Looking Back: The AMIS Experience (Part 2)

Interaction between and among Students

The students probably think that because we’re student teachers they can get away with being noisy. Apparently they can’t. In one of my classes, I noticed a student was imitating me and my enunciation of words. Would you be happy that you are being imitated the wrong and insulting way? I wouldn’t be. So I walked and stood in front of the kid and said:

“Look, you can stand here in front, and I will sit right at your very chair and you can be my teacher and I will respect you. You think you can do all this? Go ahead, be my guest.”

Most of the teachers speak in Tagalog if they get really mad at their students. I usually do that. In special occasions however, I prefer to speak in English to impose authority in my class.

Once I observed Ma’am Dasco’s class, and I realized, just by watching her that I didn’t have to exert a lot of effort just to make them behave. She confiscated things, she stared at those who made noise, and she was more to being a gentle authority than being a violent tyrant. I wish I could also be like that.

Interaction among Teachers

The teachers showed positive attitudes to all the student teachers. In fact they were really funny when they get together during lunch breaks and they laugh about everything and anything including Bubble Gang, TV series, students, even themselves. They have high respect for their department head and they follow her instructions. They always hold weekly or monthly meetings depending on the need for it. You would not see them sleeping inside the faculty office and we didn’t gear anything about selling things to students. That, is something extraordinarily special about them.

Lessons Taught

Because I taught fourth year students, they had to be prepared for research and thesis making. Out of passion for making theses and research papers, and out of pure concern for them, I asked them to submit papers which at the end of the class would be returned with corrections and green marks. They were not so happy about it. I told them: “This is nothing compared to the thesis that you would make in college. You are complaining about these things but you have never really experienced the real deal.”

One of my students cried because one of her group mates refused to pay for the contribution on their research paper. I told them, they would be having a grade on that of they didn’t pay. The next day, my student said everything was okay and that she already paid.

Another memorable lesson was on the past participle tense of the verb. I gave them two tables which I asked them to fill with the correct past and past participle forms. For ‘put’ they said ‘putted’, for ‘cut’ they said ‘cutted’ and for ‘hit’ they said ‘hitted’.

Another memorable lesson was when I asked them to complete the phrases “If only” and “I wish I could” to form sentences. They had a lot of regrets and one of those was cheating. Others said that they regretted smoking. Others said they hated being bad children to the parents.

Their answers were really funny but if you could only look beyond those answers you’d realize that they really wanted to achieve something. It may not be something tangible, but they want something to change their lives. I want to believe that if only I were given more time to be with them, I could have seen them more. In that, I would have loved them more with every lesson I teach and with every part of speech.

Four-Four

I will always remember Rodolfo for believing that “smartass” means the same as “jackass”; Alexis for being a responsible president; Nielzen for being Xavier’s and Jan Sed’s partner in crime; Ryan Nel for always being absent; Carl for being good in making websites; Xavier for being a little noisy in class; Benedict for being eager in answering the activities; Hadji for imitating me everytime I speak; Allan for sleeping in class; Greg for taking his polo off in class; Reynald for being a good student in my class; Paul John for being uncool sometimes; Marvin for asking me a lot of nonsense questions; Kier for being an SK Chairman; Meirick for always sitting next to Rodolfo and Mar for laughing really hard.

I will miss Laura’s sweet smile; Lorievel’s amusement everytime she finds out I know a song she likes; Ericka for having 90 as a grade in my class, and for being absent for a lot of times; Jessa and Apple for their greatness in volleyball; Lovely and her sentences that everybody copies for assignment; Romallie and her habit of fixing herself even when I’m still in front; Roselle and Myleen for the attendance sheets they give everyday; Jannikka for the uniform she lent me; Nice for being a sport during thesis making (I returned her research paper 4 times); Sharmaine for being really gentle but smart in my class; Joyce Anne for being really sweet and responsible in lceaning the classroom after I leave; Anne for being smart and sometimes late; Reylyn for being one of the students that I knew in my first days of teaching; Denlyn for our common ground in music; Annielyn for crying while laughing; Gezelle for being diligent; Dianne for participating in discussions; Daisy for being sweet and funny; Sandy for being emo; Crisel for laughing with Jessa and Apple and Justine for always being present in class.

I may have a lot to talk about when it comes to their characteristics and attitudes. Still one thing remains, no matter how long or short my descriptions are, I only have one simple thing to say about them:

I’m going to miss them—a lot.