For teachers, the experiences range from the absurd to the hilarious, oftentimes bordering on frustration, exasperation, desperation, or good-natured anger, if there’s such a thing.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Cecile Genove is a veteran columnist and feature writer based in Dumaguete City. She teaches at the Colleges of Mass Communication, Business and Accountancy and Education at Silliman University.
REBIRTH. I have never been good at leave-takings. Most of the time, in fact, I’d rather do a French leave if I can help it. Somehow, there is a seeming sense of awkwardness in it that I’d rather not even mention the word at all.
Moving from one job to another, I always ditched despedida parties and giving of going-away mementos. To my mind, I did not want to put an end to something that I was familiar with or that I belonged. I was just shifting to another nearby orbit. This included advancing to various publications for my journalistic articles and newspaper columns for more than four decades now (and counting, by God’s grace).
This column, “Oriental Lifeandstyle,” makes its debut here, appreciating the kindness of my long-time editor-friend, Allen del Carmen, who rescued me promptly from the pangs of separation anxiety. Set on the Oriental side of Negros Island, this column ushers sundry happenings covering diversified aspects about the NegOrense lifestyle in education, arts and culture, history, travel and tourism, and its most precious resource – the NegOrense/Negrosanon themselves.
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It has been two months since Dumaguete City, popularly known as a university town, started classes in private schools for a new academic year under the so-called new normal. For public schools all over the country, classes began barely a month ago.
How are students, teachers, parents, and significant others coping with the relatively unfamiliar and somewhat strange modality of online distance learning?
The Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education have called it by several names – blended learning, flexible learning – but, the platform boils down to no face-to-face classes.
Foundation University, for one, coined a term for its online classes, calling it FUEL, or
Foundation University Expanded Learning . Silliman University, on the other hand, calls its platform SOUL. or Silliman Online University Learning.
Saint Paul University Dumaguete, similarly, has adapted online classes in all levels, while the Negros Oriental State University has opted for blended learning (combination of online and modular) even before the pandemic because of the diversified needs of its students.
It’s been an ambivalent, roller-coaster of emotions for all stakeholders in education. For teachers, the experiences range from the absurd to the hilarious, oftentimes bordering on frustration, exasperation, desperation, or good-natured anger, if there’s such a thing.
Dr. Warlito Caturay Jr., who teaches English and Literature at Silliman University, observed: “Each time I hold classes, it seems I am taking part in a séance. In a class of 40, it is quite difficult to monitor your students virtually, especially if their webcams are not shared and if their mics are muted. So, I go, ‘Are you here, Sandra?’ or ‘Are you with us, Michael?’”
His colleague, Prof. Rina Fernandez Hill, has similar experiences, but what gets into her is the fact that she is strapped and trapped on a chair and stares at a computer
screen, little knowing if her students have understood her or not. Thus, she goes like, “Can you hear me, class?” – not even expecting for anyone to answer her.
Senior High School STEAM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Mathematics, coordinator also of Silliman University, Joshua Soldivillo, shared the time when, in his frustration because it seemed like he was talking to a blank screen, he just decided to pack up and called it a day, with neither a ni-ha or ni-ho to his class (if, at all, there were students present).
The journalist in me makes me conscious of developing further my eye for details when I hold synchronous classes. In a class of 20 or so, I get a glimpse of the socio-economic background of my students through their actual setting.
One student had a split-type airconditioner as her background. Another was in what seemed to be their living room with hollow blocked walls with no finishing and with
electrical wirings dangling from the ceiling. A male student obviously dreams to be a radio broadcaster judging from his state-of-the-art simulated studio equipment.
The so-called new normal in education will be upon us indefinitely. Lest we be swallowed or victimized by our own actions, the best way is to adjust, adapt, and accept the current situation. It is not for anyone, but moreso, for us in the teaching profession to preserve our sanity.
