To the relief of all, there was little of the expected educational jargon and buzzwords at last month’s Petron Gurong Kaakbay conference of the Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation, which was held once more at the Ateneo de Manila University campus at Loyola Heights. The venue was an appropriate setting for this annual gathering of reading advocates considering that the three-day conference was meant to make everyone take pause, examine their teaching life, and resolve to undertake bold and new initiatives.
The theme was, “As reading advocates, we embrace the truth”—this to emphasize the teacher’s role as truth-seeker, and children seeing truth in the example of their teachers.
Consider how the first afternoon began. Historian and columnist Ambeth Ocampo’s keynote on how his love for books and history has led to his continuing passions today, fired up the assembly determined to “build a nation of readers” and now, to ensure that their students discover what being Filipino means. Jose Rizal’s greatest misfortune is becoming a national hero, said Ocampo. Rizal has been portrayed as a patriot, a martyr, a poet but never as the fascinating and all too human person he really was, and so even his “Noli” and “Fili” have gone unappreciated. “Fill up the furniture and create castles and palaces in your children’s minds,” was the directive with which Ocampo left the audience.
The first workshop set the tone for the weekend exercise. All the teachers—303 of them coming from Quezon City and faraway Saranggani, and representing 11 regions—were divided into manageable classroom groups for an informal discussion on “Me as a Teacher.” To elicit an uninhibited flow of ideas, provocative statements or those for which there are not right or wrong answers were provided. There was not time enough to talk about “What is taught is more important than how it is taught” or “Teaching is a profession, not a vocation.”
The next two days were designed in the fashion of international teacher conferences. Each day had speakers at plenary sessions and, in between, there were workshops on multiple intelligences, integrated language arts classrooms, storytelling, making handmade books, classroom management, teaching reading through songs, campus journalism, a job-alike session for sharing successes and failures, etc., for which the participants had earlier indicated their preferences. To ensure that all of the teachers’ needs were met, there were also sessions on limber dance, personality development and grooming. In the roster of conference facilitators are public school teachers themselves who have proven their leadership mettle, like Amcy Esteban, award-winning Jojo Pagsibigan and Cecile Samia.
Among the plenary speakers was broadcast journalist Karen Davila who drew from her favorite book, “The Inspirational Teacher,” to pay tribute to the teachers who she says persist despite being preoccupied with stretching their salaries. Chelo Banal-Formoso, the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Learning Section editor, encouraged the teachers to use the newspaper as a rich learning resource. There was TV host Boy Abunda lugging a bright red suitcase full of books—among his favorites, he says as he book-talked titles by Garcia Marquez and Angelou. Reading educator Dina Ocampo reminded everyone that reading is more than teaching grammar, for often overlooked are the comprehension and the sheer enjoyment that ought to accompany the learning. Dr. Antonio Torralba of the University of Asia and the Pacific had a “baker’s dozen” of the joys of the profession plus his counsel, “You may not be able to lift your students up, but you should never let them fall.”
Three of the most inspiring speakers came not from the academe but from the summit of Mt. Everest—the three young women who dreamt and did the impossible last year: Janet Belarmino, Carina Dayondon and Noelle Wenceslao. They proved to be the everyday modern heroines that the teachers were happy to discover. Thanking the teachers for not having left the country for greener and kinder pastures, Dayondon commended them because of their own Mt. Everest to conquer daily—from staying up late for their lesson plans to struggle with their budgets.
When the conference ended and the provincial delegates left the Ateneo dorms for home, they were the first to say that if they were not to change anything in the way they teach, the exercise would have been futile. Karen Rodriguez of Molino Elementary School in Bacoor town, outside Manila, cannot see the workshops going to waste. They also all know the rigorous process they underwent to be invited as a participant. The application form must indicate their great interest and commitment in promoting reading and in training their colleagues—and must be endorsed by their respective principals.
Gurong Kaakbay, now on its fourth year, is envisioned to provide ongoing teacher training for the elementary schools of Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation. Selected teacher-leaders (not mere reading teachers) may attend for two consecutive years. It seems it is now time to measure in more scientific ways if initiatives such as this are indeed making a difference in the lives of students, in the lives of teachers.
Neni Sta. Romana Cruz is a member of the Philippine Board on Books for Young People, the Foundation for Worldwide People Power, and a trustee of the Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation. Email comments to nenisrc@gmail.com.
