Teacher Jumar S. Ortiz, Sta. Maria National High School (San Nicolas, Pangasinan)
“Where flowers bloom so does hope.”
The above statement is articulated by Lady Bird Johnson. This statement tells us that flowers signify that there is hope.
How delightful it is when someone presents you with flowers, freshly wrapped and inventively arranged. Flowers have been part of our lives. We are using flowers to beautify our environment, to ignite romance, to please God as offering, and even as a source of food. But do we know how they come into bloom?
Flowers come into bloom with the help of the gene named APETALA1. This gene triggers the reproductive development of a plant, telling it when it is time to start blossoming. Plants blossom at different times because several factors, including weather, temperature, and the amount of sunlight the plant receives, all of which influence its reproductive development. Information about these conditions is relayed to APETALA1, which activates when it senses that the timing is right to commence flowering.
Not only flowers need APETALA1 to bloom, even we teachers need APETALA1. Grown and raised in a farming barrio, I am fascinated by green crops especially the flowering ones. Observing how these plants come to bloom gives a very soothing and pleasing experience. This experience has inspired me later on in wanting to pursue a college degree where I could explore more on the beauty of nature. However due to financial constraints and course availability, I ended up enrolling Education. Though not my first choice, I easily fell in love with the course. I specialized in biological science, where I got the opportunity to somehow explore my fascination of plants in blossom.
Being a son of a farmer, nothing comes easy, you have to work hard to achieve the blossom of your labor. The privations I experienced keeps me grounded when I became a teacher. It influenced my APETALA1, my motivation for teaching. Teaching science is never easy, it is challenging but also rewarding. The biggest challenge that science teachers face is creating lessons that will not only get students to learn but hold their interest to dig further and create their own learning. This task is certainly not easy but it leads to the so called “light bulb” moment for students. Creating this moment for my students excites me and drives my APETALA1.
Teaching science in the public school constantly tests my ability to deliver a blooming learning among my students. The scarcity of appropriate textbooks and other classroom resources such as laboratory materials and equipment, learning gadgets and internet connectivity, plus the limited training for science teachers challenges me every day. The socio- economic status of our learners that affects their attendance and drive to learn and the changing perspective of students towards learning also adds to the challenge.
The above cited conditions activate my APETALA1 to thrive as a teacher. I used my resourcefulness in accessing and downloading valid content from the web and sharing to my students to address the lack of textbooks. As a flexible science teacher, I use alternative materials, those that are locally available for our science experiments. Currently, I am in the process of developing my own open educational resources to address the problem of internet connectivity. As teacher, I do not only deliver instruction but also motivates my students to learn. It is good that our school has support mechanism from our stakeholders to somehow provide for our needy students.
It is also essentially helpful to attend webinars like the ones conducted by Filipino Science Hub that nourish us teachers to bloom in our delivery of instruction especially now that we are moving towards the “new normal” in education. These webinars do not only armor us teachers with content and teaching strategies but also boost our morale.
Today's teachers face enormous challenges. The increasingly complex and fast changing technology-based society forces teachers to also to rapidly adjust their strategies to meet the higher academic standards of today. In addition, teachers of today are given demanding teaching loads with the greatest number of extra duties but are lowly compensated. Furthermore, educating the most diverse student body in history requires us teachers so much to the level of exhaustion. These situations constraint our APETALA1 as teachers thus, we need nourishment and strong support from the government and other entities concerned.
The government must ensure the welfare of teachers. Aside from a just remuneration, teachers must also be provided fair working hours. Authorities must create new approaches in professional development to capacitate teachers. Schools must foster collaboration among teachers to ease the burdens of teaching. But aside from these, what teachers need the most is appreciation. A simple way of showing us worth will make a great difference in our APETALA1 as teachers.
A good teacher is someone who uses different teaching styles that works best for his students. He also possess effective classroom management skills and utilizes research to improve his class. Only teachers with strong APETALA1 are able to manage his class well.
As a science teacher, I utilize my flexibility and resourcefulness in delivering the curriculum. In as much as possible, I contextualized my lessons for my students to relate and create their own meaningful learning. I source for locally available and alternative materials for our activities just to not skip important learning competencies. I use my creativity and inventiveness coupled with sense of humor in designing lesson to boost my students’ interest. Though I know I still have lot to learn as young science teacher like the utilization of research in science class but with my APETALA1 for teaching I know I will be a good science teacher someday.
The hope of a blossoming future lies on quality education. Quality education depends on good teachers. Teachers can only be good if they are highly motivated. Therefore, if plants need APETALA1 to blossom, so are teachers!