Engagement – Authentic Learning – Ah the Challenge

I learned the most about engaging students and gauging my effectiveness as a teacher by evaluating what my students were doing from a charismatic Korean administrator who oversaw video classes with native teachers.  I was one of those native teachers attempting to engage students as a talking head projected on a screen in the front of a classroom.  I couldn’t walk around the room or tap a child on the shoulder to get his or her attention.  I had to direct them from afar.  The dear administrator would look over my lesson plans and sigh, “I see that you change what you are doing every 15 minutes or so, but the students are always doing the same thing.”

What?  The students were doing the same thing even though I was mixing up the lesson and shifting from activity to activity?  How could that be?  Then I looked at the lesson from the child’s perspective and found that the administrator was right.  To successfully engage students from a screen in the front of the room, I needed to make sure they changed what they were doing throughout the class.

Schools here in Bacolod and Manila struggle with the same issues I struggle with in class.  We are all pressed by content demands to deliver information to students and weighted with the responsibility of ensuring that they can regurgitate that information on tests and refer back to it in next year’s courses.  Some Filipino classes are massive – up to 60 students - but most that I have observed are manageable – around 30.  Teachers here incorporate the same methods we attempt at home:  group work, callbacks, pair shares, projects, experiments, videos, and Power Points.  Like my classes, at times the teacher is the center – talking – pulling answers out of a few exemplar students while hastily moving forward subconsciously aware that many in the room were not following along.  Only a few students analyze the carefully prepared handouts while the rest file them in their folders and rely on what was discussed in class to pull them through the test.

I wonder as I glance over rows of students who have better auditory skills than mine but seem to lack an ability to glean information from written texts.  I wonder if they question the authenticity of their education the way my students question theirs.  Our host shares stories of nursing students graduating at the top of their class but finding higher paying jobs in call centers than in medical centers.  They dust off their English and answer questions about American credit cards instead of caring for patients.  We impose this rigid academic curriculum on our students and then share that academia with the world with the hope that somehow the world will become a better place because of the content and quality of life will improve and jobs will open up before well-prepared workers.  Yet, I find the American education system to be lacking.  Our businesses train their own employees and graduates leave college and go back home to live with their parents because of student loan debt and a glut in the job market.

I visited with a communications instructor at a local university in Bacolod.  She trains her students for the call center – teaching interviewing and phone answering skills.  She worked in a call center until she had children and couldn’t manage the hours.  She saved money while working there and then pursued her profession, teaching, when she could afford the lower salary.  Education brings prestige; they are “diploma conscience” as they say, but it does not always bring a higher quality life.  I find myself questioning the purpose of education.  It is an expensive way to build character if the degrees don’t pay off in employable skills.  Both of our systems seem to wrestle with these issues.  Both wrestle to care for the children and the community with a sincere hope for a better future.

Rural Journey

It’s Sunday in Sipalay.  The ocean teases us with calm waves while the clouded sky heavy with rain taunt from above.  The day’s boating will again be canceled – no viewing of the ocean through a glass bottom boat, no jumping into the sea to snorkel and find exotic fish, no island hopping today.  Today it is going to rain and by rain I mean pour buckets of drenching water.  Even after the rain, the air remains heavy with moisture and the saturated soil gives up puddle after puddle of gooey mud.  As the rain lessens, people emerge draped in plastic, under colorful umbrellas.  Workers emerge in the rice field.  Children dribble balls and chase each other across the beach.  Cows lazily lift their chained heads on the side of the road slowly munching away at the layers of grass. 

Rural landscapes invited a slowing down in every culture.  The same is true here.   Sheltered in the only locally owned resort in the little beach town, we are surrounded by bamboo huts and small concrete houses.  Fishermen wait at their boats for the rain to relent and give up the sea so they can make their meager living.  Barefoot children skirt the resort, riding bikes, doing flips, playing on boogie boards and searching the beach for treasures.

It’s a four-hour drive through small villages, rice fields, and orchards of coconut trees from Bacolod City to Sipalay.  Although we have seen Europeans and Americans in Bacolod, we don’t see other Caucasians on this leg of our journey and significantly draw attention to ourselves when we stop at the small Jollibees (their version of MacDonalds) to snack on a mango peach pie and pineapple juice.  I can’t resist the child selling round, flat candies covered in peanuts outside the door.  I use both hands to break a piece of the 4inch circle of sugar and smile at the familiar taste of peanut brittle.  The island is the sugar island of the Philippines where row after row of sugar cane wave at the tropical sky and the people here demonstrate well that they know exactly what to do with sugar!  Amazing pastry and cake shops line the cities and my waistline.  A little farther down the road, we stop for a coconut cake that we cut into hot and watch the gooey cream seep from its pastry confinement.  Somehow we find a way to eat this with only one fork, a spoon and box lid between us.  I chase the sweet gooey pie with a half cup of strong black coffee and relax back into my Sunday afternoon drive.

The drive soothes me like a nursery rhyme as we speed past slightly terraced rice fields guarded by bamboo huts built on gentle hills.  The winding road crests at times revealing an unexpected view of the beach on the left and rounded mountains draped with heavy clouds to the right.  Then we dip onto a straightaway and a small community emerges, lining the street with small storefront Sari-Sari stores and a caravan of tricycles pedaling relentlessly through the rain down narrow roads.  Teens dribble basketballs and make jump shots as we weave in and out of small tribes of people, tricycles, and stray dogs.

As quickly as it arose, the small town disappears into the foliage and drops of rain continue to pound the already soaked land.  Short strips of construction interrupt our fearless pace through the countryside.  Our host remarks, "It is an election year.  The politicians are widening the roads."

Farmers emerge knee deep in rice fields, draped in plastic armor against the dampening rain.  A thin man in long shorts and a red t-shirt lifts feet heavy with mud as he sloshes across a muddy rice field carrying obviously heavy pails in each hand.

It’s Sunday and this was my Sunday drive.

Prescribed – Integrated – Creative

  "Beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love."

Louis Kahn

Americans are champions of local control.  Filipinos are champions of practicing it.  I have mourned with fellow teachers from Korea and China over the burden of their national curriculum, over their inability to sway from the textbook or step off pace from the directives of their national office.  The Philippines also have a national curriculum, but like their sense of privacy allows them to flow in and out of touch with each other without sacrificing a deeply integrated relationship, their state directive allows them to ebb and flow in and out of sync with the document as they operate independently yet stay in sync with each other.  The curriculum is loose and built of modules as opposed to chapters from a text.  It is also affectionate, loving, coming from national leaders who care deeply for the future of their children who also understand the incredible diversity represented in these islands and the needs of the communities that they serve.  The modules for each grade level come with prescribed content and teaching activities.  But every class is not the same.  Teachers adapt the modules integrating values education and critical thinking opportunities to create a meaningful local experience of the nationalized curriculum.

Crowded schools dictate that students stay in one class and teachers move.  Teachers work from departmental faculty rooms where desks line the walls and middle of the room.  Each room has a small eating area where teachers share lunch and interact daily – lunch duties being left to the janitors and security personnel– so teachers can refresh and interact.  If a teacher is absent, their classes are left teacherless.  Students sit quietly at their desk completing homework assignments or visiting quietly.  Time in classes is divided throughout the week, so they don’t necessarily meet for an hour every day, but rather English is 200 minutes a week and divided throughout the week.  Electives meet less than core courses.  Teachers have two prep periods a day and are paid according to their teaching loads.  The standard load is 24 units a week which is about 24 hours of classroom time a week.  If you teach more than 24 units, you are compensated.  I believe it is standard everywhere that teachers work beyond their contract hours.  Our host is the Vice Principal of her school and she often stays at school until 6 or even 8 in the evening even though the kids generally go home by 4. 

Private schools are integrated, meaning that they have preschool, kindergarten, elementary, jr high school and sr high school and college in one school.  This is especially valuable for vertical alignment.  Students that begin school in the same private school, maintain good grades and are able to afford the private school throughout are blessed with a very cohesive education.  Teachers address the new school year with confidence that their students have common educational experiences from the year before.  Interactions between the different grade levels are positive.  The college is slightly gated off from the elementary & secondary school.  It has its own cantina and library and wifi access.  The elementary and secondary classes are held on separate floors with the youngest being near the bottom and the oldest on the top floor.  They share a library, viewing room, computer lab, cantina and the like.  All levels take turns playing sports in the center of the complex.  Their gym and theater were destroyed in a fire last year, so all activities take place outside.  The older and younger students do not seem to interact either negatively or positively.  They pass each other comfortably and go about their business.   During the assembly older students move towards the elementary classrooms to help the younger students with songs.

Another aspect of the integration is the entwining of rich and poor.  Uniforms effectively mask social classes for me.  I cannot tell if a student is rich or poor except a few wealthy students wearing name brand sweatshirts and the like.  For the most part they look equally intelligent and blessed in their plaid skirts, pressed slacks and white dress shirts.  However, I learn that the “working students” (TAs) work in exchange for the cost of their tuition and that high performing students receive full scholarships as well.  San Agustin is especially generous with scholarships.  Our host often commented, “She is poor but very smart so we work it out so she can come here.”  It seems that if you are very smart and know how to work the private school system, you can obtain a quality private education.

Public schools are not integrated.  They have separate elementary and high schools.  As the whole nation is moving to a k-12 system at this time, they will create jr. and sr. high schools soon.  Public schools benefit from all schools following the national curriculum but excessively large classes (up to 60 on this island!) and limited resources also limit the teachers’ opportunities to teach creatively.  Public schools generally cover basic, core content subjects. One large public school in Bacolod offers technology electives.  Most schools do offer special science classes for “A” students to fuel the nation’s desire to be competitive internationally.  They have a special science high school like the Makati Science School that we visited in Manila. The island does not taut specialized vocational schools like we saw in Manila.  With the push for high school diplomas and completing university courses, the area experiences a similar situation as we experience in the states.  For example, they graduate many nurses, but nurses are not paid well and there aren’t as many jobs available as they have graduates.  So nursing graduates are able to make a better living working in call centers.  Interestingly, there are no programs at the high school or university level to train workers for the call center even though it is one of the primary employers for the area.  It is believed that the k-12 system will better facilitate vocational training and integrate both academics and vocational training within the schools so as to provide much needed skilled labor.  San Agustin will offer courses to prepare students to pass the national skills assessments, so they can leave high school with a certificate to work.  It’s not surprising that since we gave our educational system to the Filipinos that they struggle with similar issues as us.  The push for academic oriented careers has saturated their system almost as surely as it has saturated ours and left a deficit of technical workers so the demand for skilled labor is high here just like it is high in the US.

So all of us in the field of education move forward addressing similar problems.  Integrating students, curriculum, methodology and even teachers can help all of us solve the issues that plague education today in every nation.  As  LBJ once said,  "There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves."  Together is a concept we can learn from the Filipino.

Reading Yourself...

Sunday June 29

They call it the dipping pool.  After a $9.00 sixty-minute Japanese foot massage (that included my legs, arms, and head?), I found myself nearly alone in this pool.  Breathing the familiar sulfur of home.  Feeling the healing caress of warm mineral water.  Melting into the pool.  Laying my head back and feeling giant droplets of warm rain on my face.  Mountain rain in Bacolod is different than mountain rain at home.  It is warm and inviting and drenching.  Interestingly this exotic resort is not overflowing with the rich.  Ordinary folks are there.  Massage is affordable for most.  Our host tells me that most Filipinos indulge in regular manicures and pedicures.

Filipinos are happy, hospitable, caring people.  They seem mentally well.  A sign at a museum explained how their concept of privacy was expressed in architecture with sliding doors on both ends of rooms allowing for a division of space but an openness that allowed the flow of air, sound, and people.  They are a part of each other and yet decidedly themselves.  You are never really alone here.  You also have to search to find a clock.  They are not driven by time but flow event to event looking at each other, greeting each other, touching each other, eating (yes - constantly offering hospitality).

The American in me grows edgy feeling shackled to partners and hosts and schedules.  My co-fellows and I gasp for independent breath at times, but not this weekend.  This weekend we indulged in a much needed rested and enjoyed the Filipino self-care system.  The pace offered peace and space for reflection more on me than on my journey.  I have been folded in upon myself these past 8 months.  I began to unfold the day I got out of the truck and began walking with the dogs instead of watching them walk and this weekend beneath the hands of a sweet young lady masseuse named Johnnie.  My body actually aches with the unfolding - especially my feet, so my resignation at the waterfall was disappointing but honest, so I retreated to the spa to watch my colleagues climb and Johnnie rubbed my feet.  Then I worked my way to the lovely dipping pool that was abandoned and empty in the rain.  I melted and unfolded feeling both at home and so far away.

I am reminded that we are people first and then teachers.  Teaching is hard work!  If we fold into ourselves under the stress, we lose effectiveness.  Self-care matters. I sense a universal melting as I rest in the hot springs - melting of inequalities and hopelessness.  And after the melting, all that is left is our mutual dreams.  Grieving and hoping are universal.

And we also went to what I call "Disneyland" - zip lines, climbable statues of super heros, stars, and animated characters.  A kid for that day!

The Literacy of Listening in Manila

An Ear Towards Students

A national curriculum with national teaching modules for every unit.  The same pay scale for every teacher for every school.  It sounds so restrictive so canned so unresponsive, and yet, schools in Manila were anything but unresponsive to their communities.  The private school was outside of most state mandates, so it was not surprising to find a creative system there.  What was surprising was the power of the student in the private Catholic school.  I imagined the priests, administrators, nuns and teachers as having the power in a religious school.  I imagined strict discipline and frowns.  I imagined wrong.  St. Paul College was anything but restrictive.  The plaque on the back of every seat in the auditorium read:

Student leaders were in charge of work like taking attendance, setting up tutoring for students, planning field trips, and gathering make-up work in each class.  The student leaders were elected in each classroom and worked with the teacher to manage the class.  The student council was called the “Supreme Student Government” and they had real power.  Students and administrators worked together to create a gifts program built off student interests.  They higher community specialists to head up the gifts programs:  artists, engineers, Olympic level coaches,  and the like.  Students shared their program with student leaders in other schools and helped them create similar programs.  The students felt and acted quite empowered at this beautiful school.  We visited regular classrooms and lab classes.  We visited classes where the teacher was absent but the students sat at their desks and completed seat-work without prompting!   This school maximized resources and had the only semi modern computer lab of the three - with a Mac Lab for design and music composition.  Listening to students was an art at this heartwarming school and students responded with passionate engagement and respect.

Turning Towards the Community (My Favorite School Visit so Far)

We visited a poor and rich public school in Manila yesterday.  What beautiful children and hopeful teachers!  The poor school has a 99% proficiency on national tests.  I"m going to say that again - 99% proficiency AND a 1% dropout rate.  Yep, I typed that right - 1%.  More than amazing, they are inspiring.  There is no other way to say it than to say that the teachers are TIRED! but doing so much with so little.  Such creative hands-on lessons with so few resources.  I watched students deeply engaged in a physics lab using only tiny mirrors and copy paper protractors (not even on card stock!) and students engrossed in literature lessons reading the novels chapter by chapter from HAND WRITTEN chapters on poster sized paper taped to the walls.  See my Facebook page to hear this beautiful children sing! 

I was most impressed with their response to the community.  The Philippines are in the midst of adding two years of high school to their entire system across the board.  I can't imagine telling my at-risk students that we have changed the school system and they will not graduate this year but have two more years to attend!  I can only imagine the desperation and defeat in their eyes if I gave them that news.  This school petitioned the government and is able to give their students real vocational certifications after grade 10 so they can leave the school and get a job.  Then they added an open high school program where students can attend classes at various times of the day/night while working to move towards their actual degree, but they do not have to.  The other way they respond to the community is by the actual electives that they offer.  The skills prepare students to enhance local industry immediately.  The businesses don't have to train students for their jobs.  The students are prepared to work in actual industries that exist.  

They offered garment making and housekeeping, appliance repair and cooking for resorts along with a dozen other practical work based programs.   These students took some rigorous core classes two or three times a week but studied their vocation every day!  By the end of the 10th grade year they could take a national skills assessment in their direct field and be certified to work a "real" job.  The electives were so central to the community needs around them.  I think of all the entry level jobs in the industries around my high school and see several opportunities to train students past that entry level position, so they could leave high school with skills that our local businesses actually need.  It would save the industry money as well as be beneficial to students to work this direction.

Hearing the Future

"We can find good teachers.  Dear students, be our scientists and engineers.  The nation needs you to be scientists," urged the beautiful young superintendent when one of my US colleagues asked the students at this public science high school why none of them wanted to be teachers.  When you saunter through a state of the art brand new high rise high school with 8 or more floors and hallways that resemble huge balconies guided by articulate adult-like teenagers, it's hard to believe that you are in a developing nation.  Looking out the windows instead of off the balconies, you remember that you are.  

In the midst of this kind hearted, rigorously alive and loving community is the acute awareness that most of these people live every day with scarcity - food scarcity, health scarcity, safety scarcity, water scarcity.  Yet the nation is not imprisoned by poverty but rather emerging from it like a caterpillar resting in a cocoon eminently aware of it's changes - the beautiful wings and velvety body that had replaced the slick skin yet not quite breaking free of the humble wrappings that ensnare it.  A colleague and I addressed a room full of 8th grade students.  Their teacher was still in the lounge.  They were waiting for class to begin.  I introduced myself enthusiastically as a history teacher.  They audibly groaned.  David introduced himself as a math teacher and they literally pumped their arms enthusiastically and couldn't control their "Yes!"  We were taking aback.  David turned on his video. "If you don't mind, could you please do that again?  I 'm going to introduce myself and you respond the same you just responded?" and they did.

This school has remarkably more resources than it's counterpart vocational school.  The building, a stipend for students who attend, smaller class sizes, but, as our host Alex stated over and over, our greatest resource is our students.  They have the luxury of having students apply and being able to send students away who do not perform at the 85% level.  (He noted this was good for the students as well because if they leave the school and go to another, they will be the valedictorian there.  Yet, it still does not have the resources of our poorest school.  The drafting class does not have drafting tables to think CAD programs.  Emasculate just constructed book shelves wait in a tiny library to be filled - just like this nation waits for her children to accomplish both her and their dreams.  Put your ear to the ground, you will hear them coming.  Observe the cocoon; it is moving; a wing is breaking free. 

Imperialism

"The Spanish gift to us is religion, and the American gift is education," explained our guide and teacher today as we sat in the luxurious conference room sampling sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and dragon fruit.  Not all colonizing is equal.  The Spanish colonized the Philippines to benefit the Spanish yet, according to our Filipino instructors, the Americans colonized to benefit the Filipinos.  The Spanish did not educate the Filipinos.  They didn't organize the nation.  They didn't teach the Filipino Spanish or offer any benefits to help the Filipino climb the economic ladder.  They feared that education would strengthen the Filipinos causing them to unify and eventually rise up to defeat the colonizers.  It proved to be true.  When the Americans won the Philippines in the Spanish American War, they sent in teachers (called Thomasites after the ship they arrived on).  An educated Philippines has risen up to demand freedom and democracy.

Our first day in the Philippines felt like two or even three.  Of course their is the jet lag parasite draining energy from our beings, yet we stuck it out and completed a full day.  I was greeted by not quite forgotten tastes and scents - savoring my favorite Filipino food (Pancit Canton), sticky rice, fresh mangos and pineapple.  In the morning to ILEP alums taught us Filipino history.  The diversity struck me even deeper as I looked the political history of this nation.  I was so impressed by their trek towards democracy - rising to a freedom level of 3 (1 is best and 7 worst - http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2013/philippines#.U6r0c41dXew) and fighting corruption (what they call plunder) in their legislature and other government offices.  The battle for the South and negotiations with Islamist insurgents reminded me that again this area that is threatened by Al Qaeda influence does not want Sharia Law or any of the Al Qaeda goals.  They wanted to be treated fairly and to have access to the education and healthcare that the majority enjoy.  They are exhausted from oppression and prejudice.  When an earthquake shook the ancient building where we ate dinner and watched a cultural show, I became acutely aware of the fact that these stone megaliths had withstood more than 4 centuries of earthquakes, typhoons, and hurricanes.  The Spanish and Mexican imprint on the evening was greater than the buildings though; they echoes in the music, dance and food - again I had the best flan ever from a Filipino kitchen.  

So many stories.  So many imprints.  So much immigration.  I am anxious to increase my knowledge of these stories so I can piece together a more complete picture of this diverse people.

Quest for a Story

• “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard.  
• “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca.
• “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”  - Henry Miller

These quotes tossed me into the mix of educators seeking an opportunity to travel with Teachers for Global Classrooms to other nations, other schools, other cultures to become better equipped to prepare their students to join the journey towards global competence.  I embark tomorrow.  So much has occurred between the day that I used those quotes to explain my desire to go on this journey.  I actually could never have imagined the year's experiences that would flood my life with change: real, deep, permanent, nothing-will-ever -be-the-same change.  Yet, here I am.  Soft, moldable, in transit.  

Yes - I am in transit to the Philippines - to sunshine, rainforests, beaches, the city of smiles.  Look at this beautiful 5 star hotel that will welcome us to Manilla where we will meet with embassy officials, Philippine education officials, and teachers who have begun the journey to global competence through their own teacher exchange in the US:

Then I will travel to the "City of Smiles" - Bacolod City - for almost two weeks of immersion in their school system and cultural experiences.

I will work with a very friendly and hard working teacher named Donah at the Colegio San Agustin

http://www.csab.edu.ph/beta/

We will travel to the interior a bit to experience a hot springs and mountain resort one weekend and enjoy a beautiful white beach the next weekend:  

http://mambukal.negros-occ.gov.ph/

http://www.sipalay.com/

The Philippines is a perfect place to investigate my essential question for this trip:  How do our unique stories reflect and shape culture?  I am especially interested in stories that appear to have been lost or are threatened to extinction by the encroachment of the modern world or the popular world or the politically correct world.  Whose stories are vital to the depth of the world culture?  Whose unique voice must be preserved or reawakened for the depth of humanity to be represented in the global culture that is gradually engulfing every nook and cranny, crowded city, and isolated thorofare?  How can we preserve stories and not let the powerful overtake the weak?  How can we preserve diversity?

Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary General of the UN once said, "The longest journey is the journey inwards."  Of all the quotes that led me into this journey, this is the one that urges me through it.  I have a story.  It is as diverse as the family that nurtured me, places I've traveled, friends I cherish, choices I've survived, and treasures I have both found and lost.  My journey across the ocean will drive me closer to myself in that all important journey inward....