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Snack time! We went to BJC, where Halo Halo was invented. Yum! This is a shaved ice treat with coconut milk, sweet beans, various jellies, and topped with cheese. It may sound like a strange combination, but it works and is delicious! This was a great pit stop because we had already done and seen a lot, and the heat of the day was really starting to increase. Having a cold snack hit the spot. Rose also bought some thin cookie tubes for us to try. Also tasty. The next stop on our adventure was going to a ceramics factory. This area of the Philippines has a lot of clay. We saw the process they use to refine the clay before transforming it into pottery. We saw a group of people who had drawn designs for the ceramics. We also saw some masters at work. One man was making a tall vase. We saw another station where people were cutting shapes out of various pieces and then spray painting them. We saw some ceramics drying in the sun, while other pieces were fired in one of the kilns. While this is considered to be a factory, it did not look like a factory that we have in the US. There were lots of open spaces, with no temperature control. There were sections that were miserably hot! I’m not sure how people manage working there every day. I guess you get used to it, or at least deal with it by having fans blowing. There were some incredible pieces for sale, and the prices were cheap! If it had been easier to transport these, I would have bought more. In 2006, a major typhoon struck the Philippines, and it was very devastating. In this area of the Philippines, 1,200 people lost their lives. The biggest issue in this area was a flash flood that came from the Mayon Volcano. There just wasn’t anything people could do to protect themselves from the flood. A dyke was built after to try to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again. Survivors of the typhoon and flood were invited to paint murals on the dyke. The images were beautiful, inspiring, and moving. Rose talked about students coming to school after the tragedy and sharing their ordeals. She said it was very sad. Our next stop for the day was to drive halfway up the Mayon Volcano to the Mayon Skyline. This used to be a resort/hotel. But it is in the danger zone for eruptions, so they just turned it into a park people can visit. When warning levels are high, people are not allowed to go there. What a gorgeous place! People were selling beautiful floral arrangements. We walked down some steps to a playground area, where we took some photos. You could see the bay and Legazpi City.
I got to share ideas with 20 teachers from the English department at MORMS. They have been so inviting and open all week, that it was nice to try to give something back (including some trinkets from the USA). First, I shared some information about Chicago and our school system. We talked about shared struggles being public schools and what that can entail. They were very jealous about our work hours (they work 7:30-5pm) and our class sizes (they have 40-60 students per class and teach 5 sections). Our students move from class to class, while their teachers move from room to room, so they have to bring all of their materials with them. Next, I shared Amy Cooley’s and my presentation on read alouds. The teachers told me that they do read to their students, but this may not happen every day. They usually see one class 4 days a week. We talked about different things you could read to your students. I explained that I usually read a novel, but they could read anything that connects to what they are teaching, including articles. The head of the English department asked me for a list of books that I read to my students. We then took a little break, which means snack time in the Philippines! Someone brought me isaw, which is street food. Basically, it is half a hardboiled egg wrapped in some kind of seasoned dough, topped with a spicy curry sauce. It was delicious! I was also given pineapple juice and a cream filled donut. It was a lot of food, but it made for a nice break. When we came back from our snack break, I talked about organizing book clubs (another presentation Amy Cooley and I put together for the Illinois Reading Conference). I found out that this is not common practice for people (including adults) in the Philippines. They were interested in hearing how I run book clubs in my classroom. I gave them copies of the graphic organizers that I use, which they were very excited to get (I am the same way when I go to conferences and get a new graphic organizer!). The teachers shared some major obstacles that they have as far as trying to run a book club – they don’t have materials for it! They don’t have multiple copies of novels that they can just pass out to their students, and their school library was full of reference materials, not novels. The head of the English department said that maybe they could try this with one of their classes to see how it would work. She also thought that they could modify this to use with short stories too. I think that’s a great idea, and perhaps I’ll try to allow my students some choice when it comes to reading shorter pieces. We still had some time left over, so I shared the letters my students wrote to the Filipino students. The teachers got a kick out of them, but they probably struggled more with the incorrect grammar! We ended with a presentation of certificates for participating and of course, picture taking! When you look at the pictures, please notice that there were 2 levels in the computer lab. All of the Filipinos stood on the step, while I stood on the lower level, so I wouldn’t look so tall compared to them!!! There was a lot of laughing going on during picture taking. What a great group of teachers! The afternoon was filled with the induction ceremony for parents. This was quite a big event, especially since the school is populous. Each grade has a governing board (president, vp, secretary, etc) of parents for their PTA. Each group was called to the stage and sworn in. Then there were room parents as well. At MORMS, each homeroom has a parent in charge of it. They provide decorations for the rooms (curtains, murals, etc). They can also do fundraising for the rooms to get extra things. Some of the rooms in the newer buildings had comfort rooms (aka bathrooms) in the class. This way, students don’t have to leave the room if they need to go to the bathroom. During the induction ceremony, I was given a seat of honor just in front of the stage. Others sitting at the table were the Vice Mayor of Guinobatan, a Councilman, the principal, and the vice principal of the school. The Vice Mayor and Councilman took turns swearing in the parents. The Vice Mayor asked me questions about the innerworkings of politics in the US. He also told me about politics in the Philippines. It was very interesting! After the ceremony (and picture taking), we were invited to the principal’s office along with the Department heads of the school, for some snacks. |
AuthorJenn Henderson is a Teachers for Global Classrooms fellow. She will be traveling to the Philippines in June 2017. Archives
September 2017
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