8 February 2001, Thursday

Another day of commuting for me but there was more willingness because it is two days after having classes in UA&P. My regular schedule on Thursdays allows me to have free time in the morning to deal with some of my tutees and prepare for the classes I will have that afternoon. Well, sometimes you just have to let go of these heavenly situations. Their Composition teacher was absent. Since it would be too much to give them free time again, I took the initiative to take the schedule of their Compo classes. I had to advance my Literature class hoping also that the Compo teacher arrives that afternoon to take my regular Lit schedule.

So I went first to the first years. Well, it’s not that I wanted to go to them first, but because it was the first of the absent teacher. We immediately started discussion on “The Iliad.” Actually the discussion was more of the introduction for the book. We talked about the assignment I gave them. I let them talk about it because if not, they would think that it was useless. I discussed with them the Trojan War and how it started. I told them that “The Iliad” is an epic that starts in medias res or in the middle of things. Then I became very conscious about my teaching style that tends to be too Socratic for them. I always have a question in the back of my head that I haven’t answered: am I expecting too much from my students that I teach them like they are college students? The question just dawned on me when I realized that I gave them so many theses writing assignments to do. To add to it, I just talked to a Woodrose student who is 2nd year and told me how their Lit classes went in their school. Big difference! She told me that the teacher asks questions whose answers to are found in the text, they just have to look for them. That is definitely not the teaching style that I uphold. I thought that these low level thinking questions are only for beginning readers and they are not. Am I prematurely making them think too much?! Come to think of it, if I teach them like college students, what excitement would they still have when they go to College especially if they go to UA&P?

Then I have two periods of Lit with the second years. Thank God I had a game ready for them that I could allow to spend one whole period. I entered their classroom and divided the class into two. The game was a variation of charades. They are all lined up facing the back. The first one in the line listens to the teacher to give them an occupation. They are supposed to act it out to the next in line with the rest of the students’ backs are turned against them. The second person, when she is ready to act out the occupation, taps the third and will try to guess and imitate her to show the fourth, so on and so forth. I prepared five occupations and they wanted more. How could I refuse after seeing them enjoying the game? So I gave them two more extra occupations then we all heard the long bell rang. We finished the game and I told them to go back to their seats. The game was not merely a game without any connection with the discussion. When I have a game for the class, it should always be connected with the lesson because I don’t want to waste time with useless energy. This is why I seldom have games with the students and they get excited when we have them. It was a good physical exercise for them that loosened them up for a discussion. Hey, maybe I should try to be more creative in thinking of more games for all my classes because it does contribute in the learning conditions of the students. I should most especially do this for the Grade 7 because I always have double periods with them and for the first years whom I have to jolt to start talking.

After the second years, I have the grade 7 students waiting for me. Before I started the class, I greeted them good afternoon, wrote the outline of activities in store for them for the next two periods, and went out to photocopy something for the class. We already started discussing the simplified version of the “Odyssey” of Homer before. When I came back from the photocopying, I asked them to get ¼ sheet of paper for a short quiz. I had to think of the questions to give them right there and then which should not happen. My quizzes are very simple. They are always objective and I use it as a technique to teach my students to read the assigned chapters for the day. They have a tendency not to read at all. After the quiz, we started discussing the “Adventure of Ulysses.” With their class, I always have to make them relate to the story by making them empathize with the characters. I always have to analogize the feelings of the characters to their circumstances so they understand how the characters actually feel in the story. Most of the time, I had to exercise my acting abilities in front of my students and they like it because you are different from their other teachers who do not have to act out the lesson. Is it becoming to emotional in approach? Reflecting on this question, I don’t think that it is becoming too emotional because I then have to discuss with them that these emotions have to be overcome by the characters because if not, it will become their tragic flaw. One of my hidden objectives is to teach the students how to think and be prudent in their actions. Stories always deal with a plot and a plot moves because of the decisions made by the characters. They have to see this whenever they read the story. A very good example of literature that talks about the consequences of man’s actions is Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” which is one the reasons why I like the play so much.