Presentations-We Got This, Right?

Tuesday, June 14

This day started off with classroom observations.  I observed a MAPEH class on First Aid, an Economics class, and a Math class.  Each class had no less that 45 students in it, which was a sight to see.  I know that at my school teachers will complain if their class sizes even approach 30 and yet these classes had 45+ in them with no air conditioning.  The classrooms are roughly the same size as the rooms at my school, but with many more desks.  The only cooling options were 3-4 large fans that rotated from the ceiling.  Some of the students brought their own little fans to cool off.  Almost every student had a sweat wipe...I wish I had thought of that, I relied on my sleeve or a paper towel.  The classrooms are open, which I found to be distracting because you could hear everything going on outside during class.  Surprisingly, the heat and the noise did not distract the students at all, they are clearly adjusted to the distractions.

Even though there are so many students in the classroom, I did not observe any discipline issues in any of the classes.  The students were always very respectful to the teacher and any other adult in the room.  In fact, all of the students would stand up and greet anyone who came into the room, "Good morning, visitor.  Mabuhay!"  Another interesting observation is that students would stand to answer questions whether they volunteered or were chosen by the teacher.  Often when a teacher would ask, "Class, does everyone understand?," in unison, the class would answer, "Yes, Mam."  Students weren't asking questions, they were only answering questions posed by the teacher.

The teachers move to the students rather than the students switching classes, so the classrooms were pretty bare in terms of decoration.  The standard decoration can be see in the picture above on the right.  It the seal of the Philippines in the center, pictures of the current president and mayor, and pictures of Jose Rizal and Mabini, Philippine national heroes.  Students are responsible for keeping the classrooms clean.

After our morning of observations, we were asked to present our state presentation, which was a requirement of our program.  We had put together these presentations to highlight our state and local area and education system to share with our host community.  We thought this would be one of the easiest activities of our time at Boot...boy, we're we wrong!  The projector kept overheating and going out because the voltage was too high in the plug.  I was up first, so I was completely winging it without my presentation for the first session.  Did I mention that it felt like 125 under the roof of the outdoor auditorium?  Did I also mention that the kids were scheduled to go to lunch right after our presentations?  It was a mess to say the least.  Wendi, Jan, and I all agreed that we were happy there was no evaluation of our presentations that day.  The second presentation went a bit better because we actually had a working projector and laptop!

Thankfully, we were scheduled to talk with the 7th grade classes after our presentations.  It gave us time to forget our technology woes from our presentations!  My group of 7th graders were very shy about asking questions, but they eventually warmed up with some encouragement from their teacher. By the end of our session, I had them teaching me Tagalog words.  

We had dinner on our own and we discovered...Shakey's Pizza!  I know some of you are thinking "I can't believe she's eating pizza in the Philippines," but in my defense we had eaten a ton of Filipino up until that point, so a little taste of home was needed.