Whitney Hough, a Program Officer from IREX (the organization that manages our International Field Experience), joined in the fun! She was responsible for overseeing our trip and had visited other groups while we were in our host communities. She stayed with us for two days before heading back to Manila to get things ready for our return.
You see, there's a funny thing about schedules in our host community! Schedules look really good on paper, but aren't necessarily followed. We were never on time for school this whole week. For example, we made a pit stop on the way to school at our driver Mark's parents' house just to check out the house. Like many in this area, Mark's father is a seafarer and drives tanker ships all over the world. Their house was a gorgeous example of modern architecture that seemed a bit out of place for the area. This contradiction could be found throughout our host community. You could see a makeshift house constructed of found materials and then drive less that a mile and see gorgeous mansions! Often the bigger the house, the greater the geographic separation within the family. The cutest part about our detour was meeting his nephew, Ian.
After Whitney took a tour of BNHS with our host teacher Amy and our principal, Josie Magpantay, we headed out to tour Tanauan City with Whitney. We had to make a pit stop at McDonald's before we began our touring day, so I could try the ube-dipped ice cream cone and it was worth it! Our first stop was Tanauan Roman Catholic Church where we crashed the first of three weddings, but don't worry, we weren't the only wedding crashers that day! We took a tour of the Tanauan City Museum to learn more about the history of our host city.
Our next stop was the National Teachers College (NTC), which provides teacher training to many aspiring teachers in the area. While the original focus of our visit was suppose to be tertiary education, we spent more time discussing the K-12 addition. In a previous post, I mentioned the voucher program that government has started for grades 11 and 12, which allows students to go to private schools if their home school doesn't offer the additional grades. Even though it is a college that offers bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees, NTC added a Grades 11-12 program to take advantage of the voucher program. As we delved deeper into this program, we learned that the voucher will only cover the cost of tuition. Students will still be responsible for paying for their textbooks as well as their uniforms, which may be cost-prohibitive for some families in the area. Also, we learned that the national government has not provided the colleges and private schools with any additional monies to cover the cost of building the needed classrooms for the new grades, so NTC is shouldering the costs with the hopes of having enough students attending to support the investment. We also discussed the possibility of offering college credit while the students were still in grades 11 and 12, which is something the administration of NTC had not considered. NTC has a wealth of programs, including a phenomenal culinary program that prepared us an delicious Italian lunch, that students could take advantage of while they are still in high school. The biggest concern expressed by NTC with the addition of grade 11 and 12 is how the national government is packaging grade 11 and 12. Many colleges are concerned that they will see a drop in enrollment for their tertiary programs because the students will only see grades 11 and 12 as being necessary to keep them competitive in the global market. It was a great visit with meaningful conversation!
After our visit to NTC, we headed to Queen of All Saints Academy (QASA) a small private Catholic school near Boot National High School. QASA was started by a Filipino American as an alternative to the local public schools. It currently offers Grades K-6 and a nursery school. Like many small, private schools it struggles to maintain enrollment while providing the resources needed to the teachers and students. We took a tour of the school and then it was time for our state presentations. Given our past history with our state presentations, to say we were nervous as all of the kids began streaming into the presentation area was an understatement...need I remind you that our last presentation involved a kid climbing on the bars of the window.With fingers crossed, we began with Maryland, then North Carolina, and finished with Georgia. The kids loved it! They were so engaged and we had so much fun presenting to them. The third picture below is a neighbor of the school who listened and enjoyed our presentations, too. It took three tries, but we finally figured out this state presentation thing. We even got high fives from all of the kids when we finished!
It was a great day today, but we weren't finished, yet. We went to Mam Flor's house for dinner, which was delicious as usual. Much to my surprise, Mam Flor had arranged for her neighbor to take us for a ride on her tricycle (aka motorcycle with a side car). He took us to a breathtaking view of Lake Taal and then we did a little off-roading through sugar cane fields!
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