foniks

in our scool, we teach the kids to read primarily through phonics. we teach them to recognize the sounds of the letters, and from there, form words. we also teach them to learn to speak english well, even though we keep saying we are proud to be filipinos. (go figure) but we cannot always be sure that they get follow-up at home. we find parents who are constantly at work, leaving the children to the bilungual yaya (bisaya and english make for a really interesting conversation). and the children don't always speak english at home, anyway.
so, here is our dilema: in speaking filipino, we have no difficulties teaching them to read. it's the english language giving us problems. not all their words can be spelled phonetically. as such:

1. what is your favorite toy?

• my favorite toy is barbe
• may favorit toi is dal
• my favorite toy is my bayking
• my favorite toy is buk

2. who is your favorite cartoon character?

• my favorit cartun caracter is sponj bob
• my fayvorite cartoon caracter is dora da eksplorer
• my fayvorit cartun caracter is barbe

3. what is your favorite flower?

• my favorit flower is rows
• my favorite flower is chulipe (at least she's familiar with diphtongs already!)
• my favorite flower is yelow

even their notes to their teachers are excercises in frustration:

1. hapi valentins day, ticher kati!

2. i mis yu and i lav yu, picher elowi.

3. i em prinses barbe!

4. yu ar biyutiful and nis

5. i lik yu my tisher (she's trying to say that she liked her as the teacher)

6. meri krismas en hapi nu yir! (at least i knew who really gave me the present)

7. anica let pley hapi frend togeher (anica let her friend play with her and they were happy together)

8. sirkle skuer trayagel rektagel

and the best so far:

9. dir gesus, plis meyk nela pley nis to me, i want to pley her flower. (she wants to play with nella's hat with flowers, but nella won't let her, so she wrote a note to Jesus)

it's kinds hard keeping your laughter in, especially when they wait with baited breath for you to tell them what a beautiful letter they gave you!

gossips galore

for anyone interested in applying for a teaching position, i cannot in good conscience let you do so without warning you, beware the gossips in school! they attack without warning, without provocation! they start the smoke curling, and pretty soon, a blazing inferno erupts! who are they? the very children you teach! day in and day out, they watch your every move, seeking the smallest avenue from which to start their rumors.

never be absent in school, you will live to regret it.

just last week, my partner in the kinder 1 class was absent, leaving me to handle all 4 sections. i told her students that she was home sick, and that we had to pray for her because she might go to the hospital. the following day, letters started arriving, some from concerned parents, and some from highly irate and insulted ones. these are some of what they said:

1. we extend our sincerest condolences to teacher eloise and her family. our prayers we lift to heaven.

• apparently, their daughter told them that teacher eloise was dying.

2. how is teacher eloise? what hospital will we go to, to visit her? how long will her operation be?
3. congratulations to the new mother, teacher eloise! we didn't know you were pregnant! how far along are you?

• ye gods! immaculate conception!

4. we were told that this was a catholic school. how is it that a single teacher is about to give birth? please explain why she was allowed to continue teaching in this institution if she is pregnant and unmarried.

• your own mother was single and unmarried when she had you!

5. we are a devout christian family, and we are deeply troubled by the news of your pregnancy. we know for a fact that you are unmarried, and we feel that this is not a good environment to raise our daughter. we fell we must request for a change in classes to safeguard the moral integrity of our daughter.
well, as i replied to all of them:
please be informed that teacher eloise is unable to reply because she is, at present, recuperating from a severe case of tonsillitis. she was confined to the hospital due to her extremely high temperature (40.5) she chose not to attend school for fear of spreading the virus to the children. rest assured, she will be here next week to reply to your queries.
i also explained to the children in more detail what really happened to their teacher. the day after THAT, all the notes and letters were conspicuously missing from the notebooks of the children.
parents, always take what your kids tell you with a grain of salt. give the teachers the benefit of the doubt.

beautiful things

we were studying animals this week, and one of the things we made the kids do is to bring a picture of their pet, or, in the absence of that, a favorite animal. as a surprise, my co-teacher and i decided to bring our pets to school. i do this anyway, since it's a great way to give the kids a hands-on experience with the subject matter.

my pet is a persian cat, (although i'm not too sure anymore about the pureness of it's breed), and my co-teacher has one of the descendants of my cat (a distant cousin or some other obscure relation). we got to show them to the kids, and they were soooo excited! their faces were all scrunched up, and they were practically wriggling in their seats to touch the animals. i got nervous because some of them were really hyped up about it, they were getting stiff and were clenching their small fists in their excitement.

now, my cat has a very sweet disposition, very affectionate and even tempered. he is also used to people around him, and does not mind at all the many petting and coodling he receives when we have visitors. but if he could have talked at all, i would guess he'd have said something like, "get these heathens away from me!!! they're gonna kill me!" he looked truly horrified! his eyes grew so huge, his pupils looked to be the same size as his whole eyeball. he curled up on my lap, trying to hide under my blouse. in fact, he got his face in the sleeve.

i promised my kids that they could pet him, and they were truly excited about it, so i didn't have he heart to say no. i let them pet him, one student at a time, and only once can they run their hands over his fur. he molted so much i was sneezing the whole day. by the way, my cat is all black. i wore a red blouse and linen pants. go figure. it took me almost half a roll of masking tape just to get his fur off my clothes.

but it was worth it. until now, the kids keep asking me how my cat is. i told them that he got scared and they all came to me to say they that were sorry they scared him. :) i wonder if i can make him our class mascot...

vacation mode

it didn't help any that we were one of the few schools that started classes on january 3. most of my students were absent (about a third) and all of them were still on vacation mode! i couldn't hlp but let them sleep after our snacks (specially the morning class) because they were all so drowsy. of course, i had to watch them sleeping, when i wanted to sleep, too. it was so unfair!
of course, after a few days, when everything is back on track, and they all respond to the lesson like you wnat them to, it's back to the routinary things that they do just to anoy you.

1. They go to the washroom to pee several times in 1 session. and usually they ask to pee when you're right in the middle of your discussion.
2. They refuse to eat the food we serve, but when everything is packed away, and all the dishes have been cleaned and stored, they would ask for their share, saying that they are still hungry. (this, after finishing thier own food of 1 sandwhich, 2 packs of cookies, 1 thermos of juise, half a bottle of water and an apple/banana). and they end up eating 2 servings of the food! gives new meaning to the word "ravenous".
3. they purposefully break the leads of their pencils, just to watch you sharpern them again, and again, and again...
4. they spill water/juice on thier table to watch the ants drown.
5. it takes them less than a minute to erase the drawing that took you hours to draw on the blackboard. (anyone who knows me personally will know how frustrating this is!)
6. the way they insist on washing their hands after every bite they take from a cookie.

but i missed them a whole bunch during the vacation. no one else can brighten up your day and put your worries into perspective than a class of precocious little girls.