Teacher, Teacher

Today, someone called our house asking to speak with my 94-year-old lola. It turns out that said caller was one of my lola's students when she was an English professor in NU way back in the 70s. I had to wonder what kind of teacher my lola was to have someone call her and check up on her almost 40 years later. She would often tell me about how she would be a terror prof to her students, but also about how beloved she was. When she retired from teaching with 30 years under her belt by then, she had her former students' kids going up to her and saying what a pity it was that they couldn't have her as a professor. These narratives leave me affirmed with my own decision to teach.

My lola, the teacher and also a big PBA fan

Of course, it's quite presumptuous of me to think that I would make a similar impact on my students. I've really only begun teaching, and there's still so much to learn. Reaching that level is probably more of a work in progress at this point. I'm just glad to see some marked improvement in my students' performance in their second exam, though I've still got quite a handful who seem not to understand the subject matter. That, or they don't care enough to try harder. I suppose this would be my challenge to myself - to make my students care more, and make them realize that Psych 101 is not just another class that they have to pass. I always tell my students in their essays and reflection papers to dig deeper. Perhaps this is also something that I have to do to make my classes more relevant to them. I guess another challenge would be knowing how high I have to set my expectations. No matter how hard I try, not all students will do well. Individual differences do exist, and my assessment tools wouldn't be very effective if all of my students performed excellently. Still, it won't hurt to keep trying. Maybe I'l also receive a call from one of my students 70 years from now, if they haven't given me a heart attack by then.

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Yes, I'm trying to start writing more often again. Certain conversations in Cebu have built up the difficulties that lie ahead in working on my thesis, the biggest hurdle being the writing part. So I'm trying to maximize this blog to sharpen my rusty writing skills with the hope that it might make this task even just a bit easier.

* Calling on the other half of this blog team to join me again here.