Jandrea...so far

Dear Psych 124 and Psych 145 students, I’m sure you have heard about the BOR approval of the recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC). Pending the issuance of the Implementing Procedures and Guidelines, the Psych department faculty will meet on April 22 to come up with measures that will take into utmost consideration the situation and sentiments of students!  Rest assured that your Psych teachers remain to be conscious of your needs during this period! These last few weeks has been difficult for me as well. Being a teacher is not the only role I have to play in this crisis situation. Every single day, I have to make a decision as to which role takes precedence over the others. Please pardon me if in the past few weeks, being a wife, mother, and household manager have been my priority. Sometimes, even the seemingly simple task of making sure of having food on our table takes most of my attention. I have also lost time and energy mourning the deaths of people I...

        We were going to talk about "Learning and Conditioning" in my General Psych class. As an introduction to the topic, I asked them to enumerate the things they have learned since childhood. As expected, they came up with answers like "reading, riding a bike, singing, cooking, writing a good paper, doing math, etc.".         I told them, "Good! But is that all? Are you sure you are not forgetting anything else?" I was hoping to get more answers that wouldn't fit into categories like abilities and skills and facts that they have learned from their more than ten years sitting inside a classroom. Silence.         And so I asked them, "Have you not learned other things from outside the classroom?" More Silence.  I proceeded to throw them a barrage of questions. How about the lessons you learned from your family - like loving and caring for others? From your mistakes, have you learned to rise above them so you ...

Tree in the Academic Oval For the last 17 years, I've been having a affair... with teaching... at UP. Being a teacher at UP has always made me feel like I'm in a forbidden romance. Many days, I  feel giddy just being here but for an equal amount of days, I feel unworthy to be part of such an illustrious institution.  As an undergraduate student,  I was in awe of my professors. There they were, up in the star-decked sky and I could only marvel at their brilliance from my place among the riffraff of the academic world. Although I grew up helping my teacher mother with her preparations for class,  entering the academe was never part of my plan on how to conquer the world. I admit, once in a while, I did imagine myself in front of the classroom but never actually believed I could do it in real life. It was like having a secret crush on that gentle-looking hunk in the library but knowing it would remain just that because he was someone else's boyfriend. And even i...

07/15/2007 02:18 pm   He was a quiet yet formidable presence. The lopsided smile. The secret behind the smile. The secret measuredly unveiled. The unhurried gait. The calm, never the storm. The wisdom and intellect in the words. I will always hold these in fond memory. Good-bye, Sir! See http://fgdavid.com

12/14/2006 03:12 pm It has always been difficult for me to grade subjective-type exams. I end up giving high grades, subtracting points only because it would make me look I rated the thing intelligently. But don't get me wrong, I do put my heart and mind into these things. But it probably takes me double the effort to see what is "wrong" with the answers. I somehow just manage to see what is right first! Same thing for my perception of people's characters. Unless a person is so blatantly off, I manage not to see what is the matter with someone. Is it because I don't pay attention to the idiosyncrasies of people when interacting with them? Oh, but I do! I can smell "different" a mile away. But then looking at shortcomings and weaknesses are placed rather low in my how-to-like-people list . It takes other people to point out these bumps and rough edges. Sometimes they seem trivial. Sometimes they are mind-altering, at least to me. Do I ...