"Love makes things real." Erin McKean, a lexicographer, wasn't referring to toys, but to words that people love that aren't found in dictionaries. We have many such words in the Philippines =)
The video above is of an enlightening and entertaining presentation that I just saw today (via Stephen's Lighthouse). The speaker, who is editor in chief of the Oxford American Dictionary, likens what she does to the work of a fisherman who uses his net to "catch" all kinds of words, not a traffic cop who separates the good words from the bad words. And while she knows a lot of big words (like erinaceous), she's also very good at simplifying them: "Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult."
Anyway, I thought reopening this blog with the words "Love makes things real" was a good way to welcome everyone back. For more about what the quote refers to, check out The Velveteen Rabbit or watch the video narrated by Meryl Streep.
Redefining the Dictionary
New Websites and the Future of
Librarianship in the Philippines
What is the state of librarianship in the Philippines? I think the fact that PLAI and PATLS do not have websites says a lot about "Philippine librarianship in the 21st century."
This passage appeared toward the end of a post I wrote about the "Manila International Bookfair 2007." Well, the Philippine Librarians Association, Inc. (PLAI) still does not have a website (thankfully, some of its regional councils have active blogs), but the Philippine Association of Teachers of Library Science (PATLS) now has one that provides reason to hope that future Filipino librarians will be able to take full advantage of the possibilities offered by the Internet.
This development led me to think that it's time I featured some of the new—ok, in some cases, not all that new—websites that I've been hoping to blog about separately. So here goes...
Philippine Association of Teachers of Library Science (PATLS)It's not quite fully functional yet, but take a look at the new president's speech on "Republic Act 9246 and LIS Education in the Philippines" to see where they're headed. The "Scholarship Program" will be helpful for students, but there don't seem to be any instructions on how to apply at this time.
InfolibThis free library software was one of the few I featured in "Free Library Software" that did not have a website where the software could be downloaded. Now it does. There's no forum for users yet, but there is a "Paypal Donate button," which association websites should consider emulating.
Medical and Health Librarian's Association of the Philippines (MAHLAP)This association used to have a website that hadn't been updated in years, so this new website looks very promising. Its latest newsletter (pdf) may be downloaded, but either they're still working on making previous newsletters available or I just can't find the links to click.
PAARLWikiThis companion site to the official website of the Philippine Association of Academic and Research Librarians (PAARL) is probably the most complete and updated source for links to articles on, libraries in, standards for, organizations in and outstanding librarians from the Philippines. It has a very limited number of contributors (including this blogger), but most of the work has been done by Fe Angela M. Verzosa.
Finally, there are the websites of the UP School of Library and Information Studies (UP SLIS), the UP Future Library and Information Professionals of the Philippines (UP FLIPP) and the UP Library and Information Science Students’ Association (UP LISSA), all of which sport features that show its creators and readers are not only tech-savvy, but web-savvy.
The future of librarianship in the Philippines looks very bright indeed. I just hope all these websites will continue to be updated regularly.
Disconnects in Education: Women and Boys
The following are the 3 parts of a series, plus a related article, by Juan Miguel Luz (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 26-28 November 2007):
System-wide solutions needed, not band-aidsI've linked in the past to quite a few articles by and about Luz, a former DepEd undersecretary, because I support his cause and the articles make sense. These new articles are no exception. I do have a problem, however, with the following:
Teachers subsidizing pupils’ needs
Larger number of boys than girls drop out by Grade 5
Pockets of hope for Muslim schoolchildren
When boys and girls grow up, they will tend toward marriage. Given today’s economy and lifestyle, chances are both husband and wife will have to work. Given the likelihood that the wife has a better or more complete education, chances are she will have a more steady and better paying job.I suspect feminists will have something to say about the author's gender bias, but the way I see it, if boys don't want to go to school, that's their problem. I am a man who has worked in fields dominated by women (i.e., banking, teaching, librarianship), and I say that women deserve whatever they've achieved because they worked for it. I can still remember how awed I was at some of my colleagues who juggled so many tasks at work and at home, and still managed to stay beautiful. And all their husbands did was worry about going to work.
Our society, however, is male-oriented. We recognize the husband as the head of household even if the wife may be the real breadwinner. How will these two realities square? I fear that in many cases, there will be underlying tensions that will result in increasing problems of domestic violence and spousal abuse.
Thus, it is important to keep boys in school to give them a chance at finishing, moving on to college, and/or getting jobs that provide adequate pay and fulfillment.
Encouraging girls to go to school in the past may have been justified, but only because girls were previously discouraged from going to school. Well, it's not the same situation with the boys today. If the boys decide not to go to school and become wife-beaters, my guess is that the women will, by then, be more than educated enough to deal with boys.
Money is Not the Solution
Earlier today, I was looking for a friend at my alma mater when I suddenly found my underdressed self at a formal, invitation-only event honoring some recipients of the Metrobank Foundation's annual Search for Outstanding Teachers. When I learned that I personally knew the two main honorees—Ambeth Ocampo and Benilda Santos—I thought, what the heck, maybe they'll overlook my shirt-jeans-and-sneakers getup and appreciate my presence at this special event. So I went in and marveled once more at just how lucky I've been to have been taught by so many outstanding teachers.
But the most striking thing that I brought home with me was the reference made by the university president to a recent article about a McKinsey study that shows it is not money that leads to better schools. I, of course, made a mental note to look for the article. The following quotes are from "How to be top" (Economist, 13 October 2007):
Australia has almost tripled education spending per student since 1970. No improvement. American spending has almost doubled since 1980 and class sizes are the lowest ever. Again, nothing. No matter what you do, it seems, standards refuse to budge.What has this got to do with the Philippine situation, especially libraries? Read the passages again, but this time substitute the word "librarian" for "teacher" and "librarianship" for teaching, particularly in the last two paragraphs. As I have written before in "Librarians as Leaders," "I am not saying that money is not important... two individuals given similar amounts of money will not necessarily achieve similar goals." This is not rocket science. This is so old, there's even a parable in the Bible about it. Enough of the excuses. Let's get to work.
Schools... need to do three things: get the best teachers; get the best out of teachers; and step in when pupils start to lag behind.
Begin with hiring the best. There is no question that, as one South Korean official put it, "the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers." Studies in Tennessee and Dallas have shown that, if you take pupils of average ability and give them to teachers deemed in the top fifth of the profession, they end up in the top 10% of student performers; if you give them to teachers from the bottom fifth, they end up at the bottom. The quality of teachers affects student performance more than anything else.
You might think that schools should offer as much money as possible, seek to attract a large pool of applicants into teacher training and then pick the best. Not so, says McKinsey. If money were so important, then countries with the highest teacher salaries—Germany, Spain and Switzerland—would presumably be among the best. They aren't. In practice, the top performers pay no more than average salaries.
Scratch a teacher or an administrator (or a parent), and you often hear that it is impossible to get the best teachers without paying big salaries... McKinsey's conclusions seem more optimistic: getting good teachers depends on how you select and train them; teaching can become a career choice for top graduates without paying a fortune; and that, with the right policies, schools and pupils are not doomed to lag behind.
Research in Librarianship
Research
Research Methods on Social and Natural Sciences:
Descriptions, strengths, limitations of five commonly-used methods, with practice and post tests on differentiating between the methods
LISTA: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts
A-LIEP 2006: Asia-Pacific Conference on Library and Information Education and Practice
The Researching Librarian: For additional readings and resources
DOAJ: Directory of Open Access JournalsGrants
E-LIS: E-prints in Library and Information Science
dLIST: Digital Library of Information Science and Technology
Grant Resources for Academic Libraries and Information CentersOthers
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Access to Learning Award
IFLA: Action for Development through Libraries Programme
IFLA/OCLC: Early Career Development Fellowship Program
NCCA: Grants Program
PAARL: Award and Scholarship programs
IASL: Books for Children Project
Japan Foundation, Manila: Language Program for Librarians
ODLIS: Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science
Ambeth Ocampo: "There is so much obscure information to be found and so few researchers in libraries."
UP's School of Library and Information Studies
The Institute of Library and Information Science is now officially the "School of Library and Information Studies" (SLIS).
For those who are wondering about the significance of this change, and whether non-UP alumni should care, this is what my alma mater's name change means to me: our profession is changing—for the better.
It used to be that someone who wanted to become a librarian, got a degree in library science. If s/he happened to be from the University of the Philippines, then that meant s/he was a student at the Institute of Library Science, which was established in 1961. Students pursuing degrees in library science at other universities were—and still are, I believe—usually part of larger colleges, schools, faculties, etc., not a separate entity whose name was the same as the degree its students received.
In 2002, the Institute of Library Science was renamed the Institute of Library and Information Science because it was "the accepted nomenclature for the field in other parts of the world" and coincided with "the 1995 University Council's approved titles for the Institute’s new course offerings." The institute was also supposed to become a "college" at the same time, but "due to the limited number of students entering the Institute and ILS’ insufficient academic programs," the proposal was not approved. Since then, the proposal has been revised, and the word "school" substituted for "college." It was explained to me that a "school" is bigger than an "institute," but smaller than a "college." And that's exactly what SLIS has become.
I know that the brief history above does not quite fully explain the significance of the word "institute," the addition of the words "and information," or the shift from "institute" to "school," but I hope it gives you some idea of the reasoning behind the changes. That leaves the shift from "science" to "studies," which I think is part of the whole science-or-art debate. But I have to say that I don't know for sure why the change was made. What I do know is that more and more institutions are using the word "studies" in their school names. In fact, many are now known as just "information schools."
Our profession is changing. Information isn't just found in books anymore, and more and more books are turning up online. Librarians are now expected to do more than just acquire, catalog and circulate materials. In some cases, librarians don't even work in libraries anymore. This name change doesn't quite mean that the school is "already" what its name implies. But it is an acknowledgment of what is already... but not yet.
Note: The news has been spreading via email. I will link to the official announcement once the SLIS website is updated.
Wanted: Lecturer in Filipino
(University of Michigan)
Job title: Lecturer in Filipino
Institution: University of Michigan
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Deadline: 28 February 2007
Contact: Jennifer Eshelman - eshelman-at-umich-dot-edu
This post doesn't quite belong in Job Openings and Career Development because that's really just for librarians. And while it doesn't really belong here, either, I thought it more likely that someone qualified for this position—or someone who knows someone—would see it here.
Do you have to be in the US to apply for the position? Here's their answer: "We are looking for the best possible candidate for this position. If the final candidate turns out to be a non-US Citizen, we will assist them with getting a work eligible visa."
Below is the text of the document that I received:
The Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan invites applications for the position of Lecturer in Filipino beginning September 1, 2007. The position is a renewable one-year appointment, and is subject to final budgetary approval.
Applicants should have a Master’s degree in a relevant field such as the following: Filipino language, literature, and linguistics; Philippine Studies; second-language acquisition, TESL, education, communications, etc. Native or near-native proficiency in Filipino and English is required; at least one year of experience teaching Filipino at the college/university level is preferred. Duties will include 12 weekly hours of instruction in all levels of Filipino language and active participation in teamwork and program affairs.
The application dossier should include an application letter explaining your qualifications and teaching philosophy, a current CV, and three letters of recommendation. In addition, evidence of teaching excellence, a teaching demo videotape/DVD, and/or samples of self-developed teaching materials would be desirable.
Kindly send your application packet to: Filipino Lecturer Search Committee, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan, Suite 6111 Thayer Building, 202 South Thayer, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1608. Review of applications has been extended to February 28 and will continue until the position is filled. The Committee will conduct interviews at the conference of the Association for Asian Studies in Boston and applicants are encouraged to attend.
The University of Michigan is a non-discriminatory/affirmative action employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Terms and conditions for this position are subject to the provisions of a Collective Bargaining Agreement between the University of Michigan and the Lecturers’ Employee Organization.
Outstanding Teachers
Today is the first anniversary of the Pinoy Teachers Network!
Do you remember the good teachers you had? The ones who were truly inspiring and helped you achieve more than you thought you could? Perhaps your teacher has even been one of those recognized in the Metrobank Foundation's annual Search for Outstanding Teachers. Click on the links below and try to remember...
| 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | | 2000 | 2001 2002 2003 2004 | 2005 |
Some of them are now teaching outside the Philippines. Others have retired or passed away. But some, like Onofre Pagsanghan at age 79, and those who received the Award for Continuing Excellence and Service, are still inspiring students and even other teachers.
Heck, the one good teacher you had way-back-when is probably still inspiring you today, wherever s/he is. Do yourself a favor. Go back to your teacher and say "thank you." It will be good for your soul =)
Category: Education
