Cool minds. My Intro to Journ class in Ateneo.

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.