Sweet World of Joan

This is my tenth year of teaching in college. I started teaching in PUP in 1998 where my students was just a two years younger than me. I teach computer engineering subjects then. I was invited by my former department head Engr. Rafael Oquindo to teach in my alma mater PUP. I was a computer programmer/developer before I started teaching in PUP but as part of my work I also train newly hired programmer trainees in our company and had been a resource person on Information Technology on several seminars before teaching in PUP. I guess I have the calling/passion for teaching. I love teaching, when I teach I forget everything, my problems, my worries and everything else in between. What matters are the lessons I would like my students to learn. What I would like to achieve now in teaching is to teach senior citizens, or adults who don’t believe that they can still learn to operate computers and I would like them to enjoy the benefits of the Internet. Maybe even teaching kids about computer...

Lorenzo’s final exams are coming up, and making sure that he is ready to take his exams is one of my responsibilities as a parent, even a working one. My son at his age is not an easy child to study with, there are times he gets distracted or stops at the middle of our study time and decides he is already finished studying and would like to do another activity. Lucky for me I had the foresight to allocate a quite corner for our study time and they were told at school to study their lessons before going to sleep at night. Strategies I have to help Lorenzo study: Have a routine – we have our study time after dinner every night even on weekends. Giving him a set activity where he can study his lessons or learn new things helps him form good study habits. Make studying fun – Lorenzo does poorly in writing, as this is his weakness I make up stories or sound effects while teaching him/practicing to write to make the activity fun and interesting for him. Have supplementary activity books av...

I have been teaching in college for nine years now, these past few weeks I am faced with one of the hardest decisions I have ever made, to stop teaching so I can dedicate my time to my growing hobby turned business and at the same time be at home more for my son. It’s really been a soul searching journey for me; I laid down all my cards at the table so to speak and analyze every reason why I want to teach and why I want to work from home. My motivations when I chose a career in the academe are the flexible hours and I wanted to take up my master’s degree then. Another reason is that I am a people person, I love to interact with people and the great way to do that is by teaching. I was a programmer before but after a few months with only a few people to talk to and mostly the computer as a companion I became really depressed, it was a really demanding job and I realized I crave for people interaction. Those were my reasons nine years ago, and at present it seems I have accomplished wha...

I attended Every Nation Campus Ministry’s 3rd Annual Educator’s Assembly last Tuesday, May 8, 2007 held at the Assembly Hall of Every Nation Building at Bonifacio Global City. I was invited to the event by my students and went there with my good friend Pedrito. The assembly aims to recognize and honor educators, encourage them in preparation for the upcoming school year, and reaffirm their commitment to partner with educators in preparing students for L.I.F.E.(Leadeship, Integrity, Faith and Excellence). The assembly was attended by educators(Elementary, High School and College levels) and school officials from different schools in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. The speakers talked about how important the role of a teacher in a child’s life, there were group exercises encouraging everyone to share stories about the teacher in your life that left a big impression or had a big influence in you. It was fun and it showed everybody how a caring teacher can influence the future of a chi...