All about School…

All about School…

I have now been in San Francisco for one month! Man time flies! Seems like every time I turn around a new week starts. My school is a very small school with about 190 students. One class per grade. So there are 9 teachers total including me and the principal. Kinder goes to school half a day and then there is 1^st-6^th. I started off in 5^th grade with Mam Rachel (31) as my counterpart; Rachel is still my main counterpart. I’m in 5^th grade for English, Math, and some of the Science. 5^th grade is the wild bunch of the school. We have 19 boys and 10 girls. They all seem to have a difficult time being in a classroom setting. Then I’m in 6^th grade with Mam Lorraine (36) for English class. We’ve been co-teaching for about two weeks now and have a good routine and flow going.  This past week I started observing 4^th grade English in Mam Rodora’s (DayDay (nickname pronounced DiDi ay=i) 31) class. We will then start co-teaching together as well. They want me to work down to 3^rd grade English as well, but that might take a little more time. That is Mam Lonnie’s class. She is around my mom’s age and a little more hesitant to speak English with me. Then there is Mam Linda in grade 2. Maybe around my parents age and she’s quite funny. In 1^st grade is Mam Maan (23 Ma on). She speaks quite good English and her and I talk a lot. Then the principal is Mam Valencia. I like all the teachers and we have a lot of fun together. We haven’t hung out outside of school yet, but I feel like it could happen. At least with some of us. It’s funny because all the teachers are called Mam (pronounced more like Mom) but then I’m called teacher Amy. Who knows why?!? Haha.

One of the most common questions I get is how do the Philippine pupils compare to the American pupils? My response… kids are kids, but in America they speak English. Working in America with different class kids I have found that it doesn’t matter if they are rich or poor, they are still kids. Here it is no different. Some are spoiled, some are smart, some have learning disabilities, and some are a bit ADHD. When it comes down to it, they are kids and going to act they way kids act.

Competitions are a very big deal in this country. It’s crazy how many competitions they have and they just jump from one to the next. Since I’ve been here I’ve been to Science and Math. Then next is a journalism competition and a storytelling. In Lipa City it’s divided into 4 districts, North, South, East, and West. Then all 4 districts make up the Division of Lipa City. Then it goes to the Batangas Region, and then Nationals level. I went to the science division competition a couple of Saturday’s ago. We had two students qualify in district and make it to division. A 3^rd and 6^th grade student. What they had to do was take an oral test that lasted about an hour. Neither one of them advanced to the regional level. Yesterday we had district Math Camp. It was from 3:30-9:00. Some of the students participated in a Math Trivia and some in a Math Hunt. Then there were a couple of other competitions. One of the competitions was a song and dance. That took up most of the time. How song and dance fits into Math Camp, I have no idea! Filipinos love to sing and dance so whenever possible they fit that in. I’m always asked if I can sing and/or dance. I of course say no, and so then they ask what your talent is then? I’ve just started saying that I have no talent. They don’t really like that answer either, but o’well. Oh yeah, I’m in the East district, and Karen’s school is in the South district. So when things are done by district we aren’t together, but when things are done by division we are together.

October 5^th was World Teacher’s Day. I’ve never really heard of it being celebrated in America, but here it’s a big deal. We didn’t have school that day and all the teachers from the district got together at a resort. We rode in a jeep with our school banner on the front, met at the district office, and caravanned over to the resort. It started off with an hour long mass! I haven’t mentioned, school and religion are not separated here at all. Every day starts off with a prayer, and then the students pray before going to lunch, and when they leave for the day. My school has one Mass a month. A priest comes in from Lipa and does the service. My town has mass once a month. I haven’t heard of it happening yet, but maybe it has. A priest comes in one Sunday a month and does a service in the church here. So anyways, after mass they have some introductions and speeches. Then we play games. The games are the limbo, balloon races, sack races, volleyball, badminton, and a few others. They also had videoke going on. (just like karaoke, but with a screen showing a video). They said there was a special guest going to sing from San Francisco. I just refused and didn’t go up. Haha. O’well. Then we had lunch and that afternoon was an awards ceremony.