Flexing, Fighting and Faithing
Years ago, I had only one understanding of the word flex. Being a teacher in an all-male school, I would see students playfully flexing or showing off their muscles to their peers as part of their good-natured banter. These days, I would often hear my younger generation of students say “flex ko lang” to mean “iyabang ko lang a bit.” The pandemic times, however, gave a whole new meaning to the word FLEX. To me, it has become synonymous with a myriad of emotions – excitement, nervousness, apprehension and anxiety, coupled with sleepless nights and lots of preparation and perspiration. At my menopausal age of 56, I never thought that I would be doing this kind of FLEXING in my vocation as a teacher – when I only have 4 years left before retirement.
The pandemic has definitely brought with it challenges that we never thought we will have to deal with. One of them is the migration to online classes which brought schools to their knees trying to figure out how best they can still educate the youth given the constraints of meager resources and limited training. Everyone had to deal with a huge BULAGA!
I have been blessed to be in an institution that readily responded to the call of online classes. Our school community was introduced to and immersed in ADL (Adaptive Design for Learning). We went through an extensive albeit crammed training but still, it was better than nothing. I was rather impressed that given the constraints, the school was able to prepare us for the onslaught of online teaching and learning. The first year of online classes was riddled with glitches and blunders but we navigated through it with a lot of hope, courage and patience. We had to keep ourselves and our families afloat, too, right? It felt like I was back in 3rd year college doing an OJT (on-the-job-training)!
But like everything in life, there is no way but up. We can’t possibly be in that pandemic quagmire eternally so the school thought long and hard and experimented on having simultaneous classes onsite and online. They called it PIP (pilot in-person) classes. After having been cooped up in my bedroom-cum-workroom for almost two years when everything in my being was dying to go back to the campus, see all that space and greens and blues, my students’ faces and their smiles and hear their banter and laughter, the offer to try PIP classes fell like manna from heaven! When they asked for volunteers to do the PIP, I enthusiastically signed up even if I had no idea what I was plunging myself into.
Leaving the house and being part of the PIP experiment has become one big production number! In reporting to school, I found myself exerting effort to dress up, reminding myself to bring all the health protocol requirements, making sure I have a driver and gas for my transportation, accomplishing the Blue Pass for me and my driver, just to name a few. I remember how in an attempt to prepare for my very first meeting with my class, I had to go to school two days before just to make sure I knew how to operate the computer set-up (which to a Jurassic teacher like me proved to be a bit complicated). Thank God for reliable, techy, and helpful colleagues (who are much much younger than me!) who walked me through the process. Then again, life likes playing tricks on us – I thought I was prepared but on the first day of classes, everything went south! My patience was running low but had to soldier on. Pinasukan ko ‘to e. Panindigan ko na!
On that fateful first day, I went to school an hour earlier to make sure the set-up was okay before my students started arriving. To my surprise, 13 out of my 14 students were there already, staring at me in such a silent awkward fashion. All their eyes were on me while I tried hard to calmly check the connections of the computer, the 2 screens, my laptop, the camera, the lcd, and the speakers. Like a nightmare, the computer wouldn’t turn on! It turned out the computer did an update the night before! It was a good thing that a younger CLE colleague volunteered to accompany me on that first day. I said I’d try to do it on my own but she insisted on assisting me. Bless her kind heart! She became my runner – looked for ITC people to troubleshoot for me. Then my online students gave feedback that they could hardly hear me and their onsite classmates. I had to think of a way to address that. My colleague asked the ITC again for a portable microphone and speaker. It still didn’t work. I was already beginning to feel panicky. In the end, I had to go to my laptop to address my online students. I also had to figure out that when I talk to them, the classroom speaker should be off because the feedback is hard on the ears. If online students needed to recite, I had to turn off my laptop audio so they could be heard through the classroom speakers. I would go up and down the platform to turn the speakers on and off. It wasn’t even an hour yet and I was sweating like crazy despite my loose and comfy outfit. I even took pains blow-drying and ironing my hair to look presentable but I ended up tying my hair up in a ponytail because my sweat glands were working overtime! When I asked my students how the audio was when I was not near the laptop or the installed camera with audio, they said I sounded like I was drowning. Yes kids, I was drowning in my own waterfalls of sweat! I couldn’t even tell anymore if it was because of the summer heat, or the stress, or my hot flashes!
I had never exercised and sweated that much in an hour! My body and my mind were at their most awake and alive moment! I was just waiting for the klutz in me to trip over as I walked to and from the platform, the desktop computer at the teacher’s podium and my laptop near the students (because I wanted my online students to see their onsite classmates). I wished I was an octopus with multiple hands and feet to do all those simultaneously!
After that day, did I raise the white flag of surrender? Nope. It made me even more determined to do better in the next three sessions. I shall return! I will make it worth my students’ while because they too (and their parents) had to go through hoops to register them for the PIP classes. I had to make sure that the online group was treated with the same attention so they wouldn’t feel shortchanged. I had to think of ways to balance their participation and involvement in the activities and discussions I prepared. I swear (even if I am a CLE teacher!), PIP teachers deserve a raise in their salary for the kind of work the setup entailed!
The experience taught me to be appreciative of my job and our school-community and our students more than ever. It made me see that I have a job that allows me to provide for my family and at the same time gives me space to still grow professionally even if I am near retirement. I have a school that bends to accommodate the challenges of the times, I have a community that is very supportive and encouraging, and students who try their best to work hard and be happy amidst the seeming deprivation. FLEX classes might seem daunting and inconvenient because of the amount of preparation, but seeing the kids excitedly talk and participate in the discussions and activities – with hunger and interest – what I used to take for granted became priceless. That young lady who was always serious and who never smiled during our online classes blossomed in just two sessions when she decided to register for the PIP classes at the last minute. She became so active, friendly, and cheerful in class! She was so different prior to PIP. Online classes might have its perks but nothing beats actual and face-to-face encounters. You can feel people’s interest and warmth and it’s enough to give you that push to persevere.
I don’t know what this flex academic structure will lead us to or how it will evolve but as real formators aiming for the magis and committed to AMDG, it will definitely give us that gentle push to FLEX all that we’ve got and all that we can! Fighting and FAITHing!!!
Mercy N de Guia
CLE/PERSONAL DEVT/TD TEACHER
ATENEO SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL