I was a Legal Management major who shifted to Interdisciplinary Studies in my third year at the Ateneo. I could not balance the accounting books even if my whole life depended on it. The only thing I wanted to do was to go to the Rizal Library every afternoon, stand in front of the books in the PS 9991 category, and read the books of the best Philippine writers. One day, I told myself, I will also publish my own book. One book would be enough. That semester, I enrolled in a class on Modern Poetry. Our room was on the third floor of Bellarmine Building, 4:30-7:30. The teacher arrived in a brown jacket, his hair tousled by the wind. He was Professor Emmanuel Torres. Before this class, I had read books of essays and fiction, but rarely poetry. I found poems impenetrable. But Professor Torres simply made me see. He had that quality that many English teachers lacked – passion. He was brilliant, of course, but he also had passion for the subject that he was teaching. It was the kind of passi...

Isn't it time that these principals jump over to the 21st century? Sirs and mesdames, welcome to a brave, new, borderless world. -- Danton By RAINIER ALLAN RONDA The Philippine Star The Department of Education (DepEd) has partnered with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization, Regional Center for Educational Innovation and Technology (SEAMEO-INNOTECH) to train some 1,600 public school principals on better school management using the Internet. Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said the online school management training of public school principals will be pursued under the DepEd’s Excellence in School Leadership in Southeast Asia (eXCELS) program. "By upgrading their (principals’) competencies, we optimize the principal’s leadership and management capabilities while updating them on the latest trends in curriculum and instruction," Lapus said. About 1,200 school principals have already been scheduled for a four-week intensive online session where a learning tu...

by Danton Remoto Remote Control www.abs-cbn.com/news I’ve been teaching for 22 years – the longest job I’ve had. This will be my last year of teaching. I will take sabbatical leave beginning April 2009 – a paid leave for one year that senior professors take every seven years, to sleep the sleep of the and come back to school fully energized. But in my case, I will not just sleep and read and gain weight. I will spend my sabbatical leave organizing Ang Ladlad’s campaign, and my own political campaign, for the May 2010 elections. But because I stayed here longest, that means I love this job. I admire those who’ve spent 30, 40 years teaching without repeating themselves. They’ve taught for 30, 40 different years, not just one year repeated 30, 40 times. Teachers like the now-departed Dr. Doreen G. Fernandez and the retired, but still teaching, Professor Emmanuel “Eric” Torres come to mind. Both have taught with us at the English Department of the Ateneo de Manila University. Doreen and Er...

by Danton Remoto Philippine STAR June 2, 2008 For the poet T.S. Eliot, April may be the cruelest month, but for a group of Filipino teachers, a journalist and a Microsoft Executive, it was a month for having a blast in Vietnam. And we’re not talking about the blast that explodes, although we saw the Mausoleum of the Great Uncle Ho, Ho Chi Minh, one fine day while our bus was circling its way around a vast rotunda. Occasion was the Partners in Learning Regional Innovative Teachers Conference sponsored by Microsoft Asia and held in the once war-torn country of Vietnam. Microsoft Asia Pacific and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) affirmed their commitment to Asia-Pacific’s teachers and students by extending the Microsoft Innovative Schools Program. The Microsoft Partners in Learning (PiL) Regional Innovative Teachers Conference brings more than 200 leading teachers, educators and Ministry of Education officials representing 21 countries togethe...