PLUMAGE AND GOOGLE

MADECEL C. DELA MERCED

Small blisters were starting to emerge in my fingers after an exasperating battle with my only weapon to finish the endless chapters of timeless Noli Me Tangere. My pen is about to run out with ink but seemed I had only finished halfway. Every stroke of my pen meticulously wrote every letter strands and curves to perfectly present my big notebook with chapters of the novel.

That was almost two decades of my high school life. My Filipino subject was very memorable because of that requirement— to write the summary of each chapter of Noli Me Tangere with vocabulary words and characters to be described. I really wondered it seemed that the lesson taught was still clinging in my memory. When my teacher started to narrate the story in each chapter, she just not only read it but she internalized the characters, plot and action in the story. How can I forget the story of the two senoras in one chapter? She vividly described the very detail of the story. The dirty cobblestone, the screeching sound of wheel and axle of horse’s carriage are beautifully described in the story.

But what was the reason why my teacher asked her students to write such voluminous writings? Was it worthy enough for the students to learn her lesson? Was this essential to students’development for them to be good persons?

It is very coincident that after two scores that I would put the shoes my Filipino teacher. I am now a teacher of Filipino subject.

It is now in my hands the ball to turn the table of events. But how can I narrate the old stories from the great minds of formidable authors? In the verge of technology, yellowed pages of books are now transformed to e-book, emerald green blackboard and milky white chalk are now powerpoint and video presentation, teachers may teach through podcast.

In the technology driven world, it is very challenging to a teacher like me on how to extract the true lesson of my subject. Pieces of information are now accessible in the hands of young minds. Myriad of information are readily available. I may require them to read and submit outputs but these may be copied and pasted, printed and then submitted. It saddens me whenever this happens to my class. It is not enough for me to count the quantity and give corresponding point for every tangible output I keep on my class record. But the real learning that I am looking for is the output itself. To see my students on how to process endless information available in the virtual world, to judge and discern which is right and which is wrong. And this is my role today, not anymore to feed information but to teach them the hard way. The old recipe is still effective. Teach my students to experience the real essence and value of everything. Google may give all the information, but it is my role as a teacher to facilitate, process and feed only my students with what is right.

— oOo—

The author is Secondary School Teacher III at Talang High School