Bontoc National High School

Today I taught at Bontoc National High School. The students were great!!!
The day begins at 7:15 with all the students gathering together for the flag ceremony. From there they go to their first class. The class begins with a prayer, and then after a short introduction the class chanted, "Good Morning, Mr. Zeus Preckwinkle." This was after many students had welcomed me with "Good Morning, Sir." I was really happy to be teaching so early because of the heat and humidity later on.

My first class is in biology, and I have students learn how to take blood pressures. Many of them want to go into medicine or care giving so it is a very useful skill to learn. We work on some of the same experiments that several of my students did this last science fair, and then we talk about how knowledge of blood pressures can help people prevent their having heart attacks or strokes. I encourage a lot of the students to look upon medicine and science for their adult lives, and their regular teacher makes a point to them that this is an expensive training. I will not be using the blood pressure kit for another year so I donate it to the class. My classes in algebra are just plain fun, and my aim is to show the students that this is not a dry dead subject.

At the end of the day, I have an English class where the students write short autobiographies. These I ask them to give to me so that my students at Ancona can read them. I will write some excerpts tomorrow. Many of the students talk about how they explored the areas where they live. They remember falling out of trees, seeing snakes, going into caves, riding a carabao and jumping off the local bridge at high tide. Although they sometimes say that they are frightened by seeing these things, they bring back memories of when I was growing up. I fear that in today's world kids are often missing these chances to explore, and it is sad.

Practically every student says they like to sing, and after a while I tell the students that any Filipino who does not like singing should be deported. ha ha. People in America would be surprised at how singing competitions on television seem to dominate. It seems like version of American Idol is on all the time, and kids really take joy in performing.

Many of the students talk about how they are shy, and two in the class of 42 describe a relative dying. This was similar to Libas. And there are several references to traveling in Cebu that sound like poetry.

When kids describe where they come from, they first identify the barangay, then the town, then the province, then the country. Bontoc has 19,000 voters and about 31,000 residents. It is divided into 41 barangays and each barangay has a captain and councilors who are elected. My friend Sterling has a sister, Belit, who is one of the councilors in the town of Balilihan which is on the island of Bohol. Although there is prestige and power to this position, many elected officials are called on to help people when they are in trouble.

At the end of the day I ended up talking with four of the fourth year students, and they were truly delightful. They wanted to know all about America, and they wanted to know what I thought of the Philippines. I told them that it is indeed the friendliest place I have ever been. I tell them that I will be leaving in a couple days to see my music friends in Cebu, and then I play two of the songs that Danny and I composed. They make me promise to bring my flute Friday so I can play some more songs for them.