I did not sign up for Teach for
America. Despite their heavy recruiting on campus last year, I knew that Teach
for America was not really for me. I have no educational background past my own
experiences in Rock Hill School District 3 and Washington and Lee University. I
didn't know if I even fully believed in the Teach for America program. I have
plenty of friends who were, are, and will become Teach for America teachers,
and I admire them for choosing that seemingly difficult path.
Nonetheless, I feel as though I have
been thrust into a Teach for America position, except at the administrative
level. I am working as a Guidance Counselor at National Heroes Institute (NHI), a
private school run by United Church of Christ in the Philippines. We have 477
students, grades 1-10, but we never have all 477 students at school. Since I
have arrived, my main tasks have involved addressing issues of attendance and
grades for the 400 high school students (grades 7-10). Class sizes in the high
school range from 34 to 63. My largest classes in high school were 35, and we
all complained about those crowds. I am told that these are lower than the
public schools, which can have 50 students in a single fifth grade class. The
elementary school classes have more reasonable class sizes of 7 to 22. The high
school classes are broken up into grades and sections with three sections for
grade 7 and two sections for grades 8-10. We have 16 full-time teachers and 3
employees that teach in addition to their nursing or administrative jobs.
Unfortunately, if a teacher is absent for any reason, a substitute does not
fill in, unless it is long-term maternity leave. This leaves classes
unmonitored for one or more classes on those days.
My supervisor and one of my host
moms, the highly respected Dobert Mahika Tindoy Moriles, is the current school
administrator (head of staff) and daughter of the founder of NHI. Eleazar
Tindoy established NHI in 1957 and served as the administrator and principal
for many years. He wanted a school that could serve the
community, particularly students who came from poor families. In high school,
if students have to repeat a year, they may have to pay heavy fines. The school was significantly damaged
by Super Typhoon Yolanda last year and is still recovering. When I arrived in
October, only two of the six buildings had power, and we had no wifi access. In
November, we finally received power to the classrooms and got wifi access soon
after. Without power in the classrooms, I was sweating after standing for ten
minutes. I cannot imagine trying to teach students 7:30-4:30 every day with no
lights, fans, or air conditioning. Even now, not every classroom has a fan. The
windows remain open in hopes that a breeze will come through to give some respite
from the heat. The campus sits on a hill, and we are constructing another
building behind the farthest classroom building. Construction wastes end up
washing downhill when it rains (which is almost every day) and can flood into
the windows of classrooms in the back. The students simply try to mop up most
of the water and avoid the puddles when that happens.
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| Elementary School students celebrating United Nations Day in October |
My only previous experience educating
children has come from summer camp settings. While I will always believe that
school would be better if more camp aspects were integrated into the classroom,
I don't know how much of that I can apply to the Philippine educational system
context. Serving as the Guidance Counselor puts me in an administrative
position, which limits me from creating a specific learning environment for
smaller groups of students.
I spent much of my time before
Christmas developing a record-keeping system for grades, attendance, and
discipline. At the very least, this box will be checked off when the Department
of Education comes for their annual inspection. As one who loves creating Excel
spreadsheets and organizing anything, this gave me something busy and productive to
do. It kept my mind and working hours busy. I tried implementing an attendance
and late policy to try to improve the punctuality of students who live in a
society that runs on Filipin@ time. When I tried talking to students who were
late, I found that they could understand me speaking English, but they got
"nose bleeds" when they tried to answer my questions (the words they
wanted to say were beyond their English language knowledge). I watched the
terror on their faces, which may have come from feeling like they were in
trouble, not knowing the English words to explain themselves, or fear of messing up the English
statements. With my native English-speaking children, I would ask students open-ended
questions and allow them to steer the answers and explanations. Unfortunately,
the language barrier meant that I had to ask yes-no questions. Every time I
asked one, I imagined a lawyer standing up, saying, "I object!"
because I was asking leading questions. I heard stories of family situations
and transportation issues that would have been excusable for me, but Ma'am
Dobert explained that they were only making excuses and could make it to school
on time if they really wanted to.
I feel like a fish out of water in
this educational system. I don't know the educational standards or grading
methods. I don't know the "typical" family situation and what should
be considered out of the ordinary or excusable as a reason for being late or
not studying. If I happen to learn of an abusive or unsafe situation, there
isn’t institutional accountability in place to help the students or family. I actually don’t know how to keep records or do
almost anything administrative without a computer. I have tried to apply what I know
(shout out to Northwestern High School Attendance Office) to this Philippine
system, and yet I’ve learned that that doesn't quite work out of context.
When I went back to school after
Christmas, we adjusted part of the attendance policy. The security guard at the
gate would have every student who arrived after the flag ceremony started, at
7:25 am, sign in. I would then receive the list of late students, write them late
slips, and deliver them to each class. They would bring me the slips when they
came to serve their study hall after classes ended for the day due to their late arrival. The first day
we did this, 46 high school students were late, 10% of the school's population.
The next day 110 students were late, over 25% of the population. I spent a
majority of my 10-hour workday simply writing all of these names down and
recording them on my spreadsheets. It was exhausting, and it didn't feel like
anything was changing. I got frustrated when I went to deliver the slips to
classes and found that some of the students who had come late had already left
by jumping over the fence in the back.
How was I making a difference? Why
were we focusing on this one time of day that we wanted students to be on time?
I was extremely frustrated and felt that my work was doing no good in the
bigger scheme of things. I questioned a lot. What was I doing here? What could
I do here? What does a guidance counselor even do? How could I work within a
system I didn't know? How could I do any good without trying to change the
systemic issues I saw? I questioned my motivations for coming to the
Philippines. I questioned what brought me joy.
Then, I remembered what I had said
and written so many times. I want to spend my YAV year building relationships.
Cobbie, our site coordinator, always tells me I'm "intensely
relational," which I didn't fully believe or understand until a few days
ago. What kept me going when I struggled? Those moments I spent Googling
whatever it was Francis, my 11-year-old neighbor, wanted to learn. That time a child yelled out,
"Hi, Angela!" as I walked through the market. Every time students
tell me "Maayong udto!" (Good lunchtime) when it is still
morning or "Maayong buntag" (Good morning) when it is clearly
afternoon, testing my Visaya skills. The times a fourth grader comes into my
office just to see what I'm doing on my computer. The fact that I can't leave
my office without receiving at least 5 greetings from students. I came to build
relationships with these wonderfully amazing, talented, beautiful, goofy, and
brilliant students.
I may not help to improve anyone's
grades. I may not encourage anyone to wake up a little bit earlier so they can
arrive at school on time. What I can do is show that I care. By holding them accountable, I am saying that I noticed that you did not come to study hall or class. I
will not give up on you, even if you did come to school late seven of the past
eight school days. I will still love you, and I hope that you can see that
through the many slips of paper I write and pass out. If I still love you and I
want to keep building those relationships, then I cannot run away when I feel
hopeless or that my work is meaningless. After all, it's not about what I do, but how I do it. I cannot let my job get in the way of
my work, which is to love on each and every student under my care. If I truly
want to be a role model for these students, then I must stay with them through
the frustrations and celebrations; through the overwhelmed times and the free
times; through the tardiness and the perfect attendance. I must stay at
the table. It's time to look for the abundance in this simple living.
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| NHI students during the morning flag ceremony |
