A believer of education for life A concrete and tested philosophy of John Dewey that Education is a way of life.

Indeed, through the years of looking for a better living..it is by learning that we encountered development. We reflect to our life experiences, common beliefs, social and economic background and education. This philosophy provides me as the starting point to enter the academe. I am a Faculty in College of Nursing of this regal academe (MSU-IIT). It used to be that I love teaching, I started trekking down the path of being a NURSE EDUCATOR with a torch on my left hand and idealism on my right hand but Im starting to lose the torch along the way and now Im slowly losing my idealism. The environment is pulling me to become one of them (not all) , the very thing i hated. There are many people who ignored work, compromised learning and preferred self convenience rather than consensual benefits. I promised myself that when I lose my idealism, I will quit. QUESTION is, can I afford to quit?The answer is I dont know either. I admired my mentors (esp. Maam Ali) who lift up my level of understanding and maturity to continue to be a living testimony of what they taught me. Indeed, this is how life define fairness. Enough of the sweet & sour talk, do you know that our countrys hailed universities failed to make it to the top 300 in the 2012-2013 list released Tuesday (September 11, 2012) by London-based education research firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Leading universities in Asia, including those in Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Japan and China made it to the top 50 in the list, along with European and American schools. Social networking siteslike fb and twitte were flooded with comments fullof frustrations and blames. If you were to ask whats wrong behind? We developed, refined and restructured series of curriculum but we cannot fairly or aggressively compete with other schools. The curriculum is a crucial element to make a good outcome. Furthermore, the interplay of different major factors such as politics, socio-economic and environment plays a major role to make marketable by-product. I agree that, yes, indeed, the over-all quality of education in the Philippines is below par, due to the governments (and the education systems) wrong priorities but the quality of learning is solid enough to perform best in the labor market. My cognitive domain may not be enough to express thoughts about the

governments part to identify and solve this problems. Instead, let us look briefly the curriculum as an integrated domains of teaching and learning. The concept of curriculum is as dynamic as Dr. Saniel or as the changes that occur in our society. In its narrow sense, curriculum is viewed as merely listing of subjects to be taught in school. In broader sense, it refers to the totality of learning experiences of every single soul not only known but also hidden learning. The phenomenal debates of K-12 curriculum implementation creates online roar to thousands of concerned netizens. This year, the Philippines finally took the big step and implemented the K-12 curriculum. Its true, we are illprepared for it, but in my humble opinion, this step is something like childbirth: No matter how much you prepare for it, you are often still caught flat-footed when the time comes but its an inevitable step you need to take before you can get on with the extremely rewarding business of raising a child. To crystallize principles behind curriculum development, here are the list of principles that I can share with you: * Flexibility is a principle that has been recognized long before. Teaching is not always by the book in which you extract knowledge, but also by experiences in which you extract wisdom. * The brain can grow connection with any age. Challenging experiences with appropriate feedback will always be the best. * Optimizing learning through different form of media as to music, videos, etc. The same is true to art as it provides avenues for self-expression. * There must be variety of learning centers or nooks because some can work best alone or group. * Lastly, provide a drop of human factor to few valid lapses that the students maybe done. Display a touch of tenderness and not rudeness.

Thats quite long, so Id to like to end my notes here. TO Dr. Saniel, thank you so much. You are one of a kind. God bless you, Idol!