As we usher in another year of existence of Malaybalay City Division, we feel blessed with a lot of things.

Last August 31 and September 1, 2013 the whole teaching and non-teaching personnel as well as the external stakeholders rejoiced and commemorated the fourth year anniversary with the theme “Educators and Stakeholders Working Together for Excellence in Education”.

This year’s highlights, under the stewardship of a vibrant leader Mr. Edilberto L. Oplenaria are the following activities: giving of awards to DepEd teaching and non-teaching personnel for the most outstanding employees, recognition of stakeholders/ benefactors, tribute to retirees, sportsfest, cheer-dance, presentation and pasundayag sa abilidad featuring the evolution of dances.

During the sportsfest there were two ball games played by the various teams. In basketball for male teachers, first place was garnered by the green team composed of Central District spearheaded by the district supervisor Mr. Benjamin E. Macario and Far East district under the baton of Mrs. Jovy G. Molina. Second place was awarded to the white team which is composed of Bukidnon National High School and its Annexes under the leadership of Mr. Pariso L. Orong. Lastly, third place was taken by the blue team composed of North District under the headship of Mr. Apolinario L. Ravidas and South District under the enthusiastic district supervisor Mr. Lorenzo O. Capacio.

Furthermore, one of the nerve wracking moments watched by the participants was the volleyball girls of which the red team got the first place composed of East District under the veteran district supervisor Mr. Aurelio A. Tilanduca and West District under the proactive district supervisor Mr. Noel A. Tan Nery. The second place was obtained by the white team composed of Bukidnon National High School and Annexes. Finally third place goes to the yellow team of the clustered secondary schools under the management of highly spirited secondary school heads Mrs. Amparo C. Bautista, Mrs. Dinaflor L. Raagas, Paul O. Orong and Mr. Manuelito O. Melendez.

The following received trophies as outstanding employees: Elementary School Teacher Amy G. Capacio of Casisang CS, ALS District Coordinator Norman D. Melendez, ALS Mobile Teacher Annabelle B. Aque, Elementary SPED Teacher Daisy M. Cabase, Kindergarten Teacher Albert T. Saldua of Aglayan ES, Elementary Master Teacher Artemio N. Boncales of AVES, Elementary Coach Dulce Villanueva of Laguitas ES, Elementary Club Adviser Merliza A. Ravina of Cabangahan ES, Secondary School Teacher Barbra Joey P. Moreno of Bukidnon NHS, Secondary SPED Teacher Daylin G. Hortillano of Bukidnon NHS, Secondary Master Teacher Purisima Yap of Bangcud NHS, Secondary Coach Flavio Alas, Jr. of Bukidnon NHS, Secondary Club Adviser Emily Joy Idulsa of Bukidnon NHS, Multi Grade School Head Cynthia Berial of Bendolan / Mapayag ES, Head Teacher Ella S. Rabino of Cabangahan ES, Non-Central School Head Liza G. Balintongog of Sawaga ES, Central School Coslita K. Muring of Casisang CS, Education Support Staff Nancy L. Dequito, Administrative Staff Sabina O. Lopez of Bukidnon NHS, PSDS Aurelio A. Tilanduca of the East District.

Special awards were handed to Paul John P. Arias, the Division Planning Officer for creating the Division Official Website and Corazon Virgine Y. Saluntao, composer of the Division Hymn.

Retirees were also given a tribute, namely: EPS Leticia N. Palle, Principal II Virgilio R. Namoc, Sr., Principal I Rodrigo P. Gacang, Principal II Amelia T. Bermejo, Principal I Vivian G. Briones, Head Teacher III Norly P. Arida.

The program was graced by the city mayor of Malaybalay Hon. Ignacio W. Zubiri and vice mayor Hon. Roland Detecio with their city council Hon. Jay Warren T. Pabillaran, Hon. Provo Antipasado, Hon. Lorenzo Dinlayan Jr. and Hon. Rendon Sangalang. It was indeed a very distinctive and substantial event to the DepEd teaching and non-teaching personnel with the stakeholders as they ended up with an unfathomable success. (more photos…)

By:  Noel A. Tan Nery

West District Supervisor

Day 1 (August 31, 2013, Saturday) – ‘SPORTS FEST’

                Venue: Barangay 4 Covered Court

 

7:30 AM               – Arrival & Registration

8:00 AM               – Opening Program & Cheering Presentations

9:00 AM               – Start of Games

12:00-1:00 PM   – Lunch Break

1:00 – 5:00 PM   – Games continued

 

Groupings:

Team A (Green)  – Central & Far East

Team B (Blue)     – North & South

Team C (Red)     – East & West

Team D (Yellow) – Clustered Secondary Schools             

Team E (White)  –  Buk. NHS/Annexes           

 

Games to be played:      Basketball – Male Teachers        

                                       Volleyball – Female Teachers

 

 

Day 2 (September 1, 2013, Sunday)

6:30 – 8:00am     -Thanksgiving Mass: San Isidro Cathedral

8:00 – 8:30am     – Preparations for the Motorcade (Assembly Area: Plaza Rizal)

8:30 – 9:00am     – Motorcade Around the City: Route: PNRC, Capitol,

Polymedic Hospital, Fortich St. to Buk. State University Gym

9:00 – 12:00nn   – Part I: Program Proper – Bukidnon State University Gym

12:00 – 1:00pm  – Part II: Lunch Break – “SALO-SALO”

1:00 – 3:00pm    – Part III: PASUNDAYAG SA ABILIDAD – “Evolution of Dances”

By: Cynthia G. Oplenaria

Sumpong Elementary School,

Malaybalay City North District

 

The readers are warned that this article doesn’t have religious or biblical trappings as it may seem but if deals on the spelling difficulties of pupils in the classroom as experienced by teachers in their day to day work. More often than not, teachers discovered that pupils usually have difficulty in spelling correctly words such as those with “ei” and “ie” as in the words receive and receipt with that of review and interview. These and other words constantly baffled our pupils when they are to write them on paper or notebooks.

These difficulties are branded as “spelling demon”. As teacher, our main task is to turn these “demon” into “”angel”, a teacher who is successful in converting these difficulties into something that will not give the negative label of being difficult into something that will facilitate and help the pupil to spell the word correctly would be tantamount to creating an “angel” of that difficulty.

What makes them demons?  According to the Pitman College List of 120 Worst Spelling Demons (http://home.vicnet.net.au/) there were nine categories of features that make these words become problems for spellers:

1. Surplus letters that do not help to show meaning or pronunciation, and can even mislead

2. Doubled letters which cannot be predicted

3. Unpredictable spellings of vowels

4. Unpredictable spellings of consonants 

5. Misleading spellings of morphemes (units of meaning)

6. Problems in spelling unstressed vowels

7. Regular spellings when you don’t expect them.

 

The following are suggested strategies based on the result of the action research conducted by the writer of the article to help teacher turned the “spelling demon” into “angel”.  This article deals only with the “ei” and “ie” difficulty.

Building spelling skills: ie or ie

Spelling strategy – a famous rhyme tells when to use ie and ei- although there are exceptions.

•             Put i before e except after c

Or when sounded like a as in neighbor and weigh

                Examples: chief    field deceive receipt neigh veil

•             Here are some exceptions to the rhyme:

Either     financier    foreign   forfeit   height    heir   leisure    neither

Protein   seize   sheik    sovereign   stein    their   weird

•             The rule also does not apply when the e and i are not in the same syllable.

Examples:    de.ity       sci.ence      see.ing

 3.            The rule also does not apply when the e and i are not in the same syllable

Example:       science   seeing    deity

 

“There’s no harm in trying” as the saying goes. Try these rules the next time you teach spelling to your pupils and together let us forged that concerted effort of turning “demon” into “angel”.

By: Cynthia G. Oplenaria

Sumpong Elementary School,

Malaybalay City North District

 

As   classroom teacher I have been in the government service for almost 23 years. This time of my life is like a journey for me.  It’s a journey of mixed emotions: happiness and sadness or in simpler terms, joys and pains.  Teachers are happy when they could see the improvement of the pupils in the academics as well as in other co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. Undeniably however, teachers are sad when pupils performed less than what they expect. It pains for a teacher to see that some of her pupils cannot read.

When this instance is being observed, teachers could not help but feels the pain of being a failure in her part.  This feeling is aggravated by the mere thought of subsequent throes of shortcomings as it will normally have a systemic effect. It is so in the sense that the pupil’s inability to read will lead to inability to comprehend a written text, and the inability to comprehend will lead to no learning at all.  Teachers at this time could feel that pain which is so patent and undeniable and even so excruciating to the conscience as the feeling of pain will sometimes linger for quiet sometime.

The challenge of a teacher then is how to help the pupils learn taking into account the psychological consideration. Per experience, non-reader pupils developed negative attitude toward learning further how to read when they are exposed to their classmates who instead of being expected to sympathize in their struggle to read, ridiculed them oftentimes. If the situation is left unchecked by the teacher, chances are the pupil will drop out of school forfeiting the opportunity to learn. Oh it’s heartache!

Lately, I have tried to use a reading kit. This kit is a self-learning kit designed for the non-reader pupils to learn to read not needing the constant watchful eye of the teacher. I have observed that pupils learned faster to read when they are left alone and no classmates are watching.  It seems they have confidence in their struggle to produce the sounds of the letters and the combinations of sounds to read a whole word into sentences, so on and so forth when they have nothing to be conscious of, like the unwanted laughter and comments from apathetic classmates.

The material is truly worth trying and for me, it has given the chance to experience the joys and pains of teaching.

By: Amy G. Capacio

Teacher 3, Casisang Central School

 

Various images of floods, polluted rivers and lakes and endangered species – we are repetitively being blasted by different problems of our times. These will never stop bothering us unless we start doing something we could in order that, though not completely eliminate, would reduce them gradually. We need to have an array of schemes to which this inconvenient reality will be put into a momentum for change.

Schools have their part in the conservation of the environment and improving its state. But first, there is a need to recognize the problems in the environment to come up with the solutions to address them. Constantly exposed to heavy media and technologies, we are presumed to be completely aware of the highest agenda of today’s issue, the climate change. We utilize resources, pollute them with waste or trash and we never care what would it be like in the future, hence, developing awareness among children and educating them on how to conserve the environment would mold them into better environmental stewards. For example, teaching them about the 3Rs: reuse, reduce and recycle would really make an impact.

Going further, children may be taught how to conserve energy, paper recycling, waste segregation or gardening. It is also ideal to develop environmental policies and slogans for the school or integrating environmental themes to the school curriculum to promote knowledge and consciousness. Children could also be encouraged to become more actively involved in environmental issues in a practical manner, such as recycling trashed materials. Through this, they will not only participate in saving mother earth, they would also develop their skills and creativity. In addition, it is also a good concept to consider the collection and selling of recyclable materials, particularly empty bottles or tins. As a result, the school will not only help the environment, but benefit as well because of the income generated through the activity. Given the solutions, though simple and easy, could open a new window for a fresh and new start as “every bit counts”.

Centering our attention in conserving the environment is like putting the children into a safer and better place in the future. They could also be the powerful vehicle for change if properly shaped by environmental values and awareness, which is part of what a school portrays. Ultimately, school communities are the best places to carry out the advocacy of promoting an echo-friendly environment, driven by the support of teachers and the community.