Erna Petersen Schapira

Today, 88 years ago, Erna Petersen Schapira was born. And this afternoon, in a restaurant overlooking one of the many lakes scattered all over Denmark, outside the city of Copenhagen we are celebrating over a simple lunch, with some of her surviving old friends and her two sons and their respective spouses and two of her grandsons and a niece her birthday. Her birthday is unique as with other celebrants whose birthday fall on a leap year, with the anniversary taking place only every fourth year. Of her 11 guests, we were the only couple from outside Denmark. The day as Allan used to tell me is typical of the Danish weather during this time - cloudy, a shower every now and then, and windy. Allan, I and Barbara came to pick her up from the old peoples' residence she calls home for the past 4 years now at around 11:30 in the morning. When we came, she was already dressed in a dark blue sweater over a white turtle neck and black pants. Barbara tried to convince her to wear one of her necklaces but she refused to wear one. However, she readily agreed on wearing a brooch.

EDSA 22

Twenty two years and there is reason I believe that Filipinos should remember EDSA 1. What we are experiencing after 22 years are the pains we have to overcome as we rebuild the structure of our society. Some might say that we should look at Singapore or Malaysia as an example of how to do the business of nation-building. Sadly we need to accept that what works for Singapore or Malaysia might not be so useful for our own purpose.

A personal philosophy of teaching and learning

After almost teaching for 11 years now, I still consider each day different from all the previous days I spent with my students (not to mention their parents, my co-teachers and superiors). The most challenging task a teacher confronts daily is how to make each encounter as personal, truthful, rewarding, and most of all inspirational to each and every student inside the classroom. For all the years, sleepless nights agonizing on how to do a lesson the next day in mathematics, I always look back on my own experiences as a student and ask myself if I would enjoy, understand and be motivated to participate in the lesson I am preparing for tomorrow. But still when tomorrow comes, even if one has done a neatly structured lesson plan, there is always that small chance that a simple word utterred by one student would make a big difference in the way the lesson takes shape on that day. Whatever and whereever the course of the lesson leads to I am always guided these 8 personal philosophy (at least I call them as such):

• Students are capable of learning.
• Learners are unique; they are influenced by many factors including their culture, background and prior experiences.
• All learners need a supportive environment in which to be challenged and encouraged to think.
• The classroom belongs to both learners and teachers; it is a place for valuing all ideas and thoughts.
• The classroom if made up of individuals at varying levels of growth and knowledge.
• As s teacher, I am a facilitator of the learners in setting appropriate goals for successful learning.
• As a teacher, I support learners' self-determination.
• As a teacher and lifelong learner, I encourage all learners to become lifetime learners.

TURN: A program doomed to fail

DepEd Order 7, s. 2008 issued on January 29, 2008 by Secretary Jesli Lapus described in so many beautiful words the Department of Education's priority program for 2008. Entitled TURN which stands for Turning Around Low Performance in English, the program envisions to raise the mean percentage score (MPS) in English of Grade 6 pupils and Second Year students by 30% over the baseline MPS of the 2006-2007 National Achievement Test. (http://www.deped.gov.ph/cpanel/uploads/issuanceImg/DO%20No.%207,%20s.%202008.pdf).Among the features of TURN is the provision of a speech laboratory per division. A speech laboratory when properly used is a big help for language teaching, particulary if such laboratory is properly equipped, maintained and continuously updated. And this is where I see the problem why I believe TURN is a doomed program. With myriad of problems foremost of which deal with the basic requirements needed for teachers to be able to teach (materials, textbooks, chalkboard, tables and chairs, reading materials just to name a few) as well as much needed trainings, a speech laboratory I think is not and will not be able to address those basic requirements. I remember back during the time when I was still teaching in one of the two public schools in Legazpi City, we have to pack in a classroom built to accomodate a maximum of 35-40 students, 75-80 students without proper lighting nor ventillation, and to top it all only a piece of a 2m x 3 m lawanit for a chalkboard. I remember one time I need to write something and ended up writing on the wall. Over and above, I remember asking my students to share one book 2-3 students. If only officials in the National Office of the Education Department would find time and immerse themselves in the reality teachers daily have to live with.

A visit to The Hague

One has to credit the ingenuity of the Dutch people. For such a country where a big part is under the sea level, with the constant threat of being inundated by water, the idea of making as much canal and levees and dikes to protect the country from this threat is a marvel. I am visiting The Hague for the third time staying with a Filipino-Dutch couple who are dear friends. Agnes is my Filipina friend and Adrie is her Dutch husband. Agnes also just like me used to teach in the same public school back in Legazpi City. She moved to the Netherlands soon after their wedding to start a family. Now they have a son - Vincent Philip - who is proving to be a very active, intelligent and a bundle of joy for this family. I arrived last Friday afternoon and will be stayin till this coming Monday, 18.02.2008. Today, being a Sunday, is just like any other sunday for a family: late breakfast, and much later today they will be visiting Agnes mother-in-law in the rural part of the Netherlands. Agnes and Adrie invited me to come with them, and I am taking this chance to see the rural part of this materially rich country.

By way of Rilke's Love Song on this eve of Valentine's Day

Love Song by Rainer Maria Rilke

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws one voice out of two seperate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

Patara-tara

La Saleve. Iyan an pangaran kan bulod na nasa retrato sa wala. Nasa France an bulod na inio pero helengon sa samuyang balkon. Kun sa Legazpi pede na an Kapuntkan Hills ikumparar. An kaibahan sana ta mas halangkaw an La Saleve tapos kun winter napapatos an ibabaw kainio ki snow. Pagkahapon, pagsulnop kan aldaw nag iiba an reflection sa bulod na inio: nag ko kolor pink an parte na nakahampang sa nagsusulnop na aldaw.

Kubrador

Every year, during the first ten days in February, Geneva holds the so called Black Movie Festival (http://www.blackmovie.ch/fr/index.php). This year, two films from the Philippines were selected for screening. I went to watch Kubrador which tells of the life of Amy played by Gina Pareno. The character Amy is an epitome of a jueteng kubrador: a life of constant struggle not to be caught by the police, over and above the need to earn as much commission from both the bettors and the operators. The movie showcase also a cross section of life in the big city, with all the mix of people, their own daily struggle of living, their dreams, hopes, frustrations, losses, death. Gina Pareno's acting is excellent: it is a soul baring itself not because she wants it but the reality sorrounding her existence does not give her other options. If life is a struggle for survival, then Kubrador showed it in its rawest: people living for the moment, dreams of tomorrow and a better hope too distant from the present lives they're living.