Beauty Queens and Blunders

Of Beauty Queens and Blunders

            I recently read an article on the internet about famous beauty queen quotes. Two of the beauty queen quotes included there caught my eye: Melanie Marquez’ historic reply to the question: What part of your body would you like to change? (A: I won’t change my legs because I’m contented with my long-legged.), and Janina San Miguel’s oft-quoted answer to what role her family plays in her pursuit of the title: Well, my family's role for me is so important b'coz there was the wa- they're, they was the one who's... very... Hahahaha... Oh I'm so sorry, Ahhmm... My pamily... My family... Oh my god... I'm... Ok, I'm so sorry... I... I told you that I'm so confident... Eto, Ahhmm, Wait... Hahahaha, Ahmmm, Sorry guys because this was really my first pageant ever b'coz I'm only 17 years old and ahahaha I, I did not expect that I came from, I came from one of the taf 10. Hmmm, so... but I said dot my family is the most important persons in my life. Thank you." Apparently, content is more important and these blunders didn’t faze the judges from choosing these spunky Pinays as the beauty queens of the night.

            My thoughts immediately flashed back to a Speech class we had this semester. This particular session was extra pressure-filled because we were having an extemporaneous speaking exercise, and our teacher explicitly stated that we should avoid gap-fillers (the ahhmms, uhhs, errs, that we have) and try to make our speech as fluent as possible.

            And sort of like a flashback series in my brain, I remembered another class we had last semester on the strategies in teaching language. My mind specifically picked out this sentence from Wendy Y. K. Lam’s article Raising students’ awareness of the features of real-world listening input: …spoken language is not written language spoken aloud. And precisely because spoken language is NOT written language spoken aloud, we can now let our worried minds go easy on our speech, and rest assured that what we are saying, and how we are saying it, are all perfectly normal. Imagine (well, not really imagine, it’s more of recall) the anxiety and apprehension every one of us have had every time we had to speak and all we could manage were a few squeaky “ums”, “ers” or “uhhs”, not to mention the not infrequent times our mouths also came out with these words for lack of something to say. Now we can breathe a little easier, because these ‘blunders’ are necessary ‘evils’ – they are frequent, and they are normal.

            This is because this is what really happens in real-time conversation. We have gap-fillers, pauses, even fragments, because even if our brains are supermachines, sometimes the wires get tangled and we have a temporary communication breakdown. We utter these uhhs, ahmms, so as not to be filled with the deafening, not to mention awkward, sound of silence.

            While we admire the speakers who really speak smoothly without any gaps at all, generally speaking, real-time communication is a far cry from this formal speech. We make use of pause-fillers (that are awkward but give us time to think of what to say next), the stock phrases that show we have run out of something original to say (but fills unwanted pauses anyway), and we inadvertently repeat the speaker’s message to ourselves to allow us to interpret the message better all because real-time communication is spontaneous, and it all happens very quickly, fleetingly. We can’t really ask a friend to slow down talking so that we can remember what she says; we can’t ask the host to give us a few seconds more to think of what to say; well, we can, of course, but the essence of oral communication is urgency – it happens right then and there. The communication process here works so fast we do not realize it until the words are out. Because if we can after all ask for some time before we reply, hadn’t we better write and save ourselves the trouble of making a blunder? (Butof course speaking is quicker and will guarantee clearer meaning faster than writing does.)

            Now we can all take a break from being language highbrows and bothering about ‘fluent’ speech that doesn’t have any pauses. Hey, this is spoken language, and we’re not reading from a script every time we talk with someone, are we? US writer and columnist Emily Post remarked once that, “Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.” We’re not making inaugural speeches when we talk about the weather, school, work, or kids – we’re normal people, we ought to talk normally. And that includes non-standard language at the most, sentence fragments, and on-going alterations and self-corrections because believe it or not, this is immediate interaction, and we’re just going to have to deal with these inconveniences. The most important thing is that we exchange thoughts, not just vocabulary, and as Anderson and Lynch have noted, “The listener has the opportunity to indicate understanding or non-understanding, and to intervene when clarification is needed during communication.” If the speaker gets extra time to think of what to say next, then the listener also has extra time to get the meaning of what was said. And if there are any clarifications to make, then we can immediately alert the speaker to it, and thus try to negotiate and clarify meaning. We just have to understand that these pause-fillers are there to “facilitate the speaker’s production and the listener’s processing of speech, and NOT [emphasis mine] to distract the listener’s attention or to impede understanding”, according to Lam. It’s not saying that they’re there to show that we can imitate how native speakers talk and show off to other people; they’re there because they help in effective communication.

            Again, this is not to say that pauses in conversation should be avoided, and that this language is to be tolerated every single time, but this is to remind us that it can’t be helped sometimes and we should not punish ourselves for it. Come to think of it, we are not contestants vying for a crown; we are fledglings learning the feel of the English language. Accidents happen in a live show, a friend cleverly commented, and they really do. Now we know better to just leave them well enough alone, because they indicate effort on both the speaker’s and listener’s part to interpret, express, and negotiate meaning. Poor beauty queens, they are the ones suffering the brunt of our obsession with smooth, free-flowing speech that has to be impromptu, when they can after all use pause-fillers and repeat, reformulate, and rephrase. It’s good that we know the liberating truth of the matter and can share it to other people. 

Teacher for All Subjects, for All Seasons

Teacher for All Subjects, for All Seasons

            If anything, this move to develop multi-literate teachers to create a multi-literate society only reinforces the Essentialist view of how teachers should be; that the teacher is an authority, a master of his/her discipline and model worth emulating. The teacher is expected to be an intellectual and moral model of his/her students, a ‘fountain’ of information and a ‘paragon’ of virtue, if there ever is such.

            Well, I guess there will be, now. Now that educators and scholars worldwide have acknowledged the inadequacy of traditional competencies and literacies in coping with the demands of the times, especially with the advent of information and communication technologies. UNESCO says that, literacy is a plural and dynamic concept, and there is no single notion of literacy but multiple literacies. 

            That is why the Philippine Association for Teacher Education (PAFTE) has adopted “Leading in the Formation of the Multi-literate Teacher Educator of the 21^st Century”as the theme for its 40^th Annual Convention on October 17-19 of last year. In this convention, experts discussed various dimensions of literacy such as cyber-literacy, media and information literacy, financial (economic, business and entrepreneurial) literacy, health literacy, music literacy, and multilingual education. Although the Progressivist view of teachers say that the teacher’s role is that of a guide, group leader, consultant, and facilitator in the students’ activities, with this aim of developing a multi-literate teacher for the 21^st century, we are more or less demanding our teachers to be all-knowing and yet be inductive and discovery-oriented when it comes to teaching. The teacher may now be compared with a drinking fountain which should have a reserved supply of water all the time but whose water supply cannot be tasted if you don’t push the proper button; the teacher should be master of all knowledge but may not divulge this knowledge unless asked to do so.

            Frankly, this is quite unbearable for me. To possess so much knowledge and yet to share it only when asked to, only when there is no possible alternative, is like being given a voice to speak with but also being restrained to speak unless permitted. But as I have always been painfully reminded of, sort of a smacked-in-the-head way, and as every teacher should know, the whole education system is not for us. We do not topbill this movie called The Learning Process. We are just supporting characters to our leading actors and actresses, the Learners;hence, we must support them, with all that we can do, devoid of ill will and malicious intent, and without further ado. It’s a nice job we got here actually. We study and prepare for this four at least four years, only to be thrust into a supporting role and be overshadowed by young people who didn’t even study yet. What ever happened to seniority here? But that’s exactly the point. These leading actors and actresses that we have are just amateurs, and so we, the supporting characters, have to teach them how to be just like us in the future. Does it sound ironic? If it does, please remember that it sounded ironic to our teachers too, so we’re just even. J It’s part of what we call, the circle of life.

            And that’s the long and the short of it, whether we like it or not. We can either rant about it or put it to good use. Let’s just say it’s sort of a teacher’s secret, our secret that only we know, and that our students and pupils don’t? It can after all be a good proof that the teacher is still someone the students can learn from. A teacher still is fifty books, or to use the current trend, six multiple literacies away from her students. It’s kind of a good secret, isn’t it? J

What We Are Doing in the Philippines Just Now

What We are Doing in the Philippines Just Now

There’s this relatively well-known poster agreeing with what US writer and humorist Mark Twain quipped,”I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” It gives Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and other wealthy and famous people in the modern world as examples – of college dropouts who made it big, despite initial doubts. Well, I sure am glad our Filipino students don’t take their example, no matter how overwhelming the urge. Probably because in a country like ours, there is a next-to-impossible chance of making it big like Jobs, Gates and Zuckerberg if you are a college dropout, and even if you have exceptional skills.

Or less plausibly but forcefully true, the DepEd could actually be hitting the nail square in the head. With a 3,000% zero dropout rate increase, the Department of Education could finally be delivering the promise of quality education, one that doesn’t drive away students. The intensified campaign and continuous interventions developed by the Department of Education to reduce the number of high school students quitting school registered a remarkable increase with nearly 2,000 schools nationwide registering a zero drop-out rate compared to last year’s numbers totaling to 56 secondary schools. And Region 8, with 127 high schools with no report of dropouts, is second only to CARAGA which has 187.

Various interventions under the Drop-out Reduction Program (DORP) of the department seem to bear good results. Already, 46,000 students have been saved from dropping out and counting. Luistro said the program is effective because the alternative delivery mode for students who are at risk of dropping out (SARDO) is being tailored fit to meet the learners’ unique educational requirement. “We first check the SARDOs circumstances, then come up with alternatives that respond to their specific learning needs,” he added.

With programs like the Open High School Program (OHSP), a distance education program with unique features like self- directed learning and acceleration by learning area or by year level and which allows working students or previously out-of-school-youth (OSY) to continue studying using specialized learning modules, and the Schools Initiated Interventions (SII), which allows the school to design the kind of help a student needs according to his unique circumstances and which enables schools to determine, based on interview, specific problems of students or the real causes for dropping out, the DepEd finally offersa menu of  alternative delivery modes that aim to keep students in school and finish their basic education.

As Luistro explains, the DepEd is finally realizing that, “There are many learners who face difficult social and economic situations and they too need government intervention.” It’s about time too. Students are dropping out of the rolls mainly because of financial problems, peace and order issues, and physical handicap, family and health concerns, among others, and not because they simply aren’t interested. In a country like ours, truancy is more often a bigger, more society-concerned and economically-caused condition rather than just a lack of interest on the learner’s part.

And although it is quite disappointing that the DepEd has only realized that now, it is quite commendable that they are making up for lost years of inaction by a marked effort of bringing about change.

Hear Ye

Hear Ye

Shakespeare’s Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost says that ‘A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear/ Of him that hears it, never in the tongue/ Of him that makes it.’ Precisely. The joke is not for he who makes it, but for he who hears it. But what of those who cannot hear? Would the joke be wasted then?

            No need to worry. The Department of Education ensures that the joke will not fall ‘on deaf ears’, as the idiom says. Well, maybe the ears are deaf, but that doesn’t mean they can’t hear, or that this disability cannot be remedied, or that the effects of its impairment cannot be alleviated.

            There is a drive to train public school teachers across the country on sign language to improve mentors’ competence in teaching learners who have hearing impairment. This is because we can better help our students, our pupils, if we know how to help them. Also, this is another move in line with our vision of an Education for All, and we do mean all, especially those who have disabilities, in this case, the hearing impaired.  Luistro says that, “It is our duty as educators to provide equal opportunities to children and youth with special needs so that they can lead productive lives.” For the Visayas, this training will be on April 15 to 24 at DepEd Ecotech Center in Lahug, Cebu City to be participated in by public school teachers from Regions 6, 7 and 8 and will be composed of sign language training and seminars in Special Education (SPED) as well as formal sign language evaluation in the basic and intermediate levels by the Philippine Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (PRID).

            Previously, we have only relied on our teachers who specialized in Special Education for the education of our disabled learners. However, these SpEd teachers are few compared to the learners who need them. And that is why we have to train the majority, if not all, of our public school teachers on what to do when a hearing impaired learner comes under their care. It probably is very difficult for them to try to fit into our world, so we must go into theirs and inhabit it ourselves.

            Moreover, this training will more or less include such crucial matters as how to recognize a hearing loss in the child – this knowledge, if the parents of the child are teachers themselves is very helpful, or if not, the teacher can let the parents know during their meetings. This is because early diagnosis and intervention can increase the child’s chances to live as normal a life as possible. If the teacher knows these things, then there may be no need to go to the specialists anymore except in extreme cases. The teacher can begin to make changes in the child’s environment to make language accessible to the child at a very young age. These environmental changes may include teaching the child’s parents and other caregivers to use sign language or to use cued speech, a system of manually “cueing” sounds that are not visible for speech reading (lip reading). It also might include the use of hearing aids to make speech loud enough for the child to understand it, or surgery to insert cochlear implants, devices for receiving and transmitting information about sounds to the brain. Of course the classroom teacher cannot be expected to have expert knowledge on this field; what we aim for is functional knowledge so that the teacher will know what to do, how to do it and when to do it in situations that do not necessarily call for an expert eye.

But why does the DepEd training focus on sign language only? Might the learners be more benefited by other means like speaking, speech reading, and the use of whatever hearing the child might have? Thomas Jones’s articles in the Microsoft Encarta 2008 entitled Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students says that some experts believed that using sign language inhibited the ability of deaf students to learn English. I suppose it really does, since it limits the deaf students to thinking that they couldn’t ever speak, which as Helen Keller’s example proves to us, is not true.

            However, it could also be argued that sign language provided a means to make learning academic content and English easier for deaf students. Supporters of American Sign Language (ASL) instruction believe that it provides the best medium for presenting academic subjects to students who cannot hear spoken languages. In addition, advocates believe that instruction in ASL builds deaf children’s self-esteem and helps them to become successful adults who also are members of the culturally deaf community.

Curiously also, Jones’s article says that about 20 per cent of deaf children in the United States attend special residential schools where the staff and students all use sign language. Many deaf students believe that they have a fuller social life in this type of school, because they can communicate easily with many other students. Our goal, as Sec. Luistro says, is to strengthen teachers’ skills in the teaching of sign language in preparation for the inclusion of pupils with hearing impairment in regular school – what difference does it make if we mainstream our deaf students?

            It does make a difference, and a whole lot of it. We may be able to provide them hearing aids or teach these deaf students how to use sign language and to lip read, but we are not helping them to lead as normal a life as we would want them to have if we will isolate them. Nothing proves that you are different, that you do not belong to the group, than isolation, complete detachment from what happens around you. And this is precisely what we will be doing to our deaf students if we house them in special residential schools designed only for the deaf. Our goal is to help them live normal lives, and we would best do it by letting them in our inner circle, by making them feel that they are special, but they still belong to our group. That all things considered, we are still one and the same.

LNU at 91: The Virtue of Vintage

LNU at 91: The Virtue of Vintage

            In winemaking, the grapes have to be carefully selected by the winemaker first. These grapes determine the quality of the wine more than any other factor. After the harvest, the grapes are taken into a winery and prepared for primary and secondary ferment for weeks or even months to decrease the acid in the wine and soften its taste. The time from harvest to drinking can vary from a few months for lower quality wines to over twenty years for top wines. Different batches of wine can be mixed before bottling in order to achieve the desired effect. However, only about 10% of all red and 5% of white wine will taste better after five years than it will after just one year.

            Consider then that the Leyte Normal University is the wine still in the making in its 91^st year, and that the people who have come, gone, and stayed all combine to be the winemaker. Its roots date back to 1921 when it came into being as the Provincial Normal School, a mere adjunct of the Leyte High School. Eventually, the roots sprouted leaves and it became a degree-granting four-year college complete with a training department in 1952, when it was known as the Leyte Normal School. Then the young plant grew as it was converted to the Leyte State College by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 944, signed by then President Ferdinand Marcos. And on February 23, 1995, through the efforts of the late Cong. Cirilo Roy Montejo and former Sen. Leticia Ramos-Shahani, the college was converted into what is now known as the Leyte Normal University through RA 7910, making the young grape plant ready for harvest, ready for winemaking.

As in fermentation, LNU as a wine in its 91 years has decreased in acidity and increased in softness, in quality, in sturdy longevity. We have staged varied performances with youthful vigor and lavishness; we have promoted our institutional development through improvement of school resources and upgrading of literary and musical programs; we have vied for institutional accreditation – all with the aim of establishing ourselves as one of the best in the region. Yet all these were done in the spirit of youth and the desire for pride, pomp, and circumstance. Now that LNU is 91, all the brash novelty of its early years has faded, replaced with a quiet grace that neither boasts nor thinks only of itself – the wine knows that it is prepared to be the best not for itself, not to boast of its special taste, but for the people who will drink its sweetness, the LNU clientele. There have been experimental stages, periods where we ventured to add a new course or two, to take a different tack, to innovate, but all of these were done to get where we are now. In its 91^st year, LNU is continuously identified as a provider of quality instruction and competent graduates. The University still maintains the reputation of being the best teacher-training institution in Eastern Visayas and the Center of Excellence for Teacher Education in Region VIII from 1996-2001, and 2008-2011. And as evidenced by our recent recognition as one of the top 20 SUCs in the country, we are part of that 10% of all red wines or 5% of white wines which tastes better after so many years.

             This is because in the LNU winemaking, everybody cooperates. From the grape planters or the school founders who sowed the best seeds of quality education and plant the best varieties, the grape pickers or the faculty who expertly select the grapes, the winemakers or the administrators who see to it that all is done to achieve the desired goal – everybody helps in the process, and so the best tasting wine owes its good taste not really to itself, but to the people whose hard work and patience made that good taste possible.

We have been under able administrators like Mrs. Jesusa A. Brillo, Mr. Jose B. Ledesma, Mrs. Obdulia R. Cinco, Dr. Magdalena S. Ramo, Dr. Purificacion M. Flores, Dr. Cres V. Chan-Gonzaga, and the current University President, Dr. Evelyn C. Cruzada, continues to lead us to more dynamic innovations, to farther reaches, to greater heights. We have also produced outstanding people in their respective fields such as last year’s 90^th Founding Anniversary Outstanding Alumni Dr. Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III for Health and Medicine, Team Manager of the Philippine Football team Azkals Dan Stephen Palami for Sports and Recreation, Romeo B. Almonte of the Congress for Political Affairs, Ranulfo C. Docdocan of ABS-CBN for Media and Communication, Ronerto V. Dazo for Social Work,  Arturo O. Gabrieles for Management, Ruperto B. Golong Jr. for Law, Joanne G. Gomez for Trade and Industry, Pablo P. Quianzon for Civic Service and Norberto D. Tuazon for Peace and Order. As a teacher education university, we also have Outstanding Teacher Educators namely: DepEd Undersecretary Yolanda Quijano, DepEd Regional Director Luisa Yu, LNU former President Crescencia V. Chan-Gonzaga, Sonia Palami of St. Therese Educational Foundation, Mindanilla Broto of the University of Eastern Philippines, Gilbert Importante and Eric John Estoque.  These people, along with the students, the faculty, and the personnel that are behind LNU’s breathing walls are all part of this 91^st birthday. We have made this possible.

In her closing message during the Faculty and Personnel Show, Dr. Cruzada, impressed by the presentations, asserted that, “Excellence is not about winning competitions or even topping board exams; this evening, the faculty has shown us that when everybody works together, this is what you get, a show which if it was on television, it would be a top-rated show.” A good show, a good wine, anything good and great is a result of the inherent talent, responsibility held by the makers, and the physical stamina that results after such great management combined with sheer talent. 

Truly, at 91, LNU is at its vintage best. It will get older, but in the process, it will get better still.