Pulao Elementary School
20th October 2005
What I Do
In the mornings, I help out at the local Agricultural
Department. I am gathering information about the agricultural
sector that should hopefully help the local council with its decision
making. Look out for a future web update for more information
about this.
My school day begins at around 1:00 pm. Pulao Elementary School is a
5 kilometer journey from my home. It is far too hot to walk there,
so I catch either a jeepney or a
tricycle.
Being a westerner in The Philippines is very much like being a
celebrity. As I arrive at the school, it seems that every student wants to say
"Good Afternoon Sir Malcolm" to me. Even students on the
other side of the school will keep yelling at me until I acknowledge
them. A "Maayoung Hapon" (Good Afternoon) from me
always gets a smile. The students love receiving a
high-five or a "Massive" from me.
A "Massive" involves each person lightly tapping the
other's fist and saying "Massive". It's something I
started as a bit of a joke, but it's starting to catch on. I see
students (and adults!) handing out Massives to each other. Maybe I should do a
web page sometime on the "Cult of Massive"...
Anyway, after the numerous greetings I head off to the staff
room, where the under-payed and over-worked teachers relax for a
bit. They are very friendly and offer me a drink or
some food. Assuming the power is still on, I teach the
teachers about their computer. Printing certificates is a popular
topic at the moment.
I then head off to my classroom, where the students
greet me with another rendition of "Good Afternoon Sir
Malcolm".
They are Grade five students, which makes them about twelve years
old. Most of the students
have a good conversational English.
Like any class in the world, there are some very bright students
and some not so bright students. One of the girls is very clever
and just about always gets 100% on the spelling test. She can
spell words like "Artillery" and "Historian".
Whenever I ask a question, several arms
shoot up in the air and a chorus of "Sir! Sir!" echoes around the
classroom. Sometimes they are a bit too loud and I have to calm
them down a bit. They take great pride in being the one chosen to answer
the question. I saw one girl bang her fist down on the table out of
sheer frustration of not being the one chosen. Sometimes, one of
them will get so excited that they forget what the question was and I have to repeat it to them.
When I first started at Pulao Elementary, Thercy, one of the teachers, ask the
students if they would prefer me to teach English or Mathematics.
They couldn't decide and so I teach English one week, and Mathematics the
next.
In the English class, I am teaching the students all about the
fascinating world of verbs and how they change depending on the tense. "Stand" becomes "stood" in the
past tense; "look" becomes "looked" on so
on. I usually have a homework
assignment printed out for them to take home.
In the Mathematics class, I am teaching them about multiplying and
dividing fractions. I hand out homework
assignments for maths as well. I was surprised out how quick some
of them picked up the concepts. I was struggling to explain how to
change a mixed fraction into a simple fraction, so I wrote the following formula on the
board:
I thought it would just confuse them but most of them latched onto the idea very quickly.
After the class, I run some tutorials in the school library. Each
tutorial has five students plus me in it. I pick a topic that the
class seems to be struggling with. Each student gets a lot more
attention and they will latch onto the idea a lot more quickly than they
would in class.
At the moment I am running tutorials for Grade
Five. I am considering running tutorials for Grade Four in the
near future.
After the tutorials it is time to head home. If I
am lucky, someone who knows me will pass by and give me a lift
home. I say "someone who knows me" and not "someone
I know", because sometimes I
can't remember the name or the face of the person for the life of
me. If no friendly lift is forthcoming, a couple of students will
flag down a jeepney or a tricycle for me.
So, that's what I do! For a discussion on the state of
education in The Philippines, check this
out.
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