Last year was a learning experience
for me in teaching. That sounds funny, right?
I always said that as much as my
students will learn from me so will I learn from them. And I learned a whole
lot in managing and teaching a class of students.
This year, classes are better
structured that are designed to make them even more fun. I instituted a Quick
Write Challenge (ala Top Chef’s Quickfire Challenge) where we get to see the
students’ spontaneous creativity and writing skills. We’ve done three so far
and think they’ve loved everyone of them. We still have our group work that is
designed to make them work with other people and to make new friends. And in
our fourth session together, I’d say that it is a smashing success.
Today’s lesson was on “Broadcast
Journalism” and with my limited experience, I needed help from former GMA-7
(and Atenean) James Velasquez and TV5 reporter and TV host Chiqui Roa Puno
(whose brother is one of my best friends in Ateneo). It was a fantastic class.
For their Quick Write Challenge, they
had to pretend that they were reporting a massive flood ala what hit Manila
during Typhoon Ondoy. The playacting was simply awesome!
I think my students are seeing that
there are things that they can do. Take for example, Kirk Long. Like Emman
Monfort before him, he can write. And write them really well, I say. Every
week, I’d have to see he impresses me. And there are others too.
I’ve had bad experiences with
professors and I always wondered why I had to go through them. They never
encouraged me and instead made me fear them and not want to learn. There’s
another way of looking at it and its being bold and proving one’s self. The
thing is everyone has a different character make up. I the me of today was in
school, being more confident, I’d do a whole lot better.
I can honestly say that I am looking
forward to class in order to teach and to learn from my students.
