Test

In the subject I taught last semester and just this semester, there is this departmental exam which comprises 25% of the final grade of the students. For a student, it is quite onerous since it covers everything in that subject from the time the semester started. Plus the fact that I am not the one who prepared the questions.

More than my students' aptitude, I take it as a test on myself as well. If my students get decent grades, then, it gives me great contentment that they have understood and remembered what I have taught them.

What I do is that I answer the questions by myself and that's how I measure if the questions are indeed fair. And for the past departmental exams, the exams are pretty much fair in which I did expect my students to do good.

Last semester, approximately only 10% of my students passed the departmental exams. That was quite depressing.

Just this semester, approximately 53% of my students passed the departmental exams. Coming from a frustrating result last semester, this is indeed one great news for me. Hopefully, my next set of students will fare just the same or better.

Ayos!

First Last Time

I just ended my first law school class as a teacher a few hours ago.

It was my last class for my first class in law school.

Admittedly, I was a bit pressured when I was given the opportunity to teach in law school. Who wouldn't be? I was fresh from taking and passing the bar exam. I was not a bar topnotcher. I was not a cum laude. I only have one semester and one summer of teaching before I embarked on this opportunity to teach in law school.

On the other hand, I had to convince myself that I am fit to teach in law school. Otherwise, I would be my biggest stumbling block. I know I can do it.

Teaching in law school is no easy feat for a newbie like me. It is so unlike in undergrad. I probably exerted the same effort as that of my students. I read the full text cases, prepared my own notes, gathered my old notes, read the book, read the reviewers and even bar questions. I always I have to be on my toes and think of every possible question. I had my few second guesses. But then, even jurisprudence had its share, too. And in doing all of these, I have to keep thinking that it is not the salary that make me do this because it is more than that.

All I know is that I gave it my best shot.

I know that I still have to learn and adjust more. I hope that my students really learned a lot from me. And I pray that it was more than the textbook kind of teaching.

I thanked my students for not giving me any traumatic experience (they were laughing when I said this). And I hope I did not give them either. As I said my thank you to them a while ago, I saw happy and grateful faces. (with wishful thinking of plus points .. hehe) Inside, I was truly grateful for that.

They are aware of their last 2 exams and the grading system is pretty much clear to them. I can't and I won't promise that everybody will pass. They have to work hard for it. I just hope they'd do well on their last exam.

Besides, as the teacher's cliche goes, teachers don't fail students since teacher merely record students' grades. (But then, I know what students will say - it's the teacher who prepares the exam .. hehe)

And as the world celebrates Teacher's Day tomorrow, I thank the Lord for giving the opportunity to be one and I hope I will be a great one ;)

Dear John

When sky blue gets dark enough
To see the colors of the city lights
I guess
I had to be there
Oh, make me a red cape
I wanna be superman
Yes, I'm grounded
Got my wings clipped

The call your life's been issuing you
The rhythm of a line of idle days
But I can't break through it all
It's a heart, heartbreak
I've tried to define it
In a million different ways
It's just the way you move
The way you move me
Discover me
Discovering you

I worry
Now, I'm starting to see
When you're dreaming with a broken heart
The giving up is the hardest part
Free fallin'
Now I'm free fallin'
Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down

Stayin' home alone on a Friday
Flat on the floor lookin' back
I send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle
Looks like the joke's on me
So call me captain backfire
I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the top of my lungs
Take out of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
We share the sadness
Split screen sadness
Oh, half of my heart's got a grip on the situation
Half of my heart takes time

Still everything happens for a reason
It's no reason not to ask myself
So I keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change