Striking a healthy balance (2)

FOR ONE whose task is to coordinate an effort that requires the involvement of institutions and of people representing them, frustrations are par for the course. They come from many sources, impelled by competing institutional and personal agenda that complicate what otherwise should be a predictable ordering of things.

What riled me most is the all-too-easy tendency to backslide, to return to the old ways that haven't worked. Again, there are various reasons behind this:

• One is demonstrated by the "state of denial" that many in the DepEd still find themselves in, as in the case of the Cotabato division superintendent in the event I am attending since yesterday; the plethora of data notwithstanding, she still does not believe that our public school system is in trouble.
  
• Another is more deep-seated and personal, especially as one goes up the ladder: this is how our supervisors did it to us back then, now it's our turn.
• Then there is the culture that continues to box DepEd, especially its people on the ground. Yesterday, I was talking to Jess Mateo of the DepEd central office and he is bullish about the BESRA (of which I am also hopeful about). But he had to agree with me that even BESRA recognizes this endemic culture as a problem: no matter how empowering the ideas of central leaders and functionaries are, these are mostly lost in the translation when cascaded down, and their division and district personal remain unwilling to get out of the box that has become their comfort zone for so long.
  

But I remain hopeful, and this sense of hope has been energized over the past few days. In our last School Board meeting on November 9, the discussion was no-holds-barred, yielding an agreement to find the middle ground insofar as lesson planning and teacher supervision are concerned. In the event I am attending here in Kawit, Cavite, the USAID-funded EQuALLS2 project has, in principle, adopted Synergeia's expanded Local School Board (LSB) approach as a central strategy for mobilizing community support for education. This, to me, is an affirmation of the highest order.

And I was pleasantly surprised to find out that what we did four years ago -- to develop prototype lesson plans that will unload teachers of this daily burdensome activity -- is another central strategy that is being implemented in many areas in Mindanao.

All these imply the need for a healthy balance: of course I will continue to find more ways -- and outlets -- to creatively let my steam off; because in so doing, the old dog that I am will surely learn new tricks. But it is equally essential to continue holding the fort, the frustrations that are par for the course notwithstanding. Patience is key, because as is often said, the only way to eat up an elephant is to do it bit by bit.

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Striking a healthy balance (1)

OVER THE past couple of months, I purposely devoted a substantial amount of energy on things I haven't done before:

• Set up a blog to test the new Blogger in Beta. Along the way, I tried to do self-help cascading style sheets (CSS). Enabled me to reformat my blog, using the design that came out of the exercise.

• Tried my hand at Adobe Photoshop. Learned some tricks in manipulating images, starting with the photo IDs of my two daughters and my own passport-size ID picture. Successfully altered the backdrop in the originals I took (and realized some savings by bringing this straight for printing at the E-Mall Photoline outlet).

• Took, and is taking, a stab at writing my first novel, driven by the NaNoWriMo, although I'm way, way behind schedule. But I remain hopeful, thanks to Chris Baty's Week 2 email which showed him only a couple of thousand words clear of me, so I'm in good company.

The whole purpose is to let my steam off.

The beauty of creative and technical exercises like these is the immense joy that comes with creating something out of practically nothing. And in the creative process in this impersonal, private world, there is a certain sense of order and predictability: input > throughput > output; a + b = c; you build, they come.

You cannot expect the same thing from the real world. And frustration builds up when the expect output c does not come to be.

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A Mastercard moment of a different sort

ONE OF the hidden perks of standing in for one's principal is the opportunity to experience what I call a Mastercard moment -- because it is so priceless -- in rubbing elbows with royalty of a different sort.

This afternoon is one such day: I just met Aruna Roy, the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Community Leadership and International Understanding. She is one of India's representatives to the international Dialogue of Civil Society Engagement in Public Accountability, which closed a few moments ago at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel in Mandaluyong City.

Ms. Roy gave the partipants' impression on the two-day event being jointly sponsored by the Eastern Regional Organization for Public Administration (EROPA), the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the International Budget Project (IBP).

What struck me was her message of hope: the quest for social justice, especially social audit which is the event's real topic, is a very taxing and formidable undertaking. But the opportunity to learn from positively uplifting experiences all over the world energizes the weary soul and affirms that something good eventually comes out of it.

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DepEd reviews 2001 Filipino alphabet revision

IRVIN Sto. Tomas has blogged about it, which I found by way of our Planet Naga aggregator.

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, through DepEd Order No. 42, series of 2006 issued last October 9, has suspended implementation of the 2001 revision of the Filipino alphabet and spelling guide.

Lapus issued the order in response to negative feedback from teachers, parents, students and other users of said revised guide. The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF), recently reinforced by former DepEd acting secretary Fe Hidalgo, is currently reviewing the controversial 2001 revision, which can be found in its entirety in Joe Padre's weblog.

Although Irvin obviously does not like it, I believe this development is a welcome first step in restoring sanity to the confusion and disorientation it left in its wake.

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A better NACITEA?

THIS morning, I had the chance to sit in a meeting between Mayor Robredo and the newly elected officials of the Naga City Teachers and Employees Association (NACITEA). It gave me a reason to be hopeful that ordinary teachers will finally have a voice in the School Board.

You see, Nydia Sol, the new NACITEA president, comes from the ranks of teachers in the city. So are her two colleagues (whose names unfortunately eluded me) who accompanied her in this morning's courtesy call. A number of things were discussed in that meeting, of which I am not at liberty to disclose. Not just yet since Ms. Sol and company will only assume office next month -- in time for NACITEA's golden anniversary.

But much is clear, as Mayor Robredo said: That we need to do more for the public school teachers need not be debated anymore; it's already a question of how.

But boy, am I glad with the outcome of the recent NACITEA election, which is tabled as "other matters" in the School Board agenda on Thursday, November 9. It did not require an amendment of its by-laws, as I proposed here. And yet against all odds, the rank-and-file of Naga public school teachers have spoken clearly (only one candidate from the Division Office-endorsed ticket managed to squeeze through): they need a voice of their own. And I hope Ms. Sol and company will give them that, and live up to their expectations.

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2,096

THAT'S the number of words comprising Chapter 1 of my NaNoWriMo opus.

Inspired by Dom, I've also set up a new blog to house it. Comments are most welcome to my contribution to what I hope will become an open-source initiative.:)

By the way, I'm glad John has resumed posting.

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Fundraising time

THAT ELECTIONS next year is all but a certainty, with the PI option out of the way, is attested by the flurry of infra projects being implemented all over the place.

Take my hometown, for example, which I visited last week. Instead of repairing, or at least completing the long overdue reblocking of the pockmarked Fuentebella Highway connecting Partido to the main line, filling materials suddenly littered the roadside in Sagrada and up to God knows where.

When the long-standing problem is the deteriorated concrete road, long sawn off in preparation for reblocking under previous DPWH efforts, they dump filling materials for the shoulder! And at the height of the typhoon season yet, with 11 more set to follow after Milenyo.

Band-aid efforts like these, however, are most convenient: the amount are probably small enough to skirt public bidding requirements. When the rains come, these will be washed away. Project details are known only to a select few, with the DPWH website wholly useless if one tries to find out background info. And materials used are probably within the purview of activities that can be funded out the CARP money.

My former editor, Joe Obias, is correct: "In every public works project is a crime." But unlike the PI, there is no Supreme Court that will prevent perpetrators from ramming these down our throats.

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I'm off:)

A HUGELY painful seemingly arthritic right foot notwithstanding, I devoted last night, and the afternoon before that, to fixing loose ends, checking some facts and on the whole organizing thoughts for my first novella in line with the ongoing NaNoWriMo.

It was pure desk work: with printed references on hand, all of it from Fer's Oragon Republic, but with no word committed to the hard drive of my PC, except for the lousy title and a tale playing on my mind. From time to time, I would sound off my wife and my eldest on what I've come up so far. She was genuinely interested, but more so my Ezekiel -- currently busy with finishing off Kingdom Hearts 2 in between playing Yugioh cards with Jack Ryan aka Budi.

After finishing the invitation and attachments for our November 8 school board meeting, and some other office stuff this morning, I tried committing the tale to words for the first time. It took me around 15 minutes, probably more than that, to finish my first 500. I wanted to go on, but I had to fetch Sofia and bring her to the Ateneo for her dancing lessons this afternoon.

But it felt good, really good. There is no guarantee I'll see Dom Cimafranca at the finish line: 99% of the work is still undone. But at least I am now off.:)

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It's on!

THE NaNoWriMo is more than a day old in local shores. And all I have is a lousy title. A genre--speculative fiction--I have very little knowledge and experience about. And an equally lousy battle plan: just muddle along.

Villageidiotsavant will surely be rolling over in laughter with what I just got into.:)

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