Once A Teacher Always A Student
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Emerson NunezOnce A Teacher Always A Student
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Emerson NunezPublications
ONCE A TEACHER, ALWAYS A STUDENT
by:
Lolita S. Lorenzo
Teacher III, Bataan School of Fisheries
If you thought you’re through “burning the midnight oil” when you received
your BSE/BSEED diploma and passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET), you
are wrong! As the Gen L –Generation’s lingo goes, “Study pa more!”
Truly, at the rate information rush in, new technologies are developed and new
discoveries occur that affect daily lives, a teacher cannot to remain ensconced in laxity
and comfort zone. He/she will be bypassed by events too fast, that whatever is new today
may not be so tomorrow. Hence, a teacher, a mentor, a professor “must be five, six books
ahead of her/his classes”. To maintain competence and security in tenure, professionals
are required to keep up with the time without necessarily going to school for formal
studies.
But first here’s a brief backgrounder of Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
This is based on Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) Resolution 2013-774, series
of 2013, tasked to accredit schools where a professional can have his certificates to
seminars, workshops, modules, tours, visits, research and/or lifelong learnings that can
be assessed and given weighted points until a total of 15 credit units per year or a total of
45 for three (3) years. What’s more? Professional Regulatory Laws (PRL) require these
units to renew their PRC Professional ID. This is a “must” for 44 regulated professions in
the Philippines. Where CPD is not mandated in some professions, it is one’s moral
obligation to undertake CPD to keep him updated and competent, whether mandatory
or not.
9 October 2018
Publications
A teacher who cannot afford or who has no time to attend schooling to earn credits
after receiving diploma, may collect proofs of acquiring lifelong learnings: all learning
activities undertaken throughout life resulting to improved knowledge, knowhow, skills,
competencies and/or qualifications for personal, social or professional reasons. Such
lifelong learnings could be:
1. Formal learning takes place in educational institutions with a curriculum and list
of requirements that lead to a diploma
2. Non-formal learnings are learnings that are highly enriching and build capacities
but do not lead to diploma or formally-accredited qualifications. An example is
attendance to seminar-workshops on selected “new” teaching method like Objective-
Based Education (OBE) and appropriate evaluation tools (school tests). Such learnings
may be assessed at the end of the workshop, or a few months later after being applied to
the workplace.
3. Informal learnings are those which occur in one’s daily life at home, workplace or
communities. An outreach to a depressed area, trees planted, small researches or
experiential learning are examples.
Submitting to CPD will be very beneficial to teachers aspiring for excellence and
promotion. What a way to level up, but it, in itself, is rewarding and makes one so self-
confident.
References:
The Modern Teacher, Vol. LXIV, June 2015 – March 2016, Continuing Professional
Development, Perla G. Po pp. 18-19
9 October 2018