‘Brilliant idea’ changes lives of teacher-partners

IN KEEPING with the serialized story, students were asked to create books about their grandmothers (or grandfathers).

Since Inquirer in Education (IIE), through the Learning section editor, had the brilliant idea of serializing stories in the paper for use in classrooms, things have not been quite the same for us who are teacher-partners.

We now look forward to each year’s story with avid interest.

I have been a teacher-partner six times and I’ve become friends with some of the most enthusiastic teachers I’ve ever met—Marnelli Bautista, Marlyn Baliton Gerio, Eva Imingan, to mention a few.

We look forward to seeing each other twice a year at the Bench-IIE Serial Reading Program preseries workshop and the debriefing.

In the last two years, after IIE saw to it that the serialized story was brought to us firsthand to read and own, things have been so much better. We’ve been asked to write lesson plans for every chapter and we’ve taken to it like ducks to water.

I find this to be the most fun because the lesson plans I help craft are used not just by my teachers but by other partner-teachers as well.

As a school head, I do not get to teach the kids so the next best thing is to see to it that I have a hand in their learning, albeit through the fun activities I develop for them.

Planning the activities with my teachers, like coming up with art projects, doubles the fun. It never ceases to amaze me how much we can put into the activities when we put our hearts into it.

Others may call it dedication but I think the more appropriate word is passion. It takes passion to embrace something wholeheartedly so that work is no longer just work but fun.

I have the utmost fun buying materials for my teachers and pupils to work on. In a previous life, I must have been a shopaholic.

Last year, I single-handedly wrote the last lesson plan for Chapter 6 of “Letters from Crispin.” I managed to squeeze it in despite my hectic schedule because of love for the series. I got a kick having my plan used, especially by many partner-teachers.

Since award-winning author Cyan Abad-Jugo got on board, I have come to appreciate her more and more as a writer. What will she cook up next? What adventures will she bring us next? I can hardly wait, just like the rest.

Her stories have heart. A pinch in the upper region of my chest when I read her story is evidence of her power to stir her readers.

I became a school head in 2008 and this may be my last school year as a principal. In God’s perfect time, I hope to be named officer in charge assistant superintendent in a division of the Department of Education in the National Capital Region.

But my association with the Philippine Daily Inquirer will not end. I have more reasons to promote reading because, aside from the fact that it is my own personal advocacy being a Master of Arts in Reading graduate of the University of the Philippines, IIE works and how.

So this is not goodbye. This is just another new beginning.