A Teacher's Creed

A Teacher's Creed


I believe I have been called by God to teach.
I believe in children...young and old...black and white...rich and poor....each in need of learning.
I believe in blackboards, chalk dust, textbooks, and computers for each has a part in imparting knowledge.
I believe the love I give to my students will someday be reflected in their lives.
I believe the gift of teaching is not measured simply by marks, enrollment, or the end of the school year.
It is in the witness I give and the fullness of the life lived by those I teach.
I believe I have the power to lead those in need of learning to the threshold of their own minds.
I believe in my giftedness to use each of the tools available no matter how new or old..for the light of knowledge in the eyes of another is my goal.
I believe teaching is more than tests, diplomas, paperwork, and fundraising.
It is the values I breathe daily into another...slowly.
It is in the faith I share in Jesus...ever changing and growing...never ending.
I believe my success today goes unnoticed...until those I teach and touch can stand alone and say "in my life I have learned..."
I believe if I have taught and touched one person...in God's name...I have used my gift to me justly..and can humbly say...
I believe in teaching....
I AM A TEACHER!!

What is Global Warming? Symposium

What is Global Warming?

Global Warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on Earth. As the Earth is getting hotter, disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more frequent.


See the most important facts of the UN Climate Change Report 2007 at a glance

Over the last 100 years, the average temperature of the air near the Earth´s surface has risen a little less than 1° Celsius (0.74 ± 0.18°C, or 1.3 ± 0.32° Fahrenheit). Does not seem all that much? It is responsible for the conspicuous increase in storms, floods and raging forest fires we have seen in the last ten years, though, say scientists.

Their data show that an increase of one degree Celsius makes the Earth warmer now than it has been for at least a thousand years. Out of the 20 warmest years on record, 19 have occurred since 1980. The three hottest years ever observed have all occurred in the last eight years, even.
What is Global Warming?


See the best ways to use renewable energies

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See the best ways to use renewable energies

Earth should be in cool-down-period

But it is not only about how much the Earth is warming, it is also about how fast it is warming. There have always been natural climate changes – Ice Ages and the warm intermediate times between them – but those evolved over periods of 50,000 to 100,000 years.

A temperature rise as fast as the one we have seen over the last 30 years has never happened before, as far as scientists can ascertain. Moreover, normally the Earth should now be in a cool-down-period, according to natural effects like solar cycles and volcano activity, not in a heating-up phase.

Araw ng Surigao del Sur (Trade Fair)

Surigao del Sur, Our Land and Our Home

Surigao del Sur is a province of the Philippines located in the Caraga region in Mindanao. Its capital is Tandag City and borders Surigao del Norte to the north, Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur to the west, and Davao Oriental to the south. Surigao del Sur is located at the eastern coast of Mindanao and faces the Philippine Sea.

Surigao del sur is one of the supplier of agricultural items like, rice, banana and some tropical fruits. Copper, chromite and silver are also found here.

The 56th Philippine province and is one of the sub-regions of Caraga.
It is located on the Northeastern Coast of Mindanao facing the Pacific Ocean.
It is bounded on the Northwest by the Province of Surigao del Norte, on the Southeast by Davao Oriental, on its Eastern side by the Pacific Ocean, and on the West and Southwest by the Provinces of Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur.

Surigao del Sur has one city and 18 municipalities most of which are located in the coastal areas, with Tandag as its capital. These municipalities are subdivided into 309 barangays and has two congressional districts.

Surigao del Sur is subdivided into 18 municipalities and one city.

City: Bislig City

Municipalities: Barobo, Bayabas,Cagwait, Cantilan, Carmen,Carrascal,Cortes,Hinatuan,Lanuza, Lianga,Lingig,Madrid,Marihatag, SanAgustin, San Miguel,Tagbina,Tago,(http://www.tagosds.org), Tandag – Provincial capital

History

Before the Spaniards came, the aborigines of the province were the Mamanua and Manobo. Later, our Austronesian brothers from the Visayas came to settle with the natives. It was with the arrival of the immigrants that the province acquired its name from one of the natives, Saliagao, who lived near the mouth of the river.The name Saliagao was later pronounced Surigao by the inhabitants.

It is also said that long time ago, some Visayan fishermen forced by the strong current of the Surigao Strait, sought refuge in one of the huts somewhere in the province. The Mamanua who thought that these fishermen wanted to occupy the hut by force said “Agaw”, the term which was later given a prefix “Suri” by an immigrant.

Surigao formerly, was extended from what is known as Agusan, including the islands east of it and the northern regions of Davao and the capital of the province that time was Caraga and so the Spaniards called the people Caragas.

The aborigines of Surigao del Sur were a conglomeration and mixture of different racial types, namely: Mandaya, Mamanua, Mansaka and Manobo. These racial groups were of Malayan-Indonesian ancestry which took place thousand years ago. In the course of their migration, these primitive nomads were believed to have separated their ways in some portions of the archipelago in a spirit of adventure and search for food (i.e., during the pleisto scene of the glacial ages). It was believed further that they first settled in the northern island of the country who later took their bancas and reach the shores of Mindanao particularly in the Provinces of Surigao and Davao. They scattered among themselves in spots either in pairs or by family clans, retaining their own customs, dialects and ways of life.

There was no trace of exact dates and places of arrival. But it was known that this group of people were very nomadic and were the remnants of the present Mamanua and Manobo found in the wilderness of the northern part of Davao bordering the Province of Surigao. Their migratory movement was said to have come from the hinterlands of Agusan and along the foothills of western and southern part of Surigao del Sur. It was pointed out that the cause of migration was due to famine and occurrence of death from diseases believed caused by evil spirits.

The Province of Surigao del Sur was created as the 56th Philippine province on June 19, 1960 by virtue of RA 2786 and was formally organized or separated from its mother province, Surigao del Norte, on September 18, 1960.

At the time of its inception, it was classified as 4th Class province with an annual income of over P300,000.00. Seven years later, because of rapid increase of revenue collection particularly from the logging ventures, it has been reclassified as Ist Class B and in 1980 as Ist Class A with an estimated annual income of around P13,000,000.00. Presently, it is reclassified as 2nd Class with a revenueadding up to P315,888,300.63.

Honorable Recaredo B. Castillo was the appointed Governor and subsequently elected Governor and Honorable Vicente L. Pimentel as the first elected Congressman. Hon. Vicente T. Pimentel, Jr. is the eighth and incumbent Provincial Executive.

Originally the province had 13 municipalities. In subsequent years, six more were added raising the number to 19 with Tandag as its capital town. Now, one of its municipalities has been elevated to a city category and this is Bislig City.

JPENHS IMPLEMENTS 2009 BRIGADA ESKWELA

JPENHS IMPLEMENTS 2009 BRIGADA ESKWELA

In consonance to DepED Memorandum No. 168, s. 2009 and DepED Order No. 25, s. 2009, DepED Tandag City implements 2009 Brigada Eskwela or the National Schools Maintenance Week on May 18 – 22, 2009.

Cognizant to DepED Order No. 25, s. 2009, Brigada Eskwela is a schools maintenance program nationwide that engages all education stakeholders to contribute their time, effort and resources in ensuring that all public schools are ready in time for school opening. It is a weeklong event where communities, parents, alumni, civic groups, local businesses, non- government organizations, and private individuals including teacher and student volunteers devote their time and skills to do repairs and maintenance work in public schools.

Last year, the participation rate among public schools reached 100%. All 44,619 public schools have contributed to the success of last year’s Brigada Eskwela. Savings on maintenance reached P2.9 Billion, and the peso value of volunteer time pegged at P 1.6 Billion. The peso value of donations-in-kind from generous donors amounted to P1.2 Billion.

All Regional and Division Offices synchronize the implementation of the School- Based Repair and Maintenance Scheme (SBRMS) with Brigada Eskwela to maximize impact of these two DepED Programs.

THE PARADOX OF OUR TIME

THE PARADOX OF OUR TIME By Gerry Carlin

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways but narrower viewpoints. We spend more but have less, we buy more but we enjoy less.

We have bigger houses yet smaller families, more conveniences but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge but less judgment, more experts yet more problem, more medicines but less wellness.

We’ve learned how to make a living but not life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered the outer space, but not the inner space. We’ve done larger things but not better things.

We’ve cleaned the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

Remember: spend more time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember: say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person will soon grow up and leave your side. Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent. Remember to say: I love you to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. (A kiss and embrace will mend a heart when it comes from deep inside of you). Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment, for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breaths away…

My Pedagogic Creed, The School and Social Progress

My Pedagogic Creed
by John Dewey

THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS



* I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.

* I believe that all reforms which rest simply upon the enactment of law, or the threatening of certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical or outward arrangements, are transitory and futile.
* I believe that education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.
* I believe that this conception has due regard for both the individualistic and socialistic ideals. It is duly individual because it recognizes the formation of a certain character as the only genuine basis of right living. It is socialistic because it recognizes that this right character is not to be formed by merely individual precept, example, or exhortation, but rather by the influence of a certain form of institutional or community life upon the individual, and that the social organism through the school, as its organ, may determine ethical results.
* I believe that in the ideal school we have the reconciliation of the individualistic and the institutional ideals.
* I believe that the community's duty to education is, therefore, its paramount moral duty. By law and punishment, by social agitation and discussion, society can regulate and form itself in a more or less haphazard and chance way. But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move.
* I believe that when society once recognizes the possibilities in this direction, and the obligations which these possibilities impose, it is impossible to conceive of the resources of time, attention, and money which will be put at the disposal of the educator.
* I believe it is the business of every one interested in education to insist upon the school as the primary and most effective instrument of social progress and reform in order that society may be awakened to realize what the school stands for, and aroused to the necessity of endowing the educator with sufficient equipment properly to perform his task.
* I believe that education thus conceived marks the most perfect and intimate union of science and art conceivable in human experience.
* I believe that the art of thus giving shape to human powers and adapting them to social service, is the supreme art; one calling into its service the best of artists; that no insight, sympathy, tact, executive power is too great for such service.
* I believe that with the growth of psychological science, giving added insight into individual structure and laws of growth; and with growth of social science, adding to our knowledge of the right organization of individuals, all scientific resources can be utilized for the purposes of education.
* I believe that when science and art thus join hands the most commanding motive for human action will be reached; the most genuine springs of human conduct aroused and the best service that human nature is capable of guaranteed.
* I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.
* I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.
* I believe that in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.

My Pedagogic Creed,The Nature of Method

My Pedagogic Creed
by John Dewey

THE NATURE OF METHOD

* I believe that the question of method is ultimately reducible to the question of the order of development of the child's powers and interests. The law for presenting and treating material is the law implicit within the child's own nature. Because this is so I believe the following statements are of supreme importance as determining the spirit in which education is carried on:

* I believe that the active side precedes the passive in the development of the child nature; that expression comes before conscious impression; that the muscular development precedes the sensory; that movements come before conscious sensations; I believe that consciousness is essentially motor or impulsive; that conscious states tend to project themselves in action.

* I believe that the neglect of this principle is the cause of a large part of the waste of time and strength in school work. The child is thrown into a passive, receptive or absorbing attitude. The conditions are such that he is not permitted to follow the law of his nature; the result is friction and waste.
* I believe that ideas (intellectual and rational processes) also result from action and devolve for the sake of the better control of action. What we term reason is primarily the law of orderly or effective action. To attempt to develop the reasoning powers, the powers of judgment, without reference to the selection and arrangement of means in action, is the fundamental fallacy in our present methods of dealing with this matter. As a result we present the child with arbitrary symbols. Symbols are a necessity in mental development, but they have their place as tools for economizing effort; presented by themselves they are a mass of meaningless and arbitrary ideas imposed from without.

* I believe that the image is the great instrument of instruction. What a child gets out of any subject presented to him is simply the images which he himself forms with regard to it.

* I believe that if nine-tenths of the energy at present directed towards making the child learn certain things, were spent in seeing to it that the child was forming proper images, the work of instruction would be indefinitely facilitated.
* I believe that much of the time and attention now given to the preparation and presentation of lessons might be more wisely and profitably expended in training the child's power of imagery and in seeing to it that he was continually forming definite, vivid, and growing images of the various subjects with which he comes in contact in his experience.

* I believe that interests are the signs and symptoms of growing power. I believe that they represent dawning capacities. Accordingly the constant and careful observation of interests is of the utmost importance for the educator.

* I believe that these interests are to be observed as showing the state of development which the child has reached.
* I believe that the prophesy the stage upon which he is about to enter.
* I believe that only through the continual and sympathetic observation of childhood's interests can the adult enter into the child's life and see what it is ready for, and upon what material it could work most readily and fruitfully.
* I believe that these interests are neither to be humored nor repressed. To repress interest is to substitute the adult for the child, and so to weaken intellectual curiosity and alertness, to suppress initiative, and to deaden interest. To humor the interests is to substitute the transient for the permanent. The interest is always the sign of some power below; the important thing is to discover this power. To humor the interest is to fail to penetrate below the surface and its sure result is to substitute caprice and whim for genuine interest.

* I believe that the emotions are the reflex of actions.

* I believe that to endeavor to stimulate or arouse the emotions apart from their corresponding activities, is to introduce an unhealthy and morbid state of mind.
* I believe that if we can only secure right habits of action and thought, with reference to the good, the true, and the beautiful, the emotions will for the most part take care of themselves.
* I believe that next to deadness and dullness, formalism and routine, our education is threatened with no greater evil than sentimentalism.
* I believe that this sentimentalism is the necessary result of the attempt to divorce feeling from action.

My Pedagogic Creed, Subject Matter of Education

My Pedagogic Creed
by John Dewey

THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF EDUCATION

* I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration, or correlation, in all his training or growth. The social life gives the unconscious unity and the background of all his efforts and of all his attainments.
* I believe that the subject-matter of the school curriculum should mark a gradual differentiation out of the primitive unconscious unity of social life.
* I believe that we violate the child's nature and render difficult the best ethical results, by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography, etc., out of relation to this social life.
* I believe, therefore, that the true centre of correlation of the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child's own social activities.
* I believe that education cannot be unified in the study of science, or so-called nature study, because apart from human activity, nature itself is not a unity; nature in itself is a number of diverse objects in space and time, and to attempt to make it the centre of work by itself, is to introduce a principle of radiation rather than one of concentration.
* I believe that literature is the reflex expression and interpretation of social experience; that hence it must follow upon and not precede such experience. It, therefore, cannot be made the basis, although it may be made the summary of unification.
* I believe once more that history is of educative value in so far as it presents phases of social life and growth. It must be controlled by reference to social life. When taken simply as history it is thrown into the distant past and becomes dead and inert. Taken as the record of man's social life and progress it becomes full of meaning. I believe, however, that it cannot be so taken excepting as the child is also introduced directly into social life.
* I believe accordingly that the primary basis of education is in the child's powers at work along the same general constructive lines as those which have brought civilization into being.
* I believe that the only way to make the child conscious of his social heritage is to enable him to perform those fundamental types of activity which makes civilization what it is.
* I believe, therefore, in the so-called expressive or constructive activities as the centre of correlation.
* I believe that this gives the standard for the place of cooking, sewing, manual training, etc., in the school.
* I believe that they are not special studies which are to be introduced over and above a lot of others in the way of relaxation or relief, or as additional accomplishments. I believe rather that they represent, as types, fundamental forms of social activity; and that it is possible and desirable that the child's introduction into the more formal subjects of the curriculum be through the medium of these activities.
* I believe that the study of science is educational in so far as it brings out the materials and processes which make social life what it is.
* I believe that one of the greatest difficulties in the present teaching of science is that the material is presented in purely objective form, or is treated as a new peculiar kind of experience which the child can add to that which he has already had. In reality, science is of value because it gives the ability to interpret and control the experience already had. It should be introduced, not as so much new subject- matter, but as showing the factors already involved in previous experience and as furnishing tools by which that experience can be more easily and effectively regulated.
* I believe that at present we lose much of the value of literature and language studies because of our elimination of the social element. Language is almost always treated in the books of pedagogy simply as the expression of thought. It is true that language is a logical instrument, but it is fundamentally and primarily a social instrument. Language is the device for communication; it is the tool through which one individual comes to share the ideas and feelings of others. When treated simply as a way of getting individual information, or as a means of showing off what one has learned, it loses its social motive and end.
* I believe that there is, therefore, no succession of studies in the ideal school curriculum. If education is life, all life has, from the outset, a scientific aspect; an aspect of art and culture and an aspect of communication. It cannot, therefore, be true that the proper studies for one grade are mere reading and writing, and that at a later grade, reading, or literature, or science, may be introduced. The progress is not in the succession of studies but in the development of new attitudes towards, and new interests in, experience.
* I believe finally, that education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience; that the process and the goal of education are one and the same thing.
* I believe that to set up any end outside of education, as furnishing its goal and standard, is to deprive the educational process of much of its meaning and tends to make us rely upon false and external stimuli in dealing with the child.

My Pedagogic Creed, What the School Is

My Pedagogic Creed

by John Dewey

WHAT THE SCHOOL IS

* I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.
* I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.
* I believe that the school must represent present life - life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the play-ground.
* I believe that education which does not occur through forms of life, forms that are worth living for their own sake, is always a poor substitute for the genuine reality and tends to cramp and to deaden.
* I believe that the school, as an institution, should simplify existing social life; should reduce it, as it were, to an embryonic form. Existing life is so complex that the child cannot be brought into contact with it without either confusion or distraction; he is either overwhelmed by multiplicity of activities which are going on, so that he loses his own power of orderly reaction, or he is so stimulated by these various activities that his powers are prematurely called into play and he becomes either unduly specialized or else disintegrated.
* I believe that, as such simplified social life, the school life should grow gradually out of the home life; that it should take up and continue the activities with which the child is already familiar in the home.
* I believe that it should exhibit these activities to the child, and reproduce them in such ways that the child will gradually learn the meaning of them, and be capable of playing his own part in relation to them.
* I believe that this is a psychological necessity, because it is the only way of securing continuity in the child's growth, the only way of giving a background of past experience to the new ideas given in school.
* I believe it is also a social necessity because the home is the form of social life in which the child has been nurtured and in connection with which he has had his moral training. It is the business of the school to deepen and extend his sense of the values bound up in his home life.
* I believe that much of present education fails because it neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life. It conceives the school as a place where certain information is to be given, where certain lessons are to be learned, or where certain habits are to be formed. The value of these is conceived as lying largely in the remote future; the child must do these things for the sake of something else he is to do; they are mere preparation. As a result they do not become a part of the life experience of the child and so are not truly educative.
* I believe that moral education centres about this conception of the school as a mode of social life, that the best and deepest moral training is precisely that which one gets through having to enter into proper relations with others in a unity of work and thought. The present educational systems, so far as they destroy or neglect this unity, render it difficult or impossible to get any genuine, regular moral training.
* I believe that the child should be stimulated and controlled in his work through the life of the community.
* I believe that under existing conditions far too much of the stimulus and control proceeds from the teacher, because of neglect of the idea of the school as a form of social life.
* I believe that the teacher's place and work in the school is to be interpreted from this same basis. The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences.
* I believe that the discipline of the school should proceed from the life of the school as a whole and not directly from the teacher.
* I believe that the teacher's business is simply to determine on the basis of larger experience and riper wisdom, how the discipline of life shall come to the child.
* I believe that all questions of the grading of the child and his promotion should be determined by reference to the same standard. Examinations are of use only so far as they test the child's fitness for social life and reveal the place in which he can be of most service and where he can receive the most help.

My Pedagogic Creed, What Education Is

My Pedagogic Creed

by John Dewey

WHAT EDUCATION IS

* I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual's powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions. Through this unconscious education the individual gradually comes to share in the intellectual and moral resources which humanity has succeeded in getting together. He becomes an inheritor of the funded capital of civilization. The most formal and technical education in the world cannot safely depart from this general process. It can only organize it; or differentiate it in some particular direction.
* I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs. Through the responses which others make to his own activities he comes to know what these mean in social terms. The value which they have is reflected back into them. For instance, through the response which is made to the child's instinctive babblings the child comes to know what those babblings mean; they are transformed into articulate language and thus the child is introduced into the consolidated wealth of ideas and emotions which are now summed up in language.
* I believe that this educational process has two sides - one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following. Of these two sides, the psychological is the basis. The child's own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. Save as the efforts of the educator connect with some activity which the child is carrying on of his own initiative independent of the educator, education becomes reduced to a pressure from without. It may, indeed, give certain external results but cannot truly be called educative. Without insight into the psychological structure and activities of the individual, the educative process will, therefore, be haphazard and arbitrary. If it chances to coincide with the child's activity it will get a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the child nature.
* I believe that knowledge of social conditions, of the present state of civilization, is necessary in order properly to interpret the child's powers. The child has his own instincts and tendencies, but we do not know what these mean until we can translate them into their social equivalents. We must be able to carry them back into a social past and see them as the inheritance of previous race activities. We must also be able to project them into the future to see what their outcome and end will be. In the illustration just used, it is the ability to see in the child's babblings the promise and potency of a future social intercourse and conversation which enables one to deal in the proper way with that instinct.
* I believe that the psychological and social sides are organically related and that education cannot be regarded as a compromise between the two, or a superimposition of one upon the other. We are told that the psychological definition of education is barren and formal - that it gives us only the idea of a development of all the mental powers without giving us any idea of the use to which these powers are put. On the other hand, it is urged that the social definition of education, as getting adjusted to civilization, makes of it a forced and external process, and results in subordinating the freedom of the individual to a preconceived social and political status.
* I believe each of these objections is true when urged against one side isolated from the other. In order to know what a power really is we must know what its end, use, or function is; and this we cannot know save as we conceive of the individual as active in social relationships. But, on the other hand, the only possible adjustment which we can give to the child under existing conditions, is that which arises through putting him in complete possession of all his powers. With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to reach this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual's own powers, tastes, and interests - say, that is, as education is continually converted into psychological terms.
* In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass. Education, therefore, must begin with a psychological insight into the child's capacities, interests, and habits. It must be controlled at every point by reference to these same considerations. These powers, interests, and habits must be continually interpreted - we must know what they mean. They must be translated into terms of their social equivalents - into terms of what they are capable of in the way of social service.

Myspace Graphics

Myspace Graphics

I am Just a Teacher but I am Proud Again

As I look back to a few years ago, I didn’t plan to be a teacher. “Me? Becoming a teacher? No way!” I heard myself said. I always wanted to be a doctor of medicine. It had been my cherished ambition. Years later, I couldn’t believe I found myself holding a chalk board, writing lesson plans and teaching students. I got fascinated in the classroom life. At first, it was difficult. To survive the job, I needed to think like philosopher and do my work seriously. Is this really the profession I want to do for my life? I once asked myself. There was conflict inside me. Later on, I comforted myself into thinking that things were under my control. It’s great to be a teacher even if this work entails so much stress and pressure physically and emotionally.

I am one of the millions of teachers nowadays in this country who live to teach and teach to live at the same time. I become enthusiastic and my teaching work keeps me busy and alert. My dealing with people has improved to a higher level. I learned to be nice, kind, friendly, gentle and generous. I never thought I would be this person. I used to be a shy person with no confidence in myself. Now I realize that it is important to socialize with people. I talk to my students everyday and discuss with their parents during parent-teacher conference in school. I learned to find solutions to some bigger problems of my school and students. In my work I learned to manage my time and resources. I’m glad my students are comfortable with me. They love to share their experiences and even like to open up their personal lives. My life seems to revolve around the school and my students.

Much is given and much is required. But the most difficult thing has been finding out that I’m not a perfect teacher. I wasn’t even a perfect student back in school days. Somehow, I expected teaching to be different. It’s good to introduce teaching innovations in the class. Anything that comes in my mind, I am making it real for my students to experience it. Learning doesn’t only happen inside the classrooms so I often device a teaching strategy which is outside the usual class room setting. Learning, at this point, becomes concrete because students would start to ponder upon the real things and learning becomes fun because they will be entertained. Sad to say, for most people, anything new and different is not usually embraced. Sometimes it is treated with a cold shoulder.

A change is really hard and oftentimes impossible if the majority in the academe is resistant for change. I was once bullied with raising eyebrows and brutal criticisms from the school I first taught. But I remained calm and proved my worth because I knew I did my best for my students. It’s true that change doesn’t happen over night.

In this work you will encounter a lot of frustrations and regrets. But teaching introduced me to a different pace of life. I always say to myself, I’m going to work hard and even harder. Teaching allows me to use my intellect and originality. I know how important it is to treat people with kindness and respect especially when they are having difficulties or problems. I bring a fairly broad knowledge in education (I’m pursuing my post graduate program in Master of Science in Science Education). I think the most important contribution I make is making a difference in someone’s life. Positive comments, showing trust in someone taking an action that communicates care and respect can positively change someone’s view of themselves and perhaps their lives as well. My life with problematic students has its peaks and valley. It is very challenging but very rewarding and fulfilling most of the time. It requires a lot of love and patience. It needs a lot of grace. It also requires a lot of support from family, teachers and the school administration. What would be more important? Teachers have both the power and opportunity to do great amount of good for many people. I know that I will take all the opportunities available to nurture, encourage and bring joy to those around me.I think I have much to offer to the teaching field and teaching has much to offer me. To teaching, I will provide my knowledge, inventiveness, and dedication to students. In return, teaching will give me a space to grow intellectually and creatively and a group of people whose growth will provide me with a great sense of reward. I hope this would provide greater heights in my quest for excellence.

My feet are firmly planted in teaching. I don’t know how long I am meant to be here. Maybe until I become old, but not very old enough. It is here where I can pursue my own dreams, and where, against all expectations, I have made a life. I know there is something good waiting to surprise me. But I take great comfort in the thought that for all the bad things that happened, one day I will reap all the happiness and the fruits of my labor. Though, it’s not easy to forget the hurtful moments and discouragements in this noble job, I choose not to give up hoping. I choose to move on further. I still want to learn more out of life. Teaching has brought me a certain measure of stability.

This profession is like doing a lot of seed planting. Sometimes it looks as though none of these seeds are growing, but I should keep planting. When I look back, I know, I will see some trees. I just never know while planting which seeds God has chosen to grow into trees. I have always thought that teaching was one of the most important careers a person could ever undertake. After taking this program for four years in college, I still very much feel that way, but I also realize that there are many factors that go into effective teaching, and I realize now more than ever that being an excellent teacher is something that requires teamwork from a great many number of people. It is truly not a job that can be done alone. It is true that teaching requires strategy, passion and team work, knowing when to be aggressive and when to take defense and looking at challenges as opportunities. This makes me rethink what I already know about the work I chose and I move to review it.

Teaching with students is a lifelong journey of hope, faith and love. The journey for us is still long, with many rough roads ahead. But I will keep taking that journey with them with the hope of helping them enjoy, endure and conquer all that life brings. Thanks to those people who share our difficult roads. I salute and cheer all persons entering into this field with the highest of expectations for what they can do for their students, classrooms, and their schools. If we work collectively and with a common goal, we can continue to teach and improve upon our teaching in such a way that our students will not only excel in our own classrooms, but take with them the skills they need as they further their educations and enter into the communities. We can offer them what they need to offer us the assurance of a productive future. Indeed, I can say, I am just a teacher, but I am proud!

Chicken Marinade

What a great marinade for chicken! Quick and easy, made with ingredients I always have on hand, and a short 4-hour marinating time resulted in flavorful and juicy chicken. Made just as specified, used boneless skinless breasts and cooked on the grill. Wonderful recipe. Try it!

Chicken Marinade

Ingredients:

2 cups vinegar

1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon oregano, dried

1/2 teaspoon basil, dried1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon paprika

2 cups olive oil.


Directions

1. Add all of the ingredients except for the oil and whisk well.

2. Add the oil and whisk.

3. Pour the mixture over to cover the chicken you are using in a glass bowl.

4. Refrigerate overnight, stirring the marinade and turning chicken several times. May be grilled or broiled, basting often with marinade.

Chicken Curry

I have been thinking to enroll in a cooking class. I realize how important it is to know the basics of cooking. I love to eat good foods but I don’t have any idea how they are cooked or prepared. The food on the table becomes special when you cooked it yourself. For the sake of learning and acquiring a new skill this summer and for its future use, I finally decided to cook. Wow! I can’t believe that I made it as planned. It is really quick and easy. If you know what to cook and how to do it, you will feel a sense of joy while doing it. This week I tried the Chicken Curry because I love anything chicken. You can try it for your delicious and healthy meals.
Chicken Curry

Ingredients:

1 pack Del Monte Quick n Easy Curry Mix
Combined with ¾ cup water and milk

4 pcs. medium potatoes, cut into chunks

2 pcs. Medium carrots, cut into chunks

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 pc. Medium onion, sliced

1 kg. chicken, cut up

1/3 cup evaporated milk (or 1 cup thick coconut milk)

1 pc. Small red bell pepper, cut into cubes

Procedure:

1. Fry potatoes and carrots. Set aside.

2. Saute garlic, onion and chicken in 2 tbps oil. Pour in Del Monte Quick n Easy Curry Mix mixture.

3 Simmer until chicken is done. Add fried potatoes, carrots and bell pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Sayings and Demotionals

Dance as though no one is watching you, love as though you have never been hurt before, sing as though no one can hear you, live as though heaven is on earth.-Souza

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil. –Plato


The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.- Aristotle

Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures. –Plato

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.-Josh Billings

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.-Dalai Lama

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. –Socrates

DEVOTIONALS
proverbs 18:24 (NIV)
A man that hath friends must show himself friendly and there is a friend that sticketh close than a brother".

There is a friendship waiting for you that will lift you up out of the miry clay that will set your feet upon a rock to stay. There is a friendship waiting for you that is so real that He does not even have to prove Himself. He already has. There is a friendship that is so complete with you and that friendship is so real that He says this, "Even though you are unfaithful to Me I will remain faithful to you". He will teach us you see because friendship is not inherited we have to learn it. Proverbs 18:24 "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly and there is a friend that sticketh close than a brother".

I found that there is only one person that can teach you to be a friend and that is Jesus Christ because He is the friend that was bruised for our iniquity. Jesus says, "I am your friend so I am going to stand in front of you and I am going to take the bruises for you". Faithful are the wounds of a friend. A friend stands in front of you.

More Devotionals...

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.-Dr Seuss
We must therefore develop a sense of responsibility for each others condition, we must see that hurting someone else, or inflicting pain on other people, cannot bring happiness or peace of mind.-Dalai Lama


When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.-Cherokee Expression

Words...more words.

Dance as though no one is watching you, love as though you have never been hurt before, sing as though no one can hear you, live as though heaven is on earth.-Souza

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil. –Plato


The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.- Aristotle

Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures. –Plato

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.-Josh Billings

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.-Dalai Lama

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. –Socrates

DEVOTIONALS
proverbs 18:24 (NIV)
A man that hath friends must show himself friendly and there is a friend that sticketh close than a brother".

There is a friendship waiting for you that will lift you up out of the miry clay that will set your feet upon a rock to stay. There is a friendship waiting for you that is so real that He does not even have to prove Himself. He already has. There is a friendship that is so complete with you and that friendship is so real that He says this, "Even though you are unfaithful to Me I will remain faithful to you". He will teach us you see because friendship is not inherited we have to learn it. Proverbs 18:24 "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly and there is a friend that sticketh close than a brother".

I found that there is only one person that can teach you to be a friend and that is Jesus Christ because He is the friend that was bruised for our iniquity. Jesus says, "I am your friend so I am going to stand in front of you and I am going to take the bruises for you". Faithful are the wounds of a friend. A friend stands in front of you.
More Devotionals...

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.-Dr Seuss
We must therefore develop a sense of responsibility for each others condition, we must see that hurting someone else, or inflicting pain on other people, cannot bring happiness or peace of mind.-Dalai Lama


When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.-Cherokee Expression