Last day at Leyte National High School Part 1

Friday, July 3, 2015 

     Today is our last day, we spent a little over an hour preparing for our thank you performance to the students, staff, and administration of Leyte National High.   We are scheduled to give some closing remarks to everyone and I thought it might be cool to do a speech choir performance, similar to what they prepared for our welcome ceremony. 

The other two teachers absolutely loved the idea and collaboratively we planned the presentation, mind you, it will not be near the level that the students performed at but we did our best. 

This morning we had the opportunity to visit a small public school called Marasbaras National High School, and it was probably pretty much tied for the best classroom experience I've had, I did really enjoy presenting to Leyte about my school.  We were surprised by the students standing in a line playing the drums and saluting us as we walked to the entrance of the school, what at welcome!  Every school has greeted us in their own special way, we were also given pretty name tags. 

I thought it was neat that they had
a wall with pictures of teachers
doing best practices!

We visited two 8th grade classrooms, the first was a science class and the students were learning about force and motion, the second was a math class where they were dividing polynomials,  advanced right?!

I did find out from the principal that these two classes were ones that students testing into, so that aligned with what I observed.  It was neat though, the teacher was using a projector and created an interactive lesson by having the students come up and place each activity into it's appropriate category, either pull, push, or twist.  For example, turning a doorknob is a twist. 

Then the math teacher came in (so we, the fellows never moved classrooms).  We found out that was because the math teacher had prepared a powerpoint and that room was the only one with a projector.  She started with an objectives slide, and stated the objective aloud.  Then she went out to solve a class problem together which was a review.  There was a lot of whole group choral responses or just the teacher posing a question to the entire classroom. 

This English teacher does not have a projector so she makes use of colored printouts and typed definitions for students.  Teachers in the Philippines do not have much, but they definitely try their best and use all resources!  

One of the fellows and I really wanted to see a regular classroom, not one that was considered "gifted" so Obet kindly obliged us and we went in to observe an English class.  That was one of my favorite classroom visits.  You could tell right away that this class had regular students in it by their behavior and some of their answers.  They were working on describing cultural traditions in a picture with support from a text.  The students worked in groups and read through the text together. 

While students read in groups, I took that opportunity to listen in to a group of boys read.  It was so interesting to see them all reading the text aloud chorally.  As a teacher, I think that's a good strategy, but when kids read in a small group I like to hear each of them read.  So, I asked the boys to take turns reading sentences and paragraphs, which allowed me to listen to their fluency and correct any mistakes in pronunciation.  I was amazed at how fluently the boys read, it was wonderful.  After they read a paragraph, I stopped them do a check for understanding about what they were reading, the boys answered accurately and used text evidence it was great to see that the students who were in a regular class were also well behaved and had good reading fluency and comprehension.


Then, the teacher had a few students come up to present on what they learned, unlike the other classes we've seen (more advanced ones), the students were very shy and hesitate to volunteer.  After the first presentation, nobody wanted to volunteer to present second, so I chimed in.  I suggested that the teacher call on the group I read with next, and she did.  The boy closest to the front of the picture above, Qryl, was the one to go up -- it was evident that he did not want to do that and had some anxiety.  He did reluctantly go up and did what the teacher wanted him to do.  Afterwards  I came over to him to congratulate him on a job well done and on his courage to do that.  I told Qryl that he should volunteer more often in front of the room and asked why he did not.  His response was, "I know ma'am, I need to get more self-esteem."  Hearing how he understood his own area of improvement was so reflective of him.

Qryl on the right

Soon after, the class transitioned over to history and the students stayed in the same room and got out different notebooks.  A new teacher came in for history, which was taught in the dialect Waray.  I continued to watch Qryl and noticed him sitting up straight in his seat and eagerly listening.  The teacher asked a question and he raised his hand to answer, and I could tell he felt more confident in himself too.  Watching him made me feel like I had made a difference in his life and I felt the sense of fulfillment that I have only gotten in teaching, it's why I pursued education.  Below is a picture of me with all of the boys I listened to read and gave suggestions too.  From left to right the names of the boys are:  Qyrl, Mark, Kenlie, Isabelo, Lemuel, Elvero, and Jay.