@sc 11 September 2021

A Busy Month

Unlike the month of July when I was able to post 3-4 articles each week, this August I can only write 2 articles at most during the month of August. I'd love to do more than that, but there's a lot of things to do and errands to take care of this past month. ***Brigada Pagbasa.*** In the Philippines, before the start of every academic or school year, the Department of Education has this Brigada program where everyone in the community, specially the education partners and stakeholders such as the parents, teachers and barangay officials works together and take part in preparing the school for the opening of classes. Activities usually includes cleaning of school grounds, repairing the school facilities, cleaning and preparing the classroom and seeking donations for school supplies needed. This year, the Department of Education launched another program in connection with the *Brigada Eskwela* which is called the *Brigada Pagbasa.* The school encouraged those who are in capacity to help by becoming a volunteer tutor, volunteer reader and volunteer aid. This is to help the struggling learners to be able to read fluently both in their mother tongue and in the English language. I volunteered as a tutor and I was given 10 incoming kindergarten learners to teach. Since the barangay is located in an area which is far from the place where I live, I usually go there to teach them on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There's a lot to do aside from helping them and teaching them how to read. I have to prepare the necessary and appropriate reading materials for them. While doing this I also have private tutoring from Friday to Sunday where I get money for my daily expenses and needs. ***School Programs.*** Aside from being a volunteer tutor, I am also a volunteer learning facilitator. My job is to assist the kindergarten teachers with their tasks at school such as looking after the parents who come to school to clean and at times, we the teachers are the one who cleans the classrooms too. The school has programs each week which we have to participate in. *Launching of Gulayan sa Paaralan*. We are encouraging the parents to plant their own foods so we launched this program at school. Some speakers came to school to give the stakeholders the overview regarding the *gulayan.* Parents are given seeds that they can plant on at their vacant lots at home. We attended this program too. *Launching of reading materials pantry*. The next day after the launching of Gulayan sa Paaralan, we had to prepare for another school program which is the launching of the reading materials pantry. We printed out reading materials to be placed on the booths and will be given to parents during the launching day. The next day, we made carnival themed booths to make the program more exciting. *Capacity training on disaster and risk reduction and management.* Yesterday, we had another program at school. Some members of the Philippine National Police and Bureau of Fire Protection are invited to school to train the teachers and the parents regarding disaster risk reduction and management. This was done to prepare for any disaster that may happen at any moment since we are located in a place where there are frequent typhoons during *ber-months.* We are taught what to do during and after a calamity and many more. *Staff Conference.* After the capacity training, we had a staff conference in the afternoon to talk about the incoming opening of classes. It started at 1:00 in the afternoon and ended at 5:30 p.m. This is the first time that I starved at school. We didn't have the time to even grab a snack because right after the conference, we had another meeting for almost 30 minutes at the principal's office regarding the teacher's month celebration program next week. It was already past 6 when our school head decided for us to go home. Such a busy month indeed! As much as I would love to stay online, read articles on read.cash, engage with other users on noise.cash and write articles for my blogging career, I have to prioritize my day job as a teacher. I am not good in managing my time and multi task between real and virtual life but I'm still thankful though that at least, I can still spare a moment to be here and talk to my virtual friends. `Image credits to depositphotos.com`