Award-winning teachers join #MyInquirer Read-Along Festival

Metrobank Outstanding Teachers Regaele Olarte and Winnie Diola read “Ang Patsotsay na Iisa ang Pakpak” during the morning session of Day 2 of the #MyInquirer Read-Along Festival. —PHOTOS BY ROMY HOMILLADA

For Metrobank Foundation outstanding teachers Winnie Diola and Regaele Olarte, their participation in the #MyInquirer Read-Along Festival held on Nov. 12 truly brought out the teachers in them.

“Teachers are natural storytellers,” said Diola, a Grade 5 Science teacher at De La Salle Santiago Zobel School in Muntinlupa City and returning Read-Along storyteller. “Even if I have read in a session before, it’s still a new experience. The kids’ reactions were really unexpected.”

“Interacting with such participative kids was so refreshing,” said Olarte, a physics and research teacher at Muntinlupa National High School.

“We need to find time to help our kids develop love for reading,” said Diola, who brought her children Yaj and Kaya to watch the session.

“Love for reading must really be pushed,” said Olarte. “One cannot do away with reading.”

The teachers read in tandem Rene Villanueva’s “Ang Patsotsay na Iisa ang Pakpak” during the morning session of the second day of the Festival. During the session, they recruited children from the audience to help them tell the story by acting as “Patsotsay.”

Students join the storytelling by acting as characters in the story called “Patsotsays”

“Teacher Gaele and I talked beforehand about how we wanted to tell the story,” shared Diola, who added that she learned a lot from observing Ann Abacan and the Sophia School Storytellers from when she first participated in a Read-Along session. “We got the idea of getting student participants from Teacher Ann.”

They also inserted a song inside the story. “And since Teacher Gaele is a singer, she’s the one who adapted the words to the melody we had in mind,” Diola added.

Compared to other activities of Metrobank Outstanding Filipinos awardees, their Read-Along Festival is really very different. “Our events are usually formal. In the Read-Along we really just had fun,” said Olarte.

Diola and Olarte were among the readers during the second day of the Festival, which also included British Ambassador to the Philippines Asif Ahmad, Read-Along Ambassador Bianca Umali, Starstruck First Princess Ayra Mariano and veteran Read-Along storytellers from Sophia School led by Ms Ann Abacan.

Co-presented with Metrobank Foundation, the #MyInquirer Read-Along Festival was a two-day marathon of storytelling sessions with celebrities and professional storytellers. This year marks the first time that it was held inside the Inquirer main office since it was first launched in 2011.