Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Outreach Program for Children: Folk Wisdom for Growing Up (April - May 2013)


Dr Abe V Rotor
  



 Accredited by the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Arts &
 Letters, in cooperation with Lagro Homeowners’ Association,
  Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid  738 DZRB (8 to 9 evening,
Monday to Friday), and Internet Living with Nature  School
on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)

Features 

Summer Workshop April – May 2013

Lagro, QC


1. Summer workshop for children of school age - 7 to 12

2. Recommended and sponsored by officers of Lagro homeowners Association

3. Class size: 25 to 30, preferably of equal gender

4. Venue and facilities: Conference Hall, with working tables, blackboard,
proper ventillation. (Multi media and sound system, optional)

5. Attendance: ten sessions, three hours each, thrice a week; in additon, field trip, exhibit and graduation.

6. Class rules: same as in school, on grooming, attendance, performance

7. Recognition: Grading and ranking, citations, exhibit award.

8. Lessons: See list of topics in 6 parts or chapters. See attached manual

9. Teaching method: Lecture-demo, hands-on, team work, field lecture,
tutoring if needed.

10. Broadcast Link: 738 DZRB Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

11. Internet Link: avrotor.blogspot.com Living with Nature, School on Blog

12. Accreditation: Certificate of participation, UST Faculty of Arts & Letters

13. Field lecture and on-the spot painting: La Mesa Eco Park

14. Special project: Exhibit of selected work, and graduation

15. Cooperating organizations: LAHA, LGU, UST, others


Class Schedule: MWF 8 to11 AM, April 15 start of classes

                                           Folk Wisdom for Growing Up

                             Workshop Outline*

Part I Keeping Tradition Alive
1.     Folk Wisdom - Link of Generations
2.     Indigenous Games and Sports
3.     Life on the Countryside:  Trapping Frogs
4.     Have you seen a Scarecrow lately?

Part II Appreciating Nature’s Beauty and Bounty
      5.  Reading Nature’s signals – a naturalist’s experience
      6.  Natural Aquarium - Microcosm of the Living World
      7.  Living World under the Microscope
      8.  Don’t waste food, don’t
      9.  Let’s save our children from the tender trap of Consumerism

Part III Building Good Health and Lifestyle
                      10.  Live Healthier and Longer with Natural Food 
                11. Sleep Paralysis - wiggle your toes, move your fingers – don’t give up!
                12. Fifty Causes of Allergy - a Checklist
                13. Pets Mellow Our Character
                14. Make your dog happy

Part IV Developing Practical Skills and Self-Reliance
                      15.  Make your own Mineral Water with malunggay seeds.
                      16.  Tips when buying fruits, fish, and processed food
                      17.  Home Vegetable Garden Models
                      18.  Pencil Cap and Simple Technologies
                      19.  Wild food plants are also called “survival plants.”

Part V Tapping Talents in the Humanities
    20.  Composition through Painting
    21.  Guidelines in Basic Painting
    22.  The Mystery Child
    23.  The White Cross
    24.  La Golondrina, the Grandest Kite
    25.  Guava – Natural Wonder of the World
    26.  Verses for Children: Keyhole Views of the World of Children

Part VI Emulating Models of Greatness
  27.  Rizal - My Hero
  28.  Reflections on the Legacy of Abraham Lincoln
  29.  Gandhi, Man of the Millennium

Annex
   30.  Workshop Exercises: Self-Analysis and Reflection

                 *List offers a wide choice of topics, and allows inclusion of others, as necessary.  

Background

Children come every Sunday afternoon to the house in Lagro. At first there were six, then two dozens -  children ages 7 to 13 years from the neighborhood. They call me Lolo Abe, their mentor.

They are in the grades and in high school and they are intelligent. And they are a happy lot. They like to come and want to know what I am doing with the microscope, how I mix colors and paint on canvas, play the violin, feed the fish in the aquarium. Or visit an mongrel dog I gave a home.

We meet under a covered front yard and under the trees. It is sort of extension class. Lessons were compiled and became a source book.  It has six chapters with thirty  articles.

1.    Keeping Tradition Alive
2.    Appreciating Nature’s Beauty and Bounty
3.    Building Good Health and Lifestyle
4.    Developing Practical Skills and Self-Reliance
5.    Tapping Talents in the Humanities
6.    Emulating Models of Greatness

Some have attended as many as 12 sessions, three hours each.  They started talking about school projects, home remedies, and things about growing up – or at least, not cartoon characters, computer games, or frequenting the malls. But what happens after?  

The lessons are taken up on  Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid hosted by Ms Melly C Tenorio and myself as the instructor. The program is linked up with School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com], broadcast simultaneously every 8 to 9 in the evening, Monday to Friday on 738 DZRB AM.

The children simply open the Blog and read the lessons. They can download and print them. New lessons are posted regularly to keep the program going. They join the viewers on the Internet (500,000 pageviews to date), and the audience of  the radio program. On PBS and Bureau of Broadcast  network nationwide and on [www.pbs.gov.ph] worldwide

Learning can be simplified with today’s technology and vast networking. Education can be made available to everyone.  Lessons become practical, literacy functional with the least cost. Let us start with the kids in the neighborhood.  

NOTE: Each of the twelve (12) successful participants will be awarded a Certificate of Participation by the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters, indeed a great pride and honor for these potential leaders, and on the part of their parents and the community.  

Personal Data
Workshop Participant




Name:                                                   Nickname:                               Photo 2” x 2”
 
Address:                                              Contact Number:

Birthday:                                              Nationality:                Religion:

School:                                                Grade/Year coming School year:

Father:                                                 Age, Profession/Occupation:

Mother:                                                Age, Profession/Occupation:

Brother/s:                                            Age, Work/School & year:


Sister/s:                                               Age, Work/School & year:


Hobbies: (Cite only active hobbies, and talents)


Honors received:

Motto:



____________________________
Printed Name with signature
Participant

____________________________

____________________________                          _________________________        

Printed Names with signatures                                  Printed Name with signature
Parents/Guardian                                                         LAHA President 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Nature's Art with Plants

Dr Abe V Rotor
                                                 Colorful venation of mayana
Helios shape flower of African daisy
Sudden outburst of inflorescence
Floral design of Hydrangea
Bipectinate palm leaf

Velvety petals of rose

A triad of champagne palm trees
Passion Flower in two stages  

 Skyflower

Colorful rambutan

 Drynaria fern on acacia tree

Kapok or cotton tree laden with pods 
 A relative of the baobab tree  on UST campus
 
 Strangler's Fig overpowers host tree, Mt Makiling, Laguna 
Limb of acacia carpeted with epiphytic liana
Abstract art of pakwan (watermelon)


Sunday, April 7, 2013

The Lighter Side of Life - Slip of the Tongue

Dr Abe V Rotor 
Living with Nature School on Blog 
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday 
                                              


Dolphy, Philippine legend in comedy


Charlie Chaplin, pioneer in cinema comedy
  • Chairs! I mean Cheers!
  • How are you to die? You mean, How are you today?
  • How do I love three, let me count the ways. (From a favorite English poem by Robert Browning). You mean thee. Wrong spelling may be fatal.
  • It was raining cats and dogs, and there were poodles in the road. Puddles, you mean.
  • Joseph, the Dreamer came all the way from Canada. Canaan, you mean.
  • "Name two pronouns." Inattentive student: Who? Me?
  • Genetics: Cross an elephant with a fish. Swimming trunk. Heh! Heh!
  • What are your parents' name? "Papa and Mama." Baby talk.
  • A quorum is a place to keep fish in. You mean aquarium.
  • Elizabeth Aye, Aye Aye! You mean, Elizabeth III.
  • Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. Of course not; it was hemlock, a poisonous plant. Respect the fodder of philosophy. Again, please - father.
  • In mathematics, Persia gave the dismal point. It would be dismal indeed without the decimal point.
  • William Tell invented the telephone. Of course, not. It was Graham Bell. And the bell was invented long before him.
  • Home wasn't built in a day. So with Greece.
  • "Here lies my captain, fallen cold and deed." You may perfect in reciting "Oh, Captain! My Captain!" yet fail to get the audience accolyte just for one mispronounced word. Accolade, sorry.
  • A good reader should not rob the people who erected him. (A Japanese commenting on leadership).
  • "Ako'y palopalo, burakrak naman ako." Chinese and Japanese mixed up in singing a popular Philippine song. [I am a butterfly (paroparo); and I am a flower bulaklak)]
  • All about corn: Mais (mother corn), corny (baby corn), pop corn (father corn), maestra (teacher corn)
  • Spouse is not the singular of spice, but mouse is to mice. Child – children; chicken-chickens. Queer English.
  • Capillary is a little caterpillar. Parasite is a kind of umbrella. Collective noun – garbage can
  • I liquidate you from all blame. The marriage was illegible. She dresses very auspicious. She is related to me by animosity.
  • Who likes history? Do you have a copy of “Caesar’s Garlic Wars?” Louis XVI was gelatined. (Gaelic, guillotined). Feminine of history – herstory. Women’s Lib!
  • An enthusiastic chef to customers: “Try our new menu. It is a real threat.”
  • “I hope I don’t protrude.” A fellow who knows little English was apologetic on learning only ladies were invited to a party. He is, but the right world is intrude.
  • A minister wanted to sell six second-hand organs which had just arrived from Germany in order to raise fund for his church. So during the homily he announced, “I have sex organs. They are slightly used…” He didn’t sell any.
  • Elderly teacher: "Pedro, I am beautiful - what is the tense." Looking at his teacher innocently, "Past tense, ma'am."
  • "Spell egg." "E-egg-egg."  Necktie? N-e-c-ki-ti-hi-he  Elephant?  "e as in elephant, el as in elephant, e as in elephant again, .... I forgot ma'am"
  • "Chemical formula of water?" "H2O, ma'am." Teacher to inattentive pupil: "What is H2O?"  "HIJKLMO, ma'am."  
  • Psychologist: "Please tell me, it looks like you depressed?"  Patient: "No Doctor, I am the priest."
  • And here are some overused double bladed words. noisepaper, tongressman, democrazy "Government off the people, buy the people and poor the people."
References: Living with Nature 3, AVR; Jokes, Quotes and One-Liners for Public Speakers, Prochnow HV and HV Prochnow Jr, 1897, 1931

Friday, April 5, 2013

A personal note of gratitude to all followers and audience of Living with Nature School on Blog


Dr Abe V Rotor



The author Ka Abe and Ka Melly at the DZRB station; development communications award, 
Gawad Florendo Awards won by the program

 I wish to thank all followers and audience of avrotor.blogspot.com  It is indeed a great honor on my part for supporting this blog since it started in late 2008.  We have now around 2,800 lessons to date, a large number is linked with people's school-on-air (Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly Tenorio as host, 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday)  


 The blog has served in a number of ways:
  • Extension of the university. It supplements classroom lectures.
  • An on-line of its kind, it compensates for lost sessions during calamities and holidays.
  • Serves as follow-up of lessons of Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's school-on-air)
  • Networking of various fields of knowledge is the Blog's structure.
  • Emphasizes functional literacy (knowledge put into practical use).
  • Adds into the diversity in knowledge (kaalaman)
  • Integrates knowledge and skills and values - with humanity
  • Update of events and developments keep the Blog abreast.
  • Provides materials for school assignments and community outreach programs
  • Progressive and continuing; The Eighth Sense of Naturalism is directly linked with the Blog.
  • Topics are open for references, teaching and learning tools only. There are articles however, that are covered with copyright. 
  • Followers and visitors occupy a high realm of intelligence and professionalism.
I invite all followers and visitors to share their talents and experiences that further elevate this blog to a level of quality learning and sharing for all. Comments are welcomed through the Comment box and I e-mail avrotor@gmail.com ~

Friday, March 29, 2013

Can you make a tree smile?

Dr Abe V Rotor
Tagaytay, March 24 2013

Can you really make a tree smile?
Yes, you can, not only for a while,
even when the sky's dark and gray, 
it heralds rain is on the way.

When you know that trees catch the rain
and guide flood water down the drain,
or impound it for the garden and field,
and buffer the storm like a shield. 

When you know the great miracle: 
sunlight transformed to life of all,
and the air is cleaned and cooled
for the comfort of young and old. 
  
When not to cut for Christmas tree,
firewood, toys, for sale or free;
not for the most beautiful craft, 
for the tree is the finest art.    

When it's home and place to play, 
for transients and tenants to stay,
landmark of the march of seasons 
and the passing of generations. 
   
Yes, you can, and make the world
happy too, in deed and kind word,
as custodian of trees and others,
all living things are your brothers. ~



Thursday, March 28, 2013


Gem Perched on a Tree

Brightest Gem Perched on a Tree
Dr Abe V Rotor
 
 
Atop Tagaytay Ridge, March 24 2013


A gem perched on a tree is looking through,
     to watch in its shadow a wholesome three;   
to whose care but the world and humanity, 
    the greatest gift to the loving and true.