A Tool to Remember
Reflection №1
Being a teacher for five years now has exposed me to a lot of instructional materials that vary in complexity and functionality. Though I myself have been using different instructional materials in my teaching across levels 6 to 10, I still don’t forget the instructional tools I have grown up with and made great impacts on me when I was still a young student.
One of the things I cannot forget is the tool that my grade school teachers used to me and my classmates to teach us decoding. I remember that during reading period, my teachers always carry papers with lists of words that vary in length. The longer the word we can read, the better we become in reading. One by one, each of us would be called to the teacher’s table, and with the guidance of my teacher’s fingers, we will read words in the list. My teachers would listen to us as we read and observe us when we had difficulties. At the same time, my teachers also utilized these booklets of Filipino and English words (the colorless ones, those that can be bought in Php 10–20 each) to teach us reading.
Another tool that I remember which enhanced my memorization skills were textbook poems. When I was in Grade 3, my teacher would ask us to memorize a particular poem in our book, and then recite it in front of the class the following day. Through this activity, I was also able to learn different prosodies and non-verbal strategies on my own. It was even like a contest, as I recall the experience, that I and my classmates would battle to hear the teacher’s comments about who’s doing the best poem recital. Because of it also, I developed my love for poetry.
Of course, a classroom cannot be considered a classroom without the traditional teacher’s stick and chalk then. For many years (until now) chalk has been the best teacher’s company, and more so the stick used for pointing at the words on the blackboard and the naughty students. Gone were the days when corporal punishment was not an issue in classrooms yet…I can still recall my teacher always carrying with her a stick, which she uses in her day to day instruction. And the chalk? It helps her to write down everything she needs, and sometimes, to keep the silly ones quiet when they start flying around the classroom. Power point presentations and projectors were not as very useful before as they are now. And I could say that even without these advancements in technology, teachers really had good control of instruction.
There were actually more tools in high school that I remember. My English teacher in high school (1st to 4th year) always used graphic organizers. It was through her that I learned how to construct my ideas through concept maps and different diagrams. Whenever we were reading a classic text, she would provide us 15–20 words that can be found in the text, and then we had to make a concept map or web to illustrate the words’ relationship with one another. I can even recall that I had a bad experience through it because I was not able to connect the words properly, and I was somehow belittled in front of the class because I did not do it right. Anyway, my teacher felt guilty afterwards as I was after I cried a lot (true story). Still, those activities are what instilled to me the skill of using various graphic organizers.
Furthermore, I also learned to make my own portfolio when I entered high school. In the public school, portfolios were not much of an issue, but when I got into a private school in high school, two to three of my teachers asked us to buy clear books (which were quite costly) for our subject portfolios. Although I had not seen its purposes as a learning material, I learned to be organized and responsible for my activity worksheets and projects. I learned to compile artistically and creatively.
My teacher in Mathematics, on the other hand, introduced to us life sized protractors, compass, and measuring sticks. We were at awe when she discusses Geometry to us through these different materials. She also allowed us to use it on the board during recitation, and to use mini versions of it during seat works and quizzes. Although I am not really a Math person, sometimes, the materials and the teachers will make you like it more than you’d ever expect.
Although I think that we were able to utilize more than what I have mentioned, these six remain very close to my heart. Nowadays, there are a lot of new and innovative instructional materials that might make us think that what we have gotten used to when we were young were already obsolete, but I don’t think so. They were still as much as useful as the new ones; they only need a little more of creativity when being implemented.
Being a teacher for five years now has exposed me to a lot of instructional materials that vary in complexity and functionality, but I will never forget those that honed me to become who and what I am as a student then and now.
