proof of my achievement for this school year 2007-2008. May you never cease to improve your current best... May you continue to be inspirations to others..

And to everyone who thinks they need my help in learning, as I have done and shown, do not hesitate to approach me because I finally found my role in this specific realm that I have chosen to cross.. May God bless us all...