Sosy Sunday

I am suppose to work with my lesson plans the whole day so I could have, at least, a long term plan for the remaining days of the semester. However, instead of fixing my lessons and preparing other teaching materials for the entire week, I ended up strolling in a nearby mall. It's not a matter of procrastination and lack of self-discipline again. A bit of an alibi, but my Sony VAIO VGN-CS23S could answer the whole thing and, for a reason, absorb my frustration for not being able to do the things which should have been done.

Experiencing a plethora of problems with Microsoft Office programs for a couple of days, I immediately headed to a Sony service center to complain the problem (I do have the right because my notebook's been with me for about 4 months). Microsoft Office has been so slow and, most of the time, it freezes that no matter what I do it would not respond (I tried Ctrl+Alt+Del already) and in the long run the screen would black out. Apparently, I heard the usual answer of a customer service representative (CSR). CSR's are suppose to be there to take care of their customers and not their company though the two goes hand in hand. She said, the Windows Vista processor which they have installed is original. However, the MS Office programs are pirated because they usually don't give free MS Office software so instead of charging more to their customers for the installation of an original program, they installed FREE PIRATED PROGRAM without the customer's knowledge. It's another marketing fad and it's very rampant nowadays so I really have to learn a lesson. Next time, before I decide to discharge my hardly-earned bucks for something I believe worthwhile, I need to probe for not all apples are sweet and not all sweet fruits are apples. Even a highly-respected SONY (I bought this notebook in a SONY CENTER), is not worthy of every buyer's trust.

The technical support staff advised me to run VAIO recovery program and everything will be alright after that. With their broken English and my broken Thai, we could hardly understand each other. I should have acted out like a wild bore in front of them because of my frustration. However, I was still able to manage to wear my sarcastic smile and, surprisingly, gave a good laugh and a sincere thank to them. After all, we have our reason for doing something and I believe we are responsible and mature enough to evaluate the validity of that reason. I might be the prey that time but the day will still go on. They have to fix the problem!

Forgetting the pending works caused by that unexpected event, I seized the rest of the day and had a sumptuous lunch at Sizzler's. I then treated myself with a relaxing facial and body massage and ended the day with a cup of cappuccino and a slice of brownie cheesecake at McCafe. Although I have been trying to save every dough that I have for my upcoming vacation to Philippines this October, I could not help myself but turn a tricky day to a SOSY SUNDAY. Enjoy life! It's a personal decision.

What is Distributed Leadership?

Distributed leadership is a kind of leadership where every stakeholder (i.e. principal, teachers, students, parents, community) of an educational institution collaboratively work and do leadership tasks for the achievement of common and specific goal. In this form of leadership, each one's opinion towards certain matters is sought before any decision is being done. This form of leadership is democratic and delegated.

In an organization where distributed leadership is employed, it is important to view distributed leadership not only as management or a leadership technique but more than that as an attitude. It simply means considering every individual of the organization as an important source of ideas. Through this kind of leadership, respect is seen and felt in every corner of the organization. It must be understood that distributed leadership is a call for responsibility from the members of the organization. This way, important leadership tasks can be achieved while working collaboratively and examining each one’s mistake as source of ideas for development. In this kind of leadership, everybody is expected not just to become part of the solution but to the prevention itself as well.

The Essence of Assessment: Authentic Over Traditional

Traditionally, assessment which is typically done in a form of test or quiz provides negative notion among the students. More often than usual, traditional assessment methods merely expects the students to recall knowledge through multiple choice tests, enumeration, identification, and others. Such method of assessment usually causes anxiety among the students which hinders them from giving accurate response as to what they have really learned – thus, hampering valid formative assessment and feedback.

On the other hand, authentic assessment or alternative assessment usually entails tasks in which the students will be involved and an accompanying rubric which will be used in evaluating their performance on the specified tasks. Wiggins (1993) as cited by Mueller (2008) defined authentic assessment as engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field.

In other words, authentic assessment is the provision of direct application of knowledge learned through practical tasks designed to evaluate the students’ ability to apply learning (transfer of learning). According to Mueller (2008), authentic assessments, on the other hand, offer more direct evidence of application and construction of knowledge compared to traditional assessment.

Here is an example of an authentic assessment I have done in my Mathematics class with ESL learners who are expected to master fundamental concepts in Mathematics and develop their English language proficiency. When I taught “Money and Budget” among the learners, I assessed their ability to solve problems related to money and their ability to integrate the four language skills by asking them to look for a practical problem which involves money. I asked my students to write them down in paragraph form, interpret and express them in mathematical symbols, and then present their problems and solution in class. I developed a rubric to evaluate their works (oral and written) and communicated it with them beforehand. That way, I was able to authentically assess my students for their presentations gave me a concrete evidence on how much they have learned and my feedback (which was based on the rubric) was clear with them beforehand, thus, giving them ideas on what needs to be improved next time.

When assessing our students, we have to remember that, as teachers, we do not assess our students so we could give our judgment to them or encourage them to compete one another. The real essence of assessment can be found in our genuine interest to help our students in the process of learning. We assess the learners so we could provide them immediate and accurate feedback that would help them in their impending learning endeavors.

If you are a teacher who find this article helpful, you can visit my TEACHING BLOG and read more of them or you can e-mail me at jo_saraspe@yahoo.com so I could send you other materials that might also help you in teaching.

Claiming Our Own Responsibility

Months ago, I heard a news in BBC about an Austrian man who abducted his own daughter for a couple of years. This man was able to hide his secret for a long time that people never thought about his darkest secret -- he imprisoned his very own daughter in his house, raped her and had children with her. Another abduction case recently happened in America to an 11-year old girl kidnapped 18 years ago and made a sex slave by a ruthless sex maniac. The girl even bore a child with that man at the age of 14. And then a while ago, a heart-breaking story about a 2-year old boy who was cut open, had his intestines and inner organs removed and then stuffed with Cocaine caused me a very wild impression of the world that we are currently living.

The world has totally changed. Life has given us comfort and luxury that we wanted. The word "machine" and the prefix "e-" have been attached to so many things like washing machine, vending machine, teller machine and then e-book, e-shopping, e-mail and so on and so forth. Yes, many things have changed but what is unbearable to all these changes is the fact that some people's perception have totally changed. The way some people give importance to their lust and the material words around them have rippled in almost (if not all) every corner of the world that would make us doubt the safety that this world could bring to us.

All these changes were undoubtedly created by men and so the problems brought by these changes actually rooted from ourselves. People are suffering from the consequences brought by their unruly treatment to the environment. Nobody could be blamed except us. Life has given us everything for free but it's us who made everything expensive. We are suffering but then we deserve to experience all these things. What is unacceptable is that the new generation, the young and the innocents have been affected. It's a shame in our part because we have inherited the world better and now, we will pass it on to the coming ages full of dirt that, still, we could not picture out how the budding world citizens could enjoy the blessings of nature that we have experienced before.

But then, it's never been late to do the things that we believe will save our world for the next generation to enjoy. Let's do our part for even small good things that we do to ourselves and to others would possibly cause great impact.

If those people who did worse thing in the community rippled around the world, then it's not impossible that our collective small deeds would also bring great waves to everyone.

Malayo ka man, May Maitutulong din

Bilang mga Pilipino na namamasukan sa ibang bansa, hindi mo maiiwasan ang pangungulila sa mga mahal sa buhay na malayo sa iyong kasalukuyang kinalalagyan. Minsan, naiisip mo kung bakit kinakailangan pa'ng magtiis kung kaunting kaginhawaan rin lang naman ang hangad mo sa buhay. Bakit mo ba sinasakripisyo ang sarili mo'ng kaligayahan na makapiling ang iyong mga mahal sa buhay? Ganun nga ka ba ka higpit ang iyong pangangailangan na pati sarili mo'ng pamilya na kumalinga sa iyo ay kaya mo'ng iwanan? Sa totoo lang, mahirap sagutin ang mga katanungang yaon. Mahirap sapagkat alam mo na masasaktan ka sa sagot. Masasaktan ka sapagkat tunay na nakakatusok ng damdamin ang katotohanan na bubungad sa iyo.

Gaano na nga ba kalala ang kasalukoyang sitwasyon sa Pilipinas na kinakailangan pa natin na mangibang bansa para lang matugunan ang pangangailangan ng ating mga pamilya o ng ating sarili? Sari-sari ang sagot na maririnig mo sa mga katanunga'ng ito. Ngunit pakinggan mo lang ang bulong ng mga tao na nagiging pipi habang sinasakyan ang mga kaganapan ng ating bansa at ikaw ay mamamangha sa sasabihin nila. Hindi sila ang mga tao na tumatamasa ng magandang buhay. Sila ang mga tao na sa kabila ng lahat, hindi iniintindi ang kahirapan sapagkat hindi nila naihahalintulad ang kasiyahn na manatili sa sariling bansa kasama ang mga mahal sa buhay. Sila ang mga tao na patuloy na naniniwala na may malaking mga pagbabago na maaari pa'ng dumating sa ating bansa.

Sa totoo lang, naitatanong ko din sa sarili ko minsan kung bakit ko pa kailangan na manatili sa bansang ito. Bilang isang guro, alam ko na may malaking maitutulong ang aking kakayahan para sa ikauunlad ng ating bansa sa pamamagitan ng paghubog ng mga kabataan na siyang magiging kinabukasan ng ating bayan. Dito sa Thailand, ang bawat pasasalamat ng aking mga mag-aaral ay hindi lamang nagsisilbing pampalubag loob sa akin bilang guro. Higit pa diyan, ito ay nagmumulat din sa akin sa tulong na pwede ko'ng maidulot sa aking mga kababayan kung ako ay babalik sa Pilipinas upang magturo. Gayunpaman, mayroon pa rin akong dahilan sa aking pananatili at iyon ay upang hubugin ang aking sarili para magiging handa sa malaking mga pasubok na maari ko'ng harapin sa tuluyan ko nang pamamalagi sa Pilipinas. Hindi ako pwedeng magsalita ng tapos pero sa tingin ko, iyon ay mga dalawang taon mula ngayon. Aking adhikain na sa aking pagbabalik sa aking bayan na sinilangan, madadala ko ang mga bagong kaalaman na pwede kong ibahagi sa aking mga kababayan.

Sa ngayon, habang ako ay nasa ibang bansa, wala akong ibang magagawa kundi gampanan ng buong puso at walang pag-iimbot ang aking tungkulin bilang isang banyagang manggagawa na inaasahang huhubog at lilinang sa kaalaman ng mga itinuturing na kinabukasan ng aking bansang kinalalagyan. Bilang isang gurong pinoy, wala akong ibang maidudulot sa kanila kundi ang aking sigasig at dedikasyon na sila ay maihanda sa mga pagsubok na maaari nilang harapin bukas. At ngayon, ako ay nasisiyahan sapagkat nakikita ko na ang simula ng magandang adhikain ng mga Pilipino dito sa ibang bansa lalo na dito sa aming paaralan. Buklod ng iisang damdamin at kaisipan na maiangat ang sariling lahi, ang lahat ay handa nang tahakin ang landas tungo sa malaking pagbabago na siyang magpapamulat sa lahat ng tunay na diwa ng mga Pilipino. Nagkakaisa, kahit saan at kahit kailan. Sana, sa tulong ng bawat isa, ay aming magagampanan ng buong husay at sigasig ang aming mga gawain at sana ang pagkakaisang ito ay maghahatid ng magandang mensahe sa bawat isa sa amin at sa iba pang mga Pilipino sa mundo.

Bilang mga manggagawang Pinoy dito sa Thailand na tinataguyod ang sariling mga pangarap at ang mga pangangailangan ng mga pamilya sa Pilipinas, ito ang aming magiging handog sa bawat isa sa atin. Wala akong ibang hangad kundi ang tagumpay ng bawat isa.