The coronavirus is still wreaking havoc and there are no signs it’s stopping soon. Humanity’s resilience is being tested to the hilt.
The deadly pathogen arrived swiftly and stealthily like the proverbial thief in the night stealing lives and ruining dreams. Like a powerful earthquake, the COVID-19 crisis struck violently and shook the foundations of our socio-political and economic institutions. If the shaking does not stop soon, the said institutions might collapse with us trapped under the rubbles.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unfolding tragedy affecting the whole world. Pandemics, like other disasters and tragedies, natural or man-made, are inevitable. They happen when they happen. Some of them can be predicted by science, but some are hard (if not impossible) to predict.
Like an earthquake, a pandemic cannot be predicted. We know that both may occur but it is difficult (if not impossible) to predict when or where. All that humanity can do is to prepare in case they do happen. The question we should ask now is – Were we ready when the current health crisis broke out? Unfortunately we were not! The coronavirus caught the world with its pants down.
We were sufficiently warned by scientists and epidemiologists. Papers were published and books were written about the possibility of a pandemic as deadly as the coronavirus occurring. The Swine Flu, Ebola, MERS, and SARS, all happening during the first 20 years of the 21st century were telltale signs that outbreaks of infectious and deadly diseases are happening more frequently. They were all ignored and humanity is now paying the price for not heeding the warnings.
It wasn’t information we lacked but something very basic for surviving calamities (or at least lessen their damage) – preparation.
For earthquakes, we usually conduct earthquake drills to at least learn what we should do should an unpredictable earthquake occurs. What about with pandemics? What preparations did countries put in place for infectious and deadly diseases? With the way the coronavirus events unfolded in different parts of the world, it is accurate to say that not a semblance of preparation was made… except probably in South Korea.
Experts explained that South Korea’s efficient response to the coronavirus crisis was informed by their experiences and the data they gathered from the country’s MERS outbreak in 2015. The National Geographic reported that in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak aforementioned, the country’s lawmakers laid out the legal foundation for a comprehensive strategy for contact tracing. This is crucial in containing the virus and in preventing further spread. They amended an existing law that gave their health authorities the power to collect private data from both confirmed and suspected patients even without warrant. They also built up their diagnostic testing capabilities.
The South Koreans were, somehow, prepared. They had a plan should another MERS occur. Probably, the rest of the world had none. The South Koreans and their leaders knew what to do while the rest of the world was clueless as to how to deal effectively with the pestilence.
The South Koreans learned their lessons from a previous disease outbreak (MERS). This time they were prepared. Conversely, the US and most European countries have seemingly forgotten about the 1918 Spanish flu. Perhaps because that was a century ago. They (and other countries) assumed that just like the Swine Flu, Ebola, MERS, and SARS, any other outbreaks could easily be put under control. They were all wrong. The coronavirus is a testament that “assumption is the mother of all f*** ups.”
Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” The citizens and leaders of his country learned this the hard way. The US owns the dubious distinction of the country with the most COVID-19 cases and deaths.
The US and other wealthy European nations being rendered seemingly helpless by this deadly pestilence is an irony. The said countries are among the wealthiest in the world (with the US on top). They also have the most advance science and technology and the most number of Nobel Prize winners in Medicine and Chemistry. So, what happened?
The answer is simple – they were not ready for the onslaught of the coronavirus.
The deaths and sufferings we are witnessing in different parts of the world are the price we pay for our unpreparedness.
After a semester of online teaching, teachers can now be asked which one they would prefer when classes resume after the summer break – to teach online or face-to-face.
Answers may vary depending on what kind of experiences teachers had during the recently-concluded spring semester or how seriously they carried out their pedagogical functions when their respective schools decided to deliver learning through the online platform.
Having gone through what I have experienced during the spring semester, I have much to say about online teaching. I could sum them up in one word – challenging. If I want to I could also say which one I would prefer when the fall semester begins – online or face-to-face teaching? But I wouldn’t for it won’t matter. Why? Because whether schools would still do online teaching or go back to the classrooms for traditional classes is not contingent upon which one the teachers (or even the students and school officials) prefer but what their government leaders would tell the academic community to do based on the status of the current pandemic.
So, if the marching order is for me to teach online, I should follow – the way a good soldier would. The question to ask therefore should not be whether the teachers prefer to teach online or in the classrooms. The “essential” question is whether or not they are ready should the situation next semester warrants that for the safety and well-being of everybody, most especially the students, they should teach online again.
When the current school year started, many teachers were probably caught by surprise when out of the blue their schools announced that classes would be held online. Nobody saw the coronavirus coming. By the time COVID-19 started spreading in different parts of the world, schools already had plans laid out for this school year. Such plans were changed factoring the effects of what eventually became a pandemic.
The academe was left with not choice but to switch to remote learning.
Now, let’s answer the following question: Did the teachers really have only a few weeks to prepare for online teaching?
I don’t think so!
They had all the time in the past.
In one of my previous essays about online teaching, I asserted the following:
“With or without COVID-19, the ability to use technology in the classroom – to apply all available technology resources to education – is something that teachers should have trained themselves to do a long time ago. The use of technology has become an integral part of being a 21st century teacher. There’s no way out of it. Schools should have made it a basic requirement for the teachers they hired. The abilities to create, evaluate, and effectively utilize information, media, and technology are required 21st century skills. Teachers are expected to possess them.”
Take it from HG Wells – “Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” The landscape of education is very dynamic, it keeps changing. Most of the changes are driven by advances in communication and information technology. Teachers will be doing their profession a disservice should they not adapt.
Based on what I have personally experienced, online teaching is very challenging. I actually consider it more difficult than teaching in the classroom.
Remember that online teaching will test not only the extent of your accumulated knowledge and skills in communication and information technology but also how you incorporate such knowledge and skills in pedagogy, in the major activities that teachers do – planning, instruction and assessment.
Online teaching is not only a matter of learning how to use video conferencing applications. Video conferencing is only the tip of the iceberg called online teaching. As I emphasized in another essay – “Online or otherwise, when you are a teacher, you should teach. You ought to find a way to achieve the objectives of the course/s you are teaching, cover the topics enumerated in the syllabus, motivate your students, discuss the lessons, give assignments, and evaluate learning. It will definitely test the limits of your creativity, resourcefulness, and patience.
Why do I write?
Is it to impress?
I don’t write to impress. I’m well aware of the fact that my writing skill is nowhere near excellent. It seems to me that I am not even halfway my journey to excellence in writing. But I am sure I’ll get there before I breathe my last. Right now, I am still inside the “room for improvement.”
Let me go back to the question – Why do I write?
Do I write in the hope that I earn money and become famous?
Not even!
Becoming famous and earning money are not my primary reasons for writing. Of course I need money. It’s hypocritical to say that I don’t like to have additional numbers to the farthest north of the first digit in my bank account.
But can writing earn you money?
Writing is very financially rewarding especially if you are a script writer of one of the popular TV networks or movie outfits in your own country or a novelist who belongs in the league of the likes of J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, and Stephen King.
Yes, I am also earning from writing. It’s actually my secondary source of income. I got paid for some of the articles/papers I have written. When I began writing when I was young, I did not expect that someday it would be an extra income source. I used to think that “there’s no money in writing.”
The university where I am currently employed offer cash incentives to professors for research works published in international (indexed) journals. The university also gives honorarium for articles contributed to the school’s publication in English.
I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to hone my skills as a writer and researcher, to possibly add to the sum of existing knowledge, to have my works read, and to even earn extra money in the process. So, I have been publishing papers in international journals and contributing articles to our university publication. In addition, I have been doing it (the publication of research papers) because university professors are supposed to publish. Our university is not requiring us but I consider publishing as a “professional obligation.”
Once in a while, some individuals would also commission me for writing jobs. There were times I did it for free. There were also times that I was promised remunerations for what I wrote but didn’t get any. I was also duped once by an online news organization who did not pay me a single cent for the articles I wrote for them.
I consider the cash incentives as my reward for doing what I love doing – WRITE. But it’s not all about the money. The money is not the reason I write.
The rewards that writing gives, for me, are hard to quantify. Such rewards are transcendental. That’s not me trying to sound philosophical. That’s just the way I feel about it.
What about fame? What about the accolades? Are those the the things that inspire me to write?
NOPE!
As a matter of fact, when I write and allow people to read my works I am unnecessarily putting myself under the microscope. I am putting myself in the line of fire if among my readers there are unforgiving members of the grammar police who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot on sight anyone whose spoken and written English are perforated with errors in grammar. When they start firing you can not hide. My missing the comma between the words “firing” and “you” in the previous sentence is something they could not miss.
So, instead of accolades I may get negative comments. This is the reason, a friend said, that he would never write for any publication or post any of his writings on any of the social networking sites. He is afraid he may not be able to take negative comments. He added he fears committing errors in grammar. He considers it embarrassing to be corrected for such mistakes.
In my case, criticisms and corrections are welcome. I won’t die if criticized and corrected. As a matter of fact, I have already received a lot of those and here I am – still alive and kicking. I don’t mind if somebody calls my attention for mistakes I committed. Just break it to me gently and constructively.
The reason erasers were invented and keyboards of computers have backspace and delete keys is… nobody’s perfect.
I keep rereading my stuffs in this website to correct possible errors and to improve them.
People may read or disregard what I write. If they do read, a million thanks. If not – no hard feelings. And for having reached this far into my essay, I want to say thanks to you.
I may have received some good comments from my friends for some of my writings in the past. But of course, those comments may have been either meritorious or simply generous. Sometimes there are people who give positive and encouraging compliments. Thanks to them.
But aside from good comments some of my works have also angered some individuals who were offended thinking that what I wrote pertained to them. Writing sometimes is a magnet for trouble. How many journalists around the world have been killed (and ostracized) for articles they have written?
I remember quite well when I wrote a satirical poem in Filipino (about a wolf in sheep’s clothing) when I was working in a Catholic college. The parish priest who felt alluded to (and I was really alluding to him) reportedly asked the Sister-President of the college, my superior, to summon me to the latter’s office so he could talk to me about what I wrote. However he was dissuaded from pursuing his request. But even if he was able to convince the President and the College Dean then, I wouldn’t see him. Why? That poem I wrote and my act of writing it had nothing to do with my employment. My being a writer has no personality and office that could be connected to any of the lines that run vertical and horizontal in our organizational chart. In short, the priest had no authority over me. The priest never bugged me again but I wrote another poem for him (Habit and Habit).
My quatrains (in Filipino) are the ones that brought me some colorful moments. I have lost a friend or two (or is it three… perhaps more) for the quatrains I have posted in a social networking site. I once wrote a quatrain and a friend liked it. Almost a year later, I re-posted the same quatrain and surprisingly the same person who previously liked it was angered and gave me a mouthful. We’re very good friends so we talked about it. He understood, apologized, and we both forgot about it since then.
Also, my writings where my political beliefs are in full display had me losing very dear friends.
So, why do I write then?
Is it for the “likes,” “reactions,” and compliments I get when I have those poems, stories, and essays posted in my social networking accounts or in this website?
Not also.
Of course those things make me happy and I am so thankful for those friends who take time to read my works then reacted and commented on them.
Then, why? Why do I write?
It’s hard to explain. It’s something like a combination of the answers to the following questions: Why do people need to eat when they are hungry? Why do they need to drink when they are thirsty? Why do they need to take medicine when they are sick? Why do they have sex? Why do they laugh and cry? Why do they love and hate? Why do they dream and despair? Why do they live and die?
There is a kind of hunger within me that only writing can satisfy. There’s an insatiable thirst in my soul that would go away only when I read what I write. I suffer from a very mysterious illness that goes away only when I write in sentences or verses the equivalent words of the thoughts and feelings that drown me during quiet moments in my life.
Writing is my endorphin.
I must release my pain, anger and disagreement by writing about them or else they will haunt me endlessly. When I feel wronged I have to respond, not by violent means. I respond in a creative manner – through poems – sometimes satirical. I do it usually using anthropomorphism.
If the spirits of William Shakespeare and Elizabeth Browning I could not summon through the glass to inspire me to express in poetry whatever I wish to say then I turn to Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne’s way of capturing into words – essays – whatever it is that I wish to convey. If I don’t wish to be so direct with my points and would like to hide my feelings and thoughts between lines and behind symbolism then I walked the path that Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant paved. I write stories.
I just don’t keep quiet when I notice human follies displayed by my loved one, friends, and other people around me. Again I resort to anthropomorphism. I use animals to represent their irrationality. It may hurt them and make them angry but the truth may be bitter but sweeter than the sweetest lie. VERO NIHIL VERIUS. Nothing is truer than the truth.
This is not saying that I am a perfect human being. I am as imperfect as anyone else and may have, perhaps, done more terrible things. Thus, the satires I wrote are like boomerangs. They sometimes hit me also.
Pain is like a prison cell. It is by writing that I break free from that hell. As my heart churns out the words, I go through the pain, feel it, not escape from it. And as I write the final sentence or verse, as I put the final punctuation mark, the pain vanishes.
Even my happiness and satisfaction wouldn’t be complete if I do not write about them. I need to capture in either prose or poetry those moments so I can feel more deeply the joy they bring. I do write about them so I can relive those moments any time I wish to.
I need neither material rewards nor accolades for what I have written (and will be writing.) The essays, plays, poems, research works, and stories I create are themselves the rewards. I love and treasure them.
A picture paints a thousand words. Prose and poetry provide the caption that make the picture complete.
I write not to impress but rather to express my thoughts, feelings and ideals. Writing is my freedom, my happiness.
SCRIBO, ERGO SUM. I write, therefore I am.
Ika’y nagbantay,
Matyagang naghintay.
Sa wakas, ako’y nahinog.
Hinog na hinog!
Pagmasdan mong mabuti ang aking alindog.
Hayaan mo munang mata mo’y mabusog.
Ika’y lumapit.
Di ba’t ako’y walang kasing-kinis?
Batid mo nang ako’y ubod tamis.
Batid mo ring ako’y makatas…
na ako’y walang kasing-sarap.
Halina.
Lapit pa.
Hawakan mo ako.
Hinay-hinay lang.
Ako’y hinog na.
Hinog na hinog.
Ako’y haplusin,
Dahan-dahang pitasin.
Amuyin…
Kagatin…
Gutom mo’y iyo nang pawiin.
Some of the meat dishes I tried here in South Korea are somewhat similar to the meat dishes in the Philippines.
One Korean beef dish that reminds me so much of our own “nilagang baka” (Filipino beef stew with clear broth) is 갈비탕 (galbitang/kalbitang).
Kalbi, in English, is short ribs. When Filipinos cook beef stew, it’s also the ribs of the cow they choose. But while in the Philippines we add Chinese chard, potato, cabbage and saba (a banana variety used primarily for cooking), with kalbitang, added are radish, enoki mushrooms dangmyeon (starch noodles) and onions. In a restaurant, I was once served kalbitang with egg. I was also told that it can also be cooked with kimchi. That I have not tried yet.
Tang means soup. Synonymous to tang is another Korean word – guk. Thus, if at the end of the name of a certain Korean dish there’s either tang or guk, expect that the meat is cooked with soup.
삼계탕 (samgyetang) for example is soupy chicken dish. It is comparable to the Filipinos’ tinolang manok (chicken stew) which is cooked with either green papaya or chayote and ginger. Samgyetang consists primarily of a whole young chicken stuffed with garlic, rice, jujube, and ginseng. If you add ginger, pepper, and either papaya (not ripe) or chayote, it will taste like the Filipino chicken dish called chicken tinola (chicken stew in ginger broth and vegetables). But while chicken tinola the chicken is chopped into small pieces, with samgyetang the young chicken is cooked whole.
While samgyetang is a popular summer stamina food, Filipinos love eating this chicken tinola during cold and rainy days. Koreans troop to samgyetang restaurants in summer, particularly during the so-called three dog days of summer (or three hottest days of summer.)
The Filipino in me make me go for samgyetang during autumn and winter. They’re perfect for the cold days and nights during those seasons.
Another Korean meat dish that has striking similarities with another famous Filipino food is 설렁탕 (seolleongtang). For kalbitang, the part of the cow used are the ribs but for this dish called ox-bone soup in English it’s the leg bones. Usually prepared with spring onions only but one time I have tried one with radish and thin wheat flour noodles. It’s similar to Philippines’ bulalo (beef marrow stew.)
What about pork dishes?
I’m familiar with two… one of which is actually my favorite. These two Korean pork dishes is not like any of the pork dishes I got accustomed to in the Philippines. They are uniquely Korean.
The first one is 감자탕 (gamjatang). It’s pork neck bones that are used to make this Korean meat dish and usually cooked with potatoes (primarily) and other vegetables. There seems to be a disagreement among Korean food experts as to what gamja in gamjatang refers to – is it the potato or meat around the pork spines bones? So, it’s not settled yet as to how should it be called in English – spicy pork bone stew or potato stew. For the meantime, forget about the name. Just enjoy the taste.
The next Korean meat dish I wish to feature in this article (and actually my favorite among the meat dishes here in South Korea) … is 뼈해장국 (ppyeo haejangguk).
Others would simply call it haejangguk, which means, according to existing literature, hang-over soup. I’m more used to calling it ppyeo haejangguk for that’s how it’s written in the menus of restaurant where I ate them. One thing that I have noticed is that it is somewhat similar to gamjatang minus the potatoes. Both are spicy but when you order you can request that it be made less spicy or not spicy at all. I was told that there is a variety of haejangguk where instead of pork spine it’s ox-bone that is used.
Of all the meat dishes I tried here in South Korea, ppyeo haejangguk is my favorite. It doesn’t mean though that I need to eat it often because of hang-over. I just love the taste and the spiciness of this meat dish. The price ranges from 5,000 KRW to 7,000 KRW.
Two other meat dishes I came to like here are the following: 제육덮밥- jeyuk deopbap and 족발 (jok-bal).
There are more meat dishes here in South Korea but the five I presented here are the top 5 in my list. It is very possible that after my 5 years being here I may have not tried some them yet.
I wrote an article in Filipino about Korean meat dishes in order for my friends in the Philippines to know the different ways Koreans cook meat. This is the English version of the said article. The beef, pork and chicken dishes I mentioned in that write-up were limited to the ones that I already tried. I focused mainly on what I literally saw on the bowls and plates when I ate them… like what kind of meat were they, which parts of the cow, chicken or pig were used, and what vegetables and other ingredients were mixed. I added some personal observations.
Korean Dishes/Foods I Tried
— o —
The semester – when most teachers hold their classes online because of the corona virus – is about to end. From what I have been experiencing, I have all the reasons to say that online teaching is more challenging than face-to-face instruction. Teaching during the pandemic put my creativity, resourcefulness, and patience to a litmus test.
What I consider as the most difficult challenge in online teaching is assessment. And as the semester is about to end, it’s time to crunch numbers then decide to push either the “pass” or “fail” buttons.
What if the scores of my students are very low?
Below is an essay I have written on the subject of passing or failing the students.
**********
To pass, or not to pass…
That is the dilemma of teachers when the performance of some students during an entire term is below par and their total grades go south of the passing mark.
What should the teachers do – pass or fail the students?
Is passing students in a subject or course mandatory on the part of the teachers?
It’s a different story if a student fails due to absences. The student failed by default. But what if a student is regularly attending classes?
There are possible repercussions should teachers fail their students. When they fail students they had better be ready to answer possible queries from the students, from their parents, and the school administration. Usually, complaints of students, most specially when they are accompanied by their parents, would also lead to school authorities investigating the teachers concerned. It’s not only a matter of being ready to answer questions but the teachers should also prepare class records and other documents that could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the students did not perform well and deserve to get a failing mark.
There are times that teachers thought that they have exhausted all possible means to help the students perform better but to no avail… that they have tried different strokes for different folks, but none of the strokes they applied worked.
But the painful truth is that there are also teachers who would not walk an extra mile to help students improve on their academic performance.
Now, granting that the teachers have done everything they possibly could to help the students pass but their efforts proved futile, would failing the students be considered justifiable already?
Should teachers be applauded when they take the moral high ground and say that schools are committed to excellence and passing failing students would be tantamount to promoting mediocrity?
Failing students is not a simple decision to make. Whether or not to pass students is a path that should be carefully tread. There are a lot of things to be considered before making the final decision. There are questions that the teachers need to answer very clearly. Questions that would lead to more questions.
Do the grades teachers give truly reflect the abilities of the students? Let’s say that the answer is yes. The next question would be, “Were the tests the teachers made valid? Did the teachers make sure that their tests measured what they intended to measure?
There are more questions – Were the tests the teachers designed in congruence with the strategies they used when they presented theirs lessons? What informed the strategies that they have selected? What foundation of learning and teaching did they stand upon when they delivered their lessons? Did they consider the abilities of their students when they designed the activities in the class? Or is it a matter of whatever decision they make as teachers are contingent upon their personal comfort?
Yes, the role of the teacher is that complicated. That’s why the decision to pass or not to pass a students is actually an examination of the teachers’ conscience. It is answering the ultimate question – “Did I really do my job as a teacher?”
Ask teachers if they are really doing the things expected of them and their response would be an unequivocal yes.
Really?
So here is another question – “Why would students fail if teachers are doing their job well?”
The question above leads us to the next question – “When students fail does it mean they did not learn?”
Students failing means they did not pass majority (if not all) of the tests (short or long, oral or written) the teachers gave during the entire term. All of those tests are meant to evaluate learning that was supposed to have taken place when the teachers discussed their lessons and did all the activities they designed for the class. So, if the students failed the tests it would mean they did not learn.
Why did the students not learn? What happened? Did the teachers bother to know why? Could there be something wrong with their strategies? Like their strategies probably did not work or something could be wrong with their methods of testing. Yet, they did not bother to adjust and allowed the accumulation of failed tests on the part of the students.
Only the teachers who are pedagogically trained would be able to detect when something is not right with what they are doing. If they are true to their calling as teachers, they would do something about it. They will make the necessary adjustments. If they don’t care then may God bless the students. It’s much worse when those hired to teach are not really trained as teachers. They don’t have the pedagogical skills to understand what is really happening. For them, it’s just a matter of when the students don’t get the scores required they fail. That’s it.
Let’s bring back one of the questions posed earlier – “When students fail does it mean they did not learn?”
If the answer to this is yes it means that the grades of the students reflect not only their performance but that of their teachers as well.
How true is it that “it’s not teaching if there’s no learning.” Can the teachers claim they did their job as teachers even if their students fail?”
When students fail the tests meant to evaluate learning then the activities designed and strategies selected fail to help achieve the objectives. It is the responsibility of the teachers to make sure that their objectives are attainable and the corresponding activities and strategies are effective. It is their responsibility to make sure that their students would succeed. It is as simple as that. A philosophical mind is not needed to grasp that… just common sense would do.
The worst thing that can happen to students is to have teachers whose view of education is myopic – teachers who judge students according to the numbers they crunch during tests and recitations. The students are much more valuable than those numbers.
Education transcends all statistical data that teachers collect during a school term. Yes there are written rules. There are policies and regulations. But they are not absolute. Education cannot be confined to a box. It is more than black and white. It is as colorful as the rainbow. Teachers should lead their students to the proverbial end of that rainbow where a pot of gold – a good future – awaits them.
