SUMMARIZED GENERAL ORIENTATION NOTES

Preparing yourself for your practice teaching journey is like prepping for an adventurous
travel to a place you’ve never been before. You know the destination but have no idea what’s in
there. So you prepare and grab your worn-out backpack, check all the boxes on your what-to-
bring list and recheck for 10 times if you have all the things you need. You have your map, your
plane ticket, your favorite pajama and the DSLR camera for your Instagram-worthy pictures is
already on your bag waiting your eyes and hand to command. And don’t forget your charger for
your cellphones, for they are not just your cellphones, they’re an extension of yourself. For a
moment, everything is in place and you’re ready to go.

But as soon as you arrive to your destination, let’s say for example South Korea, you
realized “Oh, Seoul is not as warm compared back there in Tacloban”. Then you remembered you
didn’t bring your bubble jacket, your scarf and your boots. Just as when you’re confident you have
everything ready, you are not.

The point here is, nothing’s going to fully prepare you for your journey. You can have
everything prepared but nothing will prepare you for what will happen when you got there
because most of the time, things don’t go as you planned it to be.

Comparing it to my practice teaching journey, I believe that I already got the things I need
to prepare myself for the travel. I have my own concept map of whatever topic I might be
teaching. I may not be the smartest in my class but I understand the topics well enough to be able
to teach it to my future students. I already had my ticket signed by my coordinator and my doctor
approving me that I’m ready for the journey. And most important is, I already have an
understanding of the bigger picture of what challenges lies ahead of me.

For 10 days, the faculty of Professional Education organized an orientation which aims to
prepare us more on not only on our practice teaching journey but also on the life after we
graduate and pass the LET. Each session last for a whole day and each session you get to learn
something new. These topics are very useful especially if you really want to mold the minds of
future generation as a teacher.

One of my favorite topic was “The Practice Teaching”. As the name suggests, it talks
entirely about practice teaching what it is and the purpose of the program. In the orientation, the
speaker discussed the goal of this program, the rules and regulation. It taught us the
responsibilities of a practice teacher not only as a student of the field but also how we must act
since we are already taking the role of a teacher in a classroom. We must take responsibility on
what we do inside and out of the classroom for the students are already looking up on us as a role
model.

Another topic which undoubtedly one of the most useful lesson to us was about
“Classroom Assessment”. Checking the learning progress of your student must not only happen
during quizzes and summative test. A good teacher must be able to assess his/her student’s
learning while they’re discussing the topic. This can be done through verbal and written method.
Implementing this in your discussion would help you track the progress of your student as a
learner.
 As an aspiring teacher it is important to have the knowledge and skills, but having the
heart to show empathy to your student is also imperative. The topic on “Gender and
Development” taught us how gender equality can be practiced inside the classroom. It
emphasized the importance of exhibiting gender acceptance in the classroom for students to have
a harmonious relationship with each other.

The topic on “Stress Management” is probably the most sensitive topic, at least on my
perspective. It was a timely topic due to some recent cases of teachers getting burned-out on
their jobs and end up committing suicide. Teaching is fun and holistically challenging but it can be
depressing sometimes.

The orientation taught us extra tips to prepare us on our journey as an aspiring teacher.
It’s like telling you to bring extra pairs of socks or an umbrella, be 2 hours early on your flight to
beat the traffic. Small and simple, but they would be very helpful along the way.