TLE Department Logo Design

I'm done with our department's logo design that we will use for our banner this coming World Teachers' Day parade of our school. I am really struggling at first on how to start this task, I considered a lot of symbols to represent the different areas and specializations that we are teaching. My first drafts are with complicated and many symbolism that they appear like hodgepodge. So, in the end, I decided to make it simple by using the gear symbol to represent technology and the torch to represent education/learning. 

CorelDRAW X5, a very powerful vector-based drawing program, was the application I used to create this logo.

A Prayer for Perseverance in Times of Rejections

I intentionally search for this prayer from the booklet PRESENCE "Prayers for Busy People" published by St. Paul Publication. The prayer is about asking for courage in times of troubles in life, particularly in times of rejection. I just feel for this prayer right now. 

It's not easy, Lord, to follow after you.
You take the hard road with joyous leaps and bounds.
But I stumble over every stone and slip into every rut.
You calmly weather each storm
and walk calmly through the night.
But I am buffeted by the winds
and I always falter in darkness.
You always have the right answers, Lord,
for those who confront you.
But my tongue is thick and clumsy.
I cannot articulate what I feel
or what they need to hear.
You have the wisdom and power to meet the needs of men around you.
But I am foolish and ineffective,
and my friends turn away from me in disgust.
I have really tried to relate
to the people about me.
To reach out to them in real love and concern.
I have tried to share their sorrows and their joys.
I have shelved my own ambitions
to respond to their needs.
But when I fail to reproduce for them
what they want,
or when I am limited by my humanity and
incapacitated by my own personal problems,
they will have nothing to do with me.
I feel sometimes as I have been used
only to be abused.
I am squeezed dry by my friends
and then cast aside
as if I was of no further value.
Yet I must continue to follow you, Lord.
It is a hard path to walk
and I am sure that I will falter at times.
I desperately need an occasional oasis of rest
along this journey through wind and sand.
I need desperately your touch of peace and love
As I labor amidst the blood and tears
of this distorted world of ours.
I am empty, Lord, help me to feel your fullness.
Grant me the grace and courage
to be faithful to you in all my daily loving. 

(Adapted from Psalm 35) 

How Did I Get So Busy?

I was checking my daily planner and I was shocked to learn on how hectic my schedule would be by this week. To give you an idea on why I felt so overwhelmed, here's a peek of my to-do list:

1. Faculty bulletin board
2. Greetings banner for World Teachers' Day
3. Backdrop design for photo booth
4. TLE department logo
5. Meeting with the Mr. and Ms. Teacher Idol 2013
6. Recycled product making contest
7. Seminar workshop for Edmodo

I really don't know if I can still get out of this schedule alive! Of course, time management is the key here, but sometimes I think that I am drowning myself into this busyness thing. Now, I remember the book that I've read titled "How Did I Get So Busy?" by Valorie Burton. It is a small book comprised of 28-day plan to free our time, reclaim our schedule, and reconnect with what matters most. I grabbed the book today and schemed it for those helpful tips on how to redefine a busy lifestyle and carve out time into things that would reflect my highest priority.  

After reviewing this book, some of those principles that I think will help me make it through this very demanding schedule are as follows:

• Assess your situation. It is so important that we acknowledge that there is a problem that must be resolved. If you think that your busyness becomes a hindrance for a satisfying life, then it is time for us to find out in which aspect of your life it has invaded you: work, relationships, finances, health and spiritual life. By doing an inventory you can now deal with the specifics. In this way you will find out what are those activities that are making demands on your time. Then, try to 'dream' about your ideal life, with a lot of space to accomplish those things that really matter for you.
• Hurrying up is slowing you down. "Only fools rush in," as the popular song goes. Most of the time we tend to rush things to save more time or to catch up, but in reality we are just consuming more energy for something that will fail because for sure there will be details that we will miss in an hurried task.
• Tame your to-do list. Just like what I am experiencing for the past few days, it seems that the tasks are daunting and never ending. I always feel the need to be ahead and so I will fill up my list with tasks that will make me two steps ahead of what I should suppose to accomplish. In this book, I relearned the importance of breaking bigger tasks into smaller and simpler tasks and tackle them one at a time. 
• Break your procrastination habit. In this book, the author shared her weapon to overcome procrastination: "Dig your heels and just do what needs to be done." Specifically, she gave the following approaches on how to deal with procrastination:

• Commit five minutes to tasks and you will surely gain the momentum to finish the project.

• Stop making it a big deal. Once we perceive that what confronts us is a great deal, it overwhelms us and then we get stuck.  The result: we tend to avoid it and proceed to those we can get easily done. What we should do here is to break the tasks into manageable pieces. 

• Give yourself the permission to do it imperfectly. To err is human. Remember that we can always find the time to polish our work. What important is that you start working on it. 

• Make it fun. Enjoy while doing the task. Invite a friend to help you accomplish it. Play a background music to keep you moving. 

• Drop the goal and enjoy the day. Do not pretend to be a superhuman that can do great accomplishments all in one day.  If you think that you can no longer finish the task for today, drop it from your list and enjoy the moment without thinking about it. This will save from being guilty about procrastination. 

It's been years since the last time I read this book and I'm glad to revisit it today for some sort of inspiration and encouragement. I hope that this can also help you in dealing with your busy days. So if you will excuse me, I still need to revise my to-do list. :)

Teaching with Multiple Preps

Teaching with multiple preparations for different levels is really a challenge for teachers, especially for the newbies. My first year of teaching was a very confronting baptism of fire. I was given full load of teaching with three preparations! That time, I handled computer subjects for second to fourth year high school students. At second year level, I was teaching simple Office applications and database management system, at third year level, I was teaching web designing and at fourth year level, graphic designing with Photoshop and CorelDRAW. There was never a day that I wasn't swamped by so many preparations for instructional materials and assessment tools.  

Sometimes, I thought I was not becoming an effective teacher anymore... I would always feel tired of teaching...  I was starting to lose the passion... But after giving myself some time to reflect, I had realized that it was the multiple preparations that were draining my fervor in teaching. I was still passionate about teaching, but I was just being bulldozed by the demands of multiple preps. 

"I must do something to lessen this burden, since I want to finish my contract, I can't afford to lose the job and above all I love this profession." I just told myself. So that was when positive change came into the scene. I couldn't do something about the number of preparations because the teachers' schedule program was already established and besides, who would want to appear like a rebel in front of the school director in his very first year of teaching? Thinking for a more positive approach, I just came up of some strategies to make my teaching life a little bit breezier, some of the tips were also from seasoned teachers who gave their solicited advice about dealing with multiple preps. Following are the tips that might also help you:

1. Get Organized. Teaching with multiple preparations would mean more paper works, visual guides, exams to mark, activities to evaluate and record. Stay organized. Categorize them using colored envelopes and file holders. Use paper clips and and clamps. These little office buddies will help you to still have a little space for a picture frame on your table top.  
2. To Do List. Being mindful on how you should spend your time is also important in dealing with multiple preps. Allot time for each preparation. Before you sleep or early in the morning be sure to come up of a "to-do list" that will guide you all through out the day.
3. Seek Help. There is no harm in asking anyone inside the faculty, particularly those who are also teaching the same field, if they can help you in your case. They might allow you to re-use their modules or instructional materials, give you some tips on how to demonstrate the lessons easily etc. This is where you should value being friendly and sociable. Always remember...no man is island.
4. Do Not Challenge Yourself Too Much. Remember that you are in a very demanding situation right now. Do not allow your self to explode by adding more pressures. Simplicity is the key here... It's not like you should come up of something very innovative in every second of your teaching life. Reinventing the wheel is great, but not during a school year with multiple preps.  
5. Energize Yourself. If you feel tired, do not mistaken it with a losing passion for teaching. Think positive. Do something that please you during your free time (exercising, reading, listening to your fave music). Get enough sleep and eat a balance diet. 

Life is a Roller Coaster Ride

LIFE IS A ROLLER COASTER RIDE
Marlon Lalaguna

Life is a roller coaster ride,

It gets you higher on top and lower at bottom.

It climbs very slow... it's boring,

It falls very fast... it's frightening,

Unexpected twists are thrilling... but exciting.

The ride flips me upside down.. and now I am screaming.

I know I am safe, I trust the ONE who built this,

I just need to follow HIS safety guidelines.

Now, I am enjoying the ups and downs,

The back and forth, and the twists and turns.

Life is a roller coaster ride.

Giving Report Card Comments

First quarter of this school year is through. Teachers are now confronted with grade computations, consolidation of grades, school forms, report cards and a lot more!

One of the great challenges of every class adviser, every time a grading period ends, is writing for the teacher's comment at the back of report card. Usually class advisers will spend a great deal of time and effort in thinking for the most appropriate and genuine comment that she can give for a particular student.

Some factors should be considered here: How was the student in his class or academic performance? Was the student behaving properly? Did the student commit a lot of absences?

In this post, I would like to give four tips on how to make this task easier without the guilty feeling of being inauthentic with your personal commentaries about your students. 

1. Base your comments from your Class Anecdotal Record. Whether or not it is a requirement of your school to come up with an anecdotal record for each of your student, writing anecdotal records is a good practice to start with that could give you a rich source for cumulative information about them, specific incidences, their instructional needs and their over-all development for a particular grading period. I know what you are thinking right now... (Hey I thought you're going to help us make it easier, but this is just another task to deal with!). Somehow, yes it will be an additional item in your to-do list, but believe me... be patient and you will reap what you sow.
2. Support your comment with faultless numeric data. It is very important that our feedback is grounded into correct records of class performance, attendance and scores. A comment based on an erring data is a shame on the part of a teacher, who should be responsible of keeping all the records and being accurate in assessing the students. It also adds to the authenticity of the comment if you can specifically cite or show an accurate record of the student's performance to the parents during the conference.
3. Create a Report Card Comment Database. You can work with this alone or with your colleagues. If you are newbie in this profession, it pays off to seek the help of you fellow teachers particularly the seasoned ones. Ask them what usual comments they will give for a bright student? How about for those struggling students or misbehaving students? After hearing and jotting those in your tickler, it's time for you to build your report card comment database. 

Using MS Excel or Access, type all those commentaries grouping them into a particular kind of student. Below are some teacher's commentaries and how they are grouped to fit in a particular kind of student:

For bright and active students: 

Aktibo sa talakayan ng klase. Ipagpatuloy ito.(Actively participates in class discussion. Keep it up.)

Isa sa mga nangungunang mag-aaral sa markahang ito. Binabati kita.(He is one of the top students for this grading period. Congratulations!) 

Nagpamalas ng husay sa lahat ng asignatura. Ipagpatuloy ito.(He shows academic excellence in all subjects. Keep it up.)

For students with remarkable behavior: 

Isang magalang ang mabait na bata. May pagpupunyagi sa kanyang pag-aaral.(He is a kind and polite child. He exhibits perseverance in his studies.) 

Naging isang mahusay na pinuno ng kaniyang klase. Isang modelong mag-aaral. Ipagpatuloy ito! (He shows leadership in his class, a model student. Keep it up!)

For struggling and/or misbehaving students: 

Iwasan ang madalas na pagliban sa klase. Dagdagan pa ang sipag at tiyaga upang mapaunlad ang mga mababang marka.(Avoid habitual absences. Persevere more to improve on the subjects with low grades.) 

Iwasan ang pakikipagusap sa katabi habang nagkaklase. Ituon ang atensyon sa pag-aaral upang mapaunlad ang mga mababang marka.  (Avoid trivial chatting with seatmates while having class discussion. Focus in your studies to improve your grades.)

4. Ask your class advisory to write a 'quarter-end reflection.' If it's really too late to come up of with those anecdotal records or commentary database, this could be your last resort, or perhaps, this could also be another rich source of all possible genuine comments you can give for a particular student. So, you can also try this along with those previous suggestions. You just need to give some guide questions to prompt them in writing this reflective journal. Ask them about their over-all learning experience during the grading period. Questions like 'what went right?' and 'what went wrong?' will give you a hint on what particular feedback that you can tell him to improve his studies and enjoy his learning experience.

Giving a report card comment for all your students might be a very tedious task, but remember that it plays an important role in building the excellence and character of our learners. Let us take this task seriously, your simple report card comment can make or break them.