A Passerby’s Trail

On Teaching Mega-classes in the Philippines

All teachers may agree that teaching is a noble profession and class time is short and precious.  But not all teachers agree that teaching small classes is as effective as teaching large ones.  I don’t.  Even if research says that what counts is not the size of the class, but the quality of the teaching. Even if research suggests that the key to effective instruction and student learning, “regardless of class size”, is engaging students in active learning.  I don’t agree with what research says, especially in the context of Philippine public school setting.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the “best way” to teach large classes does not really exist.  At least, not in the elementary or high school level.  Holding large classes is basically contrary to what teaching is supposed to do:  stimulate continued student interest and integrated learning. 

Based on my experience, no matter how varied and well-planned the class activities were and how organized and systematic I was, every school day for me was extremely tedious, frustrating and stressful.  I couldn’t help but wonder how my fellow teachers survived all these years.

Teaching in a Philippine public school is synonymous with teaching mega-classes in small and stuffy unventilated rooms.  I could hardly remember the names of my students.  Students just become faces instead of people.  There are no teaching assistants to help you; and even with a solid curriculum, there’s not enough books, teaching materials, and school supplies for the class. I didn’t have enough time in my hands to at least check and record their daily quizzes halfway through.  I couldn’t get opportunities in getting to know the students more, in helping them find their voices, and in assisting them in their difficulties.

Most of the time, during the beginning of the school year, some classes have to be temporarily located in the library, laboratory rooms, or even in unfinished buildings and under the trees. That also means that the rest of the student population are deprived of using the library and laboratory rooms until they become available. On top of that, teachers receive poor recompense causing most of them to find other means of livelihood even to the point of being occasionally truant themselves.

But you don’t have to deal much on unmotivated and disrespectful students. You don’t have to roll up your sleeves and get messy with the unruly ones simply because Filipino kids are generally learners with a very positive attitude towards school and teachers. 

I feel bad that students often find themselves in a situation like this.  They deserve better than what they are getting.

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How to prevent spam in your blog’s comments

Some people just don’t have anything much to do in their lives except to bug others. That’s what spammers do. They have come close to ruining everything on the Internet. But bloggers can choose to fight back.

Fighting against blog spam costs a lot of trial and error. With some patience and perseverance, you can stop spammers by following steps:

* Moderate comments. Delete spam as soon as you become aware of them. Do not respond to their comments.

* Use the Blacklist filter and update it regularly. Some words just don’t belong in blog comments.

* Turn on the nofollow option in your blog. Tell search engines do not give link credit to links appearing in trackbacks and comment. Smart spammers look for this and skip sites with nofollow since they won’t get any credit from their efforts.

* Install Akismet. It will help you filter out those nasty spammers.

* Let commenters type an authentication code. This may not stop spammers from leaving comments but it will certainly cause delay.

If all else fails, turn off comments. If you don’t have them, you won’t get spam. But then again, you also won’t get any good comments which is the joyful part of blogging.

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Homeschooling: Rethinking our Schools and our Society

More and more American families are choosing to homeschool their children.  The number of homeschooled children has increased drastically in the last ten years.  According to National Center for Education Statistics in 2003, 1.1 million are being homeschooled.  The Home School Legal Defense Association, however, says the figure is now higher, probably somewhere between 1.7 and 2.1 million children. 

I am an educator and I had a lot of teaching experiences in different school levels; yet as a mom, I prefer to homeschool my child.  I’m aware how much work it’s going to be, especially if I intend to create a curriculum from ground up.  But I’m willing to invest all my time, my energy, my creativity and my expertise.  It’s worth it, because it’s for my child.

I believe in education.  And that includes homeschooling as well.  A lot of successful people were homeschooled for some or all of their school years.  Great authors such as William Blake, Charles Dickens, Irving Berlin, C.S. Lewis and Mark Twain were homeschooled. American presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, William Henry Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt were also homeschooled. 

I can name a lot more people that are famous —  Benjamin Franklin, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Charlie Chaplin, Claude Monet, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers.  Even my favorite poet, Robert Frost, was homeschooled!  They are proofs that school attendance is not the only way to become a successful, sociable adult.

I am an educator but I believe that school is not the only place for children to develop socialization skills.  Children don’t need to be around many people in order to be socialized because they don’t respond too well when they are in a crowd.  I know that because I used to handle very large classes.

Around 40+ students were in my elementary classes, 30+ students in my college classes, and 70+ students in my high school classes!  From my experience, at least 75% of my students accepted that they were bullied by someone and 90% of them wanted to look and talk and be like everyone else. Most of them felt like they were being forced to attend school.  They felt like they’re not learning what they really are very much interested in so that every time I’d announce a “no-school day”, all of them would jump out of their seats in joy.  And I mean every single time.

Except for a few students, peer pressure and unhappy school experiences kept most of them from excelling in academic subjects no matter how much I tried to inspire them to do their best.  Even in a ninth grade class of five which I am handling right now — it took me five months of encouraging them before we could read aloud together as a class.  Insecurity, self-consciousness and nervousness wouldn’t be an issue if a child is not in a classroom setting.  A school environment can certainly be a threatening place.  For some children, it can be traumatic.  It’s sad…  but that is a reality.
 
I am an educator and I love schools.  But I prefer to homeschool my child.  Perhaps, if every school would be a safer place…  Perhaps, if our school curriculum wouldn’t be as outdated and unfriendly to our students… Perhaps if the school system wouldn’t be as oppresive to everyone else as it has been in the last ten years…  I might send my child to school.  I really can’t make up my mind if I would, but I probably might.