Internship

This year, I took in a student-trainee. An intern. Her email message expressing her interest to be an intern came at the perfect time–when I needed someone to help me with the Annual Report of our office.

When the news about it spread in the office, some officemates referred to the intern as an assistant of our group. I did not like it.

So, when we had a staff meeting, I formally announced about the internship. Along with the introduction of the intern was a reminder to all my officemates that she is not an assistant. She is a student-trainee with a customised learning and development plan.

I feel bad when people refer to interns as merely assistants, whom you can assign dirty jobs or miscellaneous tasks. For me, internship entails responsibility on both parties, the sending university and the accepting organisation.

A university sends its students as interns with high hopes that they could learn skills and knowledge, or gain experience. These learnings can be used by the intern in his/her work after graduation or may be shared plainly to other students.

The accepting organisation, therefore, has a duty to teach or impart knowledge and skills to a student-trainee. The learning and development plan does not include photocopying documents and will never have an item on preparing a good coffee for any staff or the boss.

I hope that the intern will learn valuable lessons related to working in a government office. And when she does, I hope she will use it to upgrade her performance in her future endeavours.

Some Things I Should Have Known, I Learnt From Dragonboat

Attention!

Life is sweet, as they say. However, it is there to teach us a lesson. This is why Life can become harsh, harsher than what we could possibly imagine. Let us be snappy in preparing ourselves, unless we like mingling around laggards and lazy worms. We might want our homes to shape like the Great Pyramids of Giza, that when the rain drops its notoriety, pain slides away from us smoothly. But when the harvesting season arrives, it is better to turn everything upside down. You can catch more blessings of power and wealth when you invert your home, widest at the top lid. You can watch everything slowly moving to the bottom of your catchment shaped like a funnel.

Drive!

If everything is prepared and planned, then a smile can be carved in our lips. We know that our future is there, just waiting to be figured out. To see the sun hiding behind the mountains or the tall buildings of contemporary civilisations, we can start driving the wheels of our fortune.. all in one rhythm. The more uniform our drive, the farther that we can travel and the more positive things that we could do.

Exit

Sometimes, things cannot proceed as planned. When this happens, there is nothing that we can do but to restart the engine of our life. But how should we go about having a fruitful life? Of course, we cannot afford to just sit and waste everything that we have worked for. We should learn how to tilt and spurn outwards everything that had been scrapped from our life production. Let us not bring bad ideas, emotions and habits to higher levels because they can just give us unwanted additional baggage.

Recovery

When Life gives us difficult tasks, we do not quit. Unfortunately, more often than not, we fail. Do not feel bad about it. Thank the circumstance for the worthwhile lesson, for the opportunity to see the difference between right and wrong. Smile and motion your head up to see the clear sky and take a much-needed recovery. Breathe. Relax. Plan a better entry into the kingdom of Life and remember to steer clear of everything that has been dragging your life.

My Teacher, My Hero

In our lifetime, we come across somebody who can teach us valuable lessons. Somebody who can make us laugh amidst the hardest turmoil of our journey. Somebody who can show us the true meaning of life.

We simply call them “teacher.” We love them when they can share some good laughs. We hate them when they give us difficult examinations. We love them when they give us bonus points in our quizzes. We hate them when they assign us essays or scientific papers to write. We love them when they give additional 0.25 to compensate for our complete attendance to their classes.

They have consultation hours for us to clarify some things that were discussed in the class, ask for updates in scores and points obtained in different class activities or simply ask for guidance when we get lost in our ways. Sometimes they even scold us for not consulting them because they can see that we need them especially when we are having difficulties in our studies.

Not all can get a piece of our heart. Only a few can go directly to the innermost cells of our existence. Only a few can be tagged as great because they can make amazing differences not only to their students but to the whole world.

Thank you to my first teacher – Ms Ibatuan (Grade 1). Also to the teacher, who gave me rides back home and made the sign similar to that of Boy Scouts as exchange for our shouts of “Goodbye Mr Cacho.” To Mr Sunico, who always believed in my capabilities in academic contests.

To Ms Lazo, who was very happy when I got the second place after the first grading period of my first year in high school. To Mrs Espejo, who gave me a whopping improvement of 7 percent in PEHM. To Mrs Fariñas, who was very enthusiastic in teaching us Filipino. To Mrs Farrales, who always got me in the mood for our English class because of her amazing ability in pronunciation, enunciation, diction and other related terms. To Mr Campos, whose teaching is beyond superb. To the two Mrs Jaras, who were always energetic and good examples of exemplary teachers. To Mrs Pascua, whose passion for teaching and inculcating values to us echoed in the corners of our school. To Mrs Abella, who opened my eyes for great experiments in science. To Mr Lived, who made me part of a play in our school. To Mr Idica, whose smiles brightened our days. To Mr Espejo for teaching me how to dance and making me part of the “elite” group of dancers for my last Foundation Day in the school [and I laughed out loud, which I actually do everytime I remember it]. To Mrs Bagaoisan, who would always bug me out with research methods and frameworks. To Ms Caasi, the great librarian, for making my stay in the library enjoyable. And to the triumvirate force of Ms Veronica Salva, Mrs Romelinda Sablay-de Guzman and Mr Romulo Basuel for showing me the ways to journalism. They made my stay in high school more exciting than how I thought about it. I would never find the best way to thank you for making me the Editor-in-Chief [and I laughed out loud again] of the school paper.

To my great teachers in college: Dr Reynaldo de la Cruz, whom I could always call everytime I need a referral letter for scholarship applications; Dr Marilyn Quimado, for the endless support; Drs Cardenas (Chemistry), Merlyn Mendioro, Myrna Carandang, Margaret Calderon and Dulcinea Laforteza for the lively lectures and discussions; Prof Mutya Manalo, for all the motherly advice and wisdom she shared; Prof Stella Villa Castillo for the humour that she can only give; Dr Felix Eslava and Prof Elsa Santos for the valuable lessons in social forestry and forest governance; Dr Edwino Fernando for being a great mentor and serving as my “father” while struggling but enjoying that phytodemographic and phenotypic diversity studies for my thesis.

To National Scientist (NS) Benito Vergara, NS Dolores Ramirez, NS Gelia Castillo, NS Bienvenido Juliano, NS Raul Fabella, NS Mercedes Concepcion, Academician (Acd) Jaime Montoya, Acd Christopher Bernido, Acd Gavino Trono, Acd Romulo Davide, Acd Ruben Villareal, Acd Agnes Rola, Acd Alvin Culaba, Acd Emil Javier, Acd Angel Alcala and Acd Rafael Guerrero III for being great mentors. The closer I get to all of you, the bigger I become. Thank you for sharing the power in your “grey hair.”

I will always remember that “It does not matter how many times you fall, but how many times you get up and move on.”

Psychology in Education

Efficiency in the realm of education is very appealing as it could help the government deliver the right opportunities to a greater number of people. The cost would be lowered and the reach of the education system could be stretched even to the hard-to-reach areas like the minorities up in the mountains of Ifugao or Mountain Province, or to the war-torn areas in Mindanao.If sociology ensures the fair distribution of education privileges in the society, then it makes learning available to all people. Psychology, on the other hand, deals with the conduct of research on classroom management and pedagogy to guide teaching practice and form a foundation for teacher education programs. The products of the research are used to create an environment conducive for learning and developing the self-management skills of the student. It also strives in the development of positive relationship between the teacher and the student, management of groups to sustain behaviour, and utilisation of the process of counseling for students who encounter psychosocial problems (Emmer & Stough).

This entails that psychology works within the education system. It ensures the stability of the education with respect to its players: the teacher and the learner. It is also into the continuous development or growth of the teacher and the students. A basic knowledge of it makes the learning process smoother and easier to be undergone by both of the parties.

Maximisation of the learning process especially on the part of the students goes along with the efficiency that could be rendered with the education per se. This step would eventually yield better outputs in terms of the growth of the learner.

Literature Cited: Emmer, ET & LM Stough. 2001. Classroom management: A critical part of educational psychology with implications for teacher education. Educational Psychologist. 36:103-112.

Sociology in Education

Education deals with the teaching and learning of specific skills, which could be imparted as knowledge, positive judgment, or well-simmered wisdom. It facilitates the realisation of the potentials and innate talents of an individual (Yero). Education can be acquired in many various ways and the absorption of its essence depends on the concerned individual. Others believe that it starts even before birth as shown by mothers playing music or reading to their baby in the womb. Family members have very prominent effect on the educational motivation of the younger members. Life experience is a very good source of education, as advocated also by Mark Twain.Basic knowledge in sociology is important to ensure the efficiency in education. Sociology deals with how social institutions and individual experiences affect the education system of the country. It explains why education processes do not really come out as the perceived human endeavour that aspires for progress and betterment. It justifies the educational crisis in the context that education works in the maintenance of social stability and not on the fulfillment of the dream of the individual towards the achievement of greater social equality (Sargent, 1994).

This clearly shows that what is good for the greatest number of people is prioritised. Sociology negates the issue of favouritism towards those who could afford to send their children to school. It also removes the bias perceived by marginalised sectors towards those who live near schools or areas of higher learning. It provides the finishing touches before education system is implemented or put on for initial trial. During the course of its implementation, sociology ensures that education is fairly distributed to all the people in the area.
Literature Cited: Sargent, M. 1994. The New Sociology for Australians. 3rd ed. Melbourne: Longman Chesire.