Education
Confessions of a Teacher
On the 23rd of January 2007, I wrote an entry entitled “Confessions of a teacher, part 1″ when I was asked by a student why I don’t share much about myself. Then she simply said, “Well, sir, it’s you.” So who am I? That entry was my answer.
Soon these confessions moved beyond from reflections about my work to thoughts on education and teaching itself. As the years shaped my teaching philosophy, these words were written down.
- Confessions of a teacher, part 1: The untold story
- Confessions of a teacher, part 2: Secret agent
- Confessions of a teacher, part 3: Bushido
- Confessions of a teacher, part 4: The 4 Stages
- Confessions of a teacher, part 5: Confidence is key
- Confessions of a teacher, part 6: Love is Evol (a Valentine’s post)
- Confessions of a teacher, part 7: Asian Man
- Confessions of a teacher, part 8: Googling Sir Martin (my BK2 speech)
- Confessions of a teacher, part 9: Sir Martin, reporting live!
- Confessions of a teacher, part 10: The Reward
- Confessions of a teacher, part 11: The End Made Me
More writings on education and teaching can be found by exploring the Confessions of a Teacher category.
Society and Politics
NOTE: Latest entries are on top.
- The Science of People Power: Lessons from Arabia
- The Virtue of the Small: Taoist Lessons for Our Politicians
- Truth and Consequences: The High Price of People Power
- Battle of the Righteous: People Power in an Age of Ambiguity
- The Death of Jun Lozada (an alternative history)
- The contingency of this presidency, Mr. Jun Lozada
- Why Isn’t CyberEd dead yet? My reaction to an optimist
- Why I am NOT excited about the Cyber Education Project
- “Untouchable”, a comment on Willie Revillame, Joey de Leon, and their noontime cults
- The Myth of Gawad Kalinga: A Profile of the Sitio Target Disaster
- The Sociology of Fandom: Or am I the only one who doesn’t read Harry Potter?
- What my students taught me about the SONA
- An Unending Revolution? Some thoughts on teaching Philippine history for the 21st century
- The decline of Populism, Pacquiao, Polls and other P words
- Do people still care enough to vote? Here’s why they should
- The Wowowee effect and the damnation of Philippine society
- Shifting Sands: Going Beyond a Post-9/11 World
- Republic Act 1017: Death of liberty or historical inevitability?
- The Fall of Manny Pacquiao
- The Unofficial List of All Things Wrong with Metro Manila Traffic
- The Case for Atheism in Philippine Society
- The World is Flat but the Philippines Isn’t
- Weather, Hope and Bayanihan
- September 12
- The Lost City
- The Democratization Virus: On the hypocrisy of backdoor regime change in Iran
- The 108th: Some thoughts on youth and independence
- Where No One Can Hear You Scream
- Where’s the Kaboom?
- Democracy Under Fire (college paper)
Philosophy and History
- The Problem with History
- The Poverty of Belief: Why Barack Obama has my theoretical vote
- The Tao of Gandhi
- Fighting stress, frustration and lost time, Bruce Lee style
- The Essence of History
- The Tao of Stress
- Historical thinking is unnatural: notes on how to teach history
- Unreasonable: A reaction to the Pope’s remarks on the Prophet Muhammad
- The Da Vinci Crisis
- Hero’s Journey: A Phenomenology of Superman (college paper)
Science Scholar
- Students ask, “Is voting for abstain democratic?”
- Why science scholars are the corniest people in the universe
- Proudly Pisay
- “History is all around!”
- Splitting hairs: my thoughts on Pisay discipline
- Disbelief in grades, my faith in you
- Better games than drugs right?
- Damned if you cram, damned if you don’t
- Fasten your seatbelts
- Political Science High School
Book Reviews
- “Empire of Dragons” by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
- “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins and “End of Faith” by Sam Harris
- “Genghis: Birth of an Empire” by Conn Iggulden
- “Buddha” by Deepak Chopra
- “Dark Lord” by James Luceno (Star Wars)
Blogging
wow. houston, we have publication of ahura martin’s first autobiography.
go sir! we really enjoyed embarking on this journey of discovering our teacher! thanks for everything! we love you too! *huuuuug*
– anna
p.s. good thing i sat next to you and was bored during the first plenary session, now that i think about it…
Yeah, that was a good thing. Who ever knew?
So, thank you.
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maybe i should make my own confession too…
i do not know you as a teacher… but as a blogger, i think you are nice. ^_^
Nice to meet you then!
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out of interest, why were you knighted? I`m from the uk, was it a british knighthood?
Oh, hi Simon. Sorry, I’m no knight. Just a teacher.
My students call me Sir Martin. 
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Ooh… that would be cool … Knighted Sir Martin
Wandered into your blog, while looking for Pisay stuff. I am a graduate of Pisay, Batch 86. While I do appreciate that you are teaching at Pisay, I think there is something “dodgy” (an Australian word that fits what I’m trying to say, I guess) about a teacher naming himself (on his own blog) Sir anything.
We called our teachers then Mrs. Ladera, or Mr. Guevara in class, and outside class, the younger ones were Robbie, or Mac. I find it a little disconcerting that a Social Studies teacher can claim or impose on others, a personal higher status that “sir” implies. Witness the mostly submissive and agreement-seeking comments of your students.
Pisay has and always been about independence of thought, of not being a suckup to authority figures. If the medium is the message, it’s a little hard to disagree (and express that disagreement) with Sir Teacher, no?
So, some unsolicited advice and then an apology. Drop the Sir thing from your blog (it is, after all, seen worldwide, and you confuse the Brits). The students can call you what they wish, but you shouldn’t call yourself Sir anything. Sorry, I was there in the mid 80s, when we were boycotting classes and marching in the streets, and we didn’t flatter our teachers with “cool, knighted sir Mac”.
- a Pisay ’86 grad who argued with Mrs. Ladera for a whole year and survived
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lets change the submissiveness, i think that people are looking at that sir thing to deeply, I have argued with Sir. and the “sir” did not catch my attention at all its the way we call our male teachers since it has less syllables than Mr. or Teacher, the reason is just that simple, he was not knighted and i dont think he will be(he’s not british)wether he deserves to be,that’s not for me to decide. Students who go in this blog actually care about the teacher, so dont expect to see arguments. the only mistake here was the teacher assuming mostly his students would be going to the blog, thinking that he put the Sir thing just to familiarize it with his students,not anticipating the wide reach of the internet. those who actually argue with him dont do it here, it would just be a waste of time u cant have a proper forum in the comments area of a blog. or in the blog for that matter because its for publishing stuff. so most of the comments here sound like they are kissing ass, could be how would i know i cant read minds i sure wish i could. as for my reasons for being here at this moment lets just say im really bored
lols. never noticed this page of the blog.XD ahumhum.
wow. people actually debate on the sirO_o
This page used to be the “Confessions” page. I retouched it a bit. Hehe. Portfolio ba.
RC, the real debate was held here.
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Erm I quoted you but have linked you!
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Hi sir, it’s me. I won’t tell you who I am, I want you to guess. I’m in your class, obviously. I had nothing to do today and wanted someone to talk to, and your name just popped into my head. The thing is, you’re my favorite teacher (bet you always hear that from your other students, but oh well). But even so, I often find myself daydreaming in your class. I always thought that I was unique as a child. I wasn’t ignorant, and I certainly wasn’t stupid. When I got to this school, I wasn’t so sure(and with all due respect sir,please don’t give me that crap about all people being born unique, I’ve heard enough of that, thank you very much). Think of me as childish or vain, but this really made me so unsure of myself that I began to weave a story, or daydream as you call it, into my head. And I was NOT imagining myself as a princess, I’m not that stupid, but Superman, someone the world really needs. Come to think of it, that does classify as stupid. But you see, whenever someone talked to me, it was always,”Do you want to stay here in pisay?”, or “Please try to improve your grades, I know you can do it.”, or “Can I borrow a pen?”. I just wanted a place where people cared about me, not just my future. Oh sure, they did care about me, but they only cared about the future me. Except for the guy borrowing the pen. I want to stay in pisay, but I need it to be worth the sacrifices. Hello?! I need to give up anime, manga, books, television, internet, and video games to get a good grade this quarter, for crying out loud! Whenever I try to study, a voice that sounds horribly like Winnie the pooh croons,”What for? The future?”. I mean, come on. I could cancer in the future, I could get hit by a truck, I could get violated, I could get heartbroken, I could…geez!The point is, many things can happen in the future, not many promising, even as a scholar. I just can’t find the future as a very motivation. It’s too unpredictable, and I just want to live for the now. However, there’s nothing especially alluring about projects, homeworks, tests, annoying parents and strict teachers. The only thing I can actually bear doing is watching the news for Filipino, and that takes courage, mind you. I only want people to ask,”How are you doing?”, not,”How are your grades doing ?”. And sir, I honestly think that you’re the only one who actually cares about ME enough to do that. I want to know, is your subject worth it? Are YOU worth it?Please sir, if I might suggest, can you spend a whole day talking to your students in class, introducing yourself, joking, CARING? Just for tomorrow sir. That’s all I’m asking
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