UnGIFTED

by: Aljohn Atienza

A school is an institute designed to provide learning spaces and learning surroundings for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory.

                Recto memorial national high school is my alma mater. This school taught me how to be me, how to trust myself, how to an independent student, how to learn in my own way.  Honestly, I really hate Filipino subjects. It is because of its terminologies with deeper meanings. I really found difficulties in answering test papers in Filipino subject. I am not interested in that kind of subject and that leads to a failing grades. But when I was fourth year, Mrs. Evangeline Jabon Doromal, she is my teacher in Filipino and my former adviser. At a very first time I saw her, I was thinking about her. On how will she handle our class. I saw her like a boomer teacher, a very Strick one. In short, I was criticizing her based on her appearance. But no, I was wrong. She always cares about us, especially on me. She always there for us, motivates us every morning.

I remember, she always brings her lapel and chalk every morning. Because we’re too many in a class. I think we’re 46-50, I don’t know that’s too long for me to remember. Anyways, every morning she always prepares a game for us to be motivated.  She calls one by one just to make sure that we are listening and we are participating. And she helps me to cope up in our topic and it helps me to understand Filipino subject. At the end of the class she always prepares quizzes of group activities that will serve as our evaluation. I saw her happy when I was on the top of the class.

As time goes by, I am now a college student of Laguna State Polytechnic University. Taking up Bachelor of Secondary Education major in Physical Science. I learned how to make a lesson plan and how to execute in the class. Since K-12 is new implemented curriculum in DepEd, We have a lot of things to prepare to. Especially in science subjects. Since science is a spiral curriculum, meaning we are not teaching only one field but three or four as written in the curriculum. I went back to my teacher in High school, my second mother. And I ask her about the new implemented curriculum which is the K-12 curriculum. On how she handle a class. Well she said that it was a big adjustment for her because BEC or Basic Education Curriculum is different to K-12, Instead of using Lesson plan, she uses lesson logs. She uses modern technologies such as laptop and projector instead of board and chalk and talk. She is not a teacher who always talking but as a facilitator and as a guide. She let her students to explore everything. She evaluates those using rubrics.

She noted that “Curriculum development is defined as planned, purposeful, progressive, and systematic process in order to create positive improvements in the educational system. Every time there are changes or developments happening around the world, the school curricula are affected. There is a need to update them in order to address the society’s needs.”