Seminar Workshop and More Intercultural Exchanges

The days continue to fly by, and the end to this extraordinary experience is coming up quickly. My friends at the LCC are determined, however, to make sure that the last few days of our visit are filled with exciting and enlightening activities that continue to invigorate and stimulate the mind.

On Monday, Jeanette and I met with members of the H&M school. The is the hospitality and management school of the LCC College, and many of the graduates of the program are now employees in the hotel I am staying in--the L'Fisher. One thing I haven't mentioned in my blog posts is how happy I am with the hotel in Bacolod. The service is impeccable, and the employees are kind, extremely accommodating, and very helpful. It was interesting to spend some time taking questions from the students of the H&M school, while at the same time, making the connection between their preparedness and the professionalism of the hotel staff. You can see clearly that the students take the Hospitality and Management program seriously, and there is a dedication among them that is clear. Following the Q&A with the students, we headed back to our hotel for some relaxations before we met with the parent organization of the LCC later in the evening. The pictures below are from our day.






















The parent organization of the LCC is very involved in the school functions, and they have a strong partnership with the staff and students in the school. I was pleasantly surprised to see and listen to the dedication of the parents, and they easily mirrored the dedication of the PTA at Rocco's elementary school--Peebles Elementary. Very cool. We talk a lot in education about the importance of having parents involved in the schools, and it's no secret that the success of many (if not most) of the schools that are successful is in part because of heavy parental involvement. I suppose I should not be surprised that the LCC is like many schools in this respect.

Tuesday was the big seminar day. The seminars that Jeanette and I presented on Tuesday were planned from the beginning stages of our acceptance into the program. IREX requires participants to plan an extensive workshop/lesson as part of the exchange program. As such, we have been exchanging ideas with Randdie since last November. I decided to present on Robert Marzano's professional development program, "The Art and Science of Teaching," and Jeanette presented on "Authentic Assessment." My selection of the Marzano methodology was rooted in its introduction as a professional development program in North Allegheny this past year. I volunteered to be a building team leader for the high school during the school year, and attended a workshop on Marzano during the second semester.

Marzano's framework for professional development is rooted in the idea that teaching is both an Art and a Science. Teachers and principals, however, have a vast array of ways within which they assess their efficacy in the classroom. In a nutshell, Marzano promotes a system that calls upon the use of common language so that all stakeholders in the educational process can dialogue about what they are doing in the classroom in a manner that is consistent and identifiable. He also introduces the aspect of science into the discussion: The science is rooted in assessing and understanding the data that results from research studies regarding effective classroom management and instructional techniques. As such, the framework of the system takes into account the good teaching that teachers are doing, and helps to focus their energies on the ways in which they are assessing their own performance, as well as they ways in which they can collaborate to build a school-wide system of accountability and understanding.

Marzano builds the framework for development on ten essential design questions that include, "What will I do to help students effectively interact with new knowledge," and, "What will I do to engage students." Among the ten questions are processes by which teachers can measure how effectively they are meeting these design goals--and they do this using a system and language with which they can then share with other teachers and administrators.

In covering Marzano's program with the teachers of the LCC, as well as an invited audience of school representatives from all over Bacolod (and some students as well), my focus was on, believe it or not, creativity. My position, essentially, is that most teachers want to be able to be creative in the classroom, and to use their experiences, passion for the subject matter, desire to see their students succeed, etc. to teach more effectively. To this end, if this creativity is channeled in such a way so as to invite introspection and scrutiny from other professionals, then teachers can be more effective. Ultimately, this will help teachers to engage students in a more deliberate way, and the engagement can be invigorating and interesting for the kids. By focusing our instructional strategies and approaches to classroom management, lesson design, and the like on ways have teaching that have been proven to be successful (the "science" end of Marzano's design), we can become more successful.

The audience was very receptive to my presentation. Even though it was long (over three hours--with a nice break half way through), I was asked some engaging questions when I was finished and felt a great deal of satisfaction with how it went.

We had a wonderful lunch provided for us by the school after my presentation. Sister Myrna joined us and we talked about our experiences in Bacolod and the LCC. It was again engaging and satisfying. I again cannot say enough about how well received we have been during our stay.

Jeanette nailed the afternoon session on her presentation on "Authentic Assessment." It was interesting to see the overlap between what I covered in the morning and the thrust of Jeanette's seminar. When she was finished, we were called up to the stage and presented certificates of appreciation from the LCC for our efforts, and we posed for pictures with representatives from the individual schools.








After we finished, Jeanette and I were invited to dinner at a wonderful and trendy restaurant in Bacolod--21. Dani would be jealous. I'm going to have to take her to some place nice for our wedding anniversary in July :-)

On our way out of the school, I was struck by the scene being played out on the playground below us. Students were running around and having fun--some of them were going to evening classes, and others were being picked up by their parents to go home. The light was perfect and I snapped some good pictures:
















The scene that played itself out below me as we left the school served as a reminder that all of this is for the kids. When you see children playing--and have a sense of their unbridled innocence in doing so, I cannot help but wonder how any teacher doesn't feel compelled to make a stronger connection with their kids. This connection is what produces the inspiration and desire to continue to work, to push to explore new ideas, and to never give up on the critical work we do as teachers. What anyone outside of education fails to understand is that any model for educational improvement must take into account this very real connection that educators make with children. We can not process kids as if they were cartons of milk. We cannot ignore the dynamics of the interpersonal relationships we develop with children, and how these relationships provide the cornerstone by which we build our educational systems. It is insulting to all good, dedicated teachers, principals, and support staff to assume that we can be taught how to love and care for our students any more than we do--this is the dynamic that separates those who have a passion for teaching and those who cannot do the job. If you do not believe me, then have a look at the number of Teach for America teachers who leave after three years because they cannot make this connection, and, under the guise of fabricated excuses, leave. The truth is that they cannot take the emotional commitment required to develop empathetic relationships with kids and with their colleagues. The truth is that good teachers can. And this connection cannot be measured in simple ways.

One more day to go. Wow--I MISS Rocco, Dani, and my dogs!

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Location:Bacolod, Philippines