Ester Trinidad SIBOL school will always be a reminder and a source of inspiration that if only we will be present in GK sites, we will see changes in the lives of the people that we are helping. A year ago, a daughter of a kapitbahayan member volunteered to be a SIBOL teacher in the school. With her is a heart that believes that blessings are to be shared and her way of sharing that blessing is to be a mentor of the very GK Village that she and her family is living in. Despite her personal wants to be completely compensated, she believes that the fulfillment she felt for being able to mentor the young is completely enough compensation for her service in the program.
And this school year, with Ester Trinidad SIBOL school as one of the recipients of the financial support extended by SFC Singapore, she believes she would be able to bring out in her the full potential knowing that more time will be spent knowing the ways for the kids to develop their full potential as well and that activities due to them will not be hampered anymore by mere reason that monetary considerations are absent. And helping her this time as a volunteer teacher as well is another homegrown volunteer, Maam Glayza, together they synergize so that more and effective learning will be available to the kids they loved and mentor. Below is their narrative report for the month of July 2009.
Ester Trinidad SIBOL School in July…
By: Maam Janeflor Bonite & Maam Glayza Galgao
Ester Trinidad SIBOL school has two class schedules, in the morning from 8:30am to 10:30am and in the afternoon from 1:30pm to 4:00pm with a total of 26 learners enrolled. During the month of July, we tackled in our classes the parts of the body and the different senses. Different activities were done and appreciated, like the functions of the masks and the gloves, collage making as well was done, finger printing, food tasting and proper ways of brushing the teeth, identifying objects or things through smelling and tasting. We also tackled identifying colors, shapes and sizes of things, counting and writing numbers and letters as well as the marungko approach. These are important so that they would be able to identify and appreciate each part of the body as well as its different functions. The process as well hope to allow them to realize that everything was God given and by taking care of them expresses their appreciation to the Creator.
Per student assessment, at the start of the school year, most of them cannot properly read or write, does not know the proper way of handling the pencils and coloring tools. Most of them are not that interested to participate in the class discussions. But along the way as we patiently and consistently teach them, we observed that there are changes that are visible. Reading as well is one of the challenging things that we continuously hope for them to master as we go on with our daily classes. We observed as well that some are asking a lot of questions related to the topics given. Some as well have so much level of energy during our playtime that we must adjust to be able to appreciate their need for intervention. At the end of the first month, it is heart warming to observed that kids’ social, physical, mental and spiritual aspects have improved.
As teachers as well, indeed it is a challenging work, we need to be able to look into the students as a whole so as not to allow them to think of biases within the classroom. We realized that it’s not easy to deal with kids given their different and unique abilities, so we need to be patient and adjust to such behaviors and understand. We need to be completely open minded in dealing with them and to know beforehand the instructional materials that we are to prepare so that it will be suited for them and in the process enable them to absorb the ideas behind the topics.
The Ester Trinidad SIBOL School had gone through tough times even at the point of not being able to open because of funding constraints but because of having volunteers like Maam Bing and Maam Glayza who has the heart too great for discouragements to overwhelm, the School will be opened as a bastion of learning for the kids in the GK Site. More power teachers and GK Butuan is very proud of you both.
