FROM A TEACHER'S HEART: LIB TO LIVE AN ENJOYABLE SCHOOL LIFE

The following entry won the TeachBlog writing contest of the Elementary School Library held last November 7, 2018. Written by Mrs. Ma. Claire M. Guevara (Elementary School Department faculty and Grade 1 Level Coordinator), this piece titled "From a Teacher’s Heart: Lib to Live an Enjoyable School Life" is her story of starting an activity that would encourage her Grade 1 students to visit the library more. By doing so, she realizes her role in creating future readers, and her initiative would produce a ripple effect that surprises her.

 

Topic:  “The Role of Teachers in Promoting the Use of Library to Students”

Title: “From a Teacher’s Heart: Lib to Live an Enjoyable School Life”

Ma. Claire M. Guevara, Faculty (ESD)

Two of my 1^st grade pupils, at first, didn’t want to go to the library. When asked why? They reasoned out that they would prefer to play rather than sit and read inside the library. At first, I thought, it’s just a natural thing for 6 years old kiddos to choose playing around our quadrangle with their other classmates over reading inside the library.   But then, I have come to realize that these pupils must experience living an enjoyable school life through reading inside the library.  My heart leaped for joy when a light bulb flashed into my head on how I was going to encourage them to use one of the most important facilities of our school, the library.  I called their attention after our class, “I have an interesting story to tell you”. Their eyes glowed while waiting for my next sentence. “But that story is inside our library, the first pupil to find that story and bring it to me will get a prize”.  So, both of them went to the library and looked for the book entitled, “Happy Birthday, Moon”.  The male pupil found it first and hand it to me. I gave him his prize and told him that he will get another prize if he will read and tell me what the story is all about. Using my peripheral vision, I saw the female pupil a bit disappointed. So, I called her and gave her a chance to look for another book and told her that she will get a prize after reading it.  The game lasted for two weeks, and due to my pressing schedule, the game just stopped naturally. Until one day, the male pupil told me that he found a very interesting book in the library and asked three of his friends to do the game and read the book together. To my amazement, I hugged him and told him that he did a great job for encouraging others to read a book. After a week, the female pupil, asked me when we are going to continue the game. I told her that we will have a different game this time, I asked her to get a grade one pad paper and make a list of her favorite books in the library. She showed me her list and I encircled three out of seven, and told her to ask her friends to read those three books with her friends and they must think of a new title for the book and make a mini book version using a white paper.  After a week, and I already forgot the game, they handed me the mini book version. Got overwhelmed with their actions, hugged them and gave a small treat.

  

The situations have impressed an important message to me. If you desire within your heart to help your pupils achieve an enjoyable school life where they get to learn and play at the same time, God will definitely grant your wish. What if I would have just let that heart’s desire and light bulb passed without doing any actions?  What if I would just allow the choices of my pupils be not influence with what is better for them as learners? We as teachers have multiple roles to play and one of them is to develop a hobby that would improve their academic performance and social life at the same time.  We must motivate our pupils by telling them the relevance of reading, though they are digital natives and they feel more comfortable to do their school tasks around technology, and the power of knowledge that they could get from reading a book. Proud to say, our library has transformed from a traditional style to a more engaging digital style one. We must also expose them to different reading materials, references and author styles so they would not get bored in reading the same genre. They must learn how to read books with different genres would feed all their emotions.

           I would agree with Henry Ward Beecher when he said that library is one of the necessities of life. And as long as I am a teacher, I will continue to inspire pupils and colleagues to use our library, because a more enjoyable and interesting school life is a life spend not only in the four corners of a classroom but in the library as well…and I, thank you!