"VISITATION OF THE GODS"

We had our ESC/FAPE certification today, November 22. It is a Saturday but all of the school community including some parents are sweating it out with Ma'am Pearly, S. Agnes and Ma'am Flor. All in all the experience was indeed very educational, though the preparation really tested the very ends of our patience.

The certifiers arrived quite early barely missing the first period. After introducing themselves to us and the teachers, they went right away to observing classes. English I, Math I and Chemistry were the subjects being observed. The feedback after the observation was very favorable. It was heart warming after all the efforts that the teacher had made just to perfect the implementation of the RVM pedagogy.

Afterwards, the trio went around visiting some of our facilities. There were a lot of comments for the Science laboratory in as much as we lack one more; However, what we lack for the Science laboratory we amply compensated in the Library, Speech laboratory, the Computer laboratory, the Guidance and the CL office. Facilities-wise, Mrs. Quinones was impressed, she even suggested why not raise the tuition fee to compensate for what the school is providing her students.

In the afternoon, interviews with the members of the school community were conducted. All were excited and were looking forward to really meeting the certifiers up close and personal. In the middle of the interview though, I lost my cool because some first year students were very noisy-I went to the extent of boxing one. That was borne out of frustration. Some of our students just could not really contained their foolishness and stupidity. Everything went well though.

Things were all finished at around four in the afternoon. Amidst gusty winds and sudden heavy downpour, the certifiers left equally fulfilled as we do feel this afternoon!

WHAT MAKES LIFE AS A TEACHER FRUSTRATING

I have been teaching for almost ten years. All the while I thought that this is really my vocation-it is here where I feel I belong. However, this year (SY 2008-09) is my all time low as a teacher. Never in my ten years of teaching have I been so challenged leading to so much frustrations and feelings of utter helplessness and bewilderment. What have I done wrong? Or what good have I not done well that I deserve to feel this way. I AM SO FRUSTRATED WITH TEACHING THIS YEAR. I have quite a number of reasons to wit.

ARE THE STUDENTS GETTING DUMBER AND MORE STUPID?
This year, I made it a pact with my soul that I have to instill even a semblance of discipline among the students. I have observed that our students' behavior has deteriorated from worse several years ago to worst this year. Though they have been reciting like morons and headless corpse the school's vision, its real meaning doesn't sink in at all in their meager gray matters. They do not seem to understand at all where our vision is supposed to bring them, of what the vision is supposed to mold them to be. So pathetic...and what a waste of both time and effort.

HAVE THE STUDENTS' FEELING BEEN NUMBED BY TOO MUCH PAIN IN THE FAMILY?
Observing our students, I come to a conclusion that most of them have a sad family and a very less supportive relations. I may be wrong but the way our students are misbehaving in school is a blatant and blunt display of how repressive and oppressive their families are. I cannot imagine where most of our students are coming from! Most of them do not know the difference between clean and dirty that they can consume their snacks in total abandon of the garbage and trash all around drowning them in an endless ocean of kalat.

HAVE THE STUDENTS BEEN GETTING A BAD EXAMPLE FROM US TEACHERS AND THEIR PARENTS?
If this be true, then I might as well resign from teaching and die. But I am quite sure that in our own little ways and in all our gargantuan efforts, the teachers have been trying their best to be of good example to our students. Sometimes though, our teachers do feel down and may have started showing not so favorable actions and behaviors to our students. But these students (if they only have been thinking) would have had understood that the very cause of their teachers losing their cool is they themselves. Ito na kasi ang mahirap sa mga manhid at mga bobong estudyante. Talaga ngang hindi makakaintindi. Tatanga-tanga...tanga naman talaga. Or are the parents the culprit? No comment.