Months before I left the Philippines, I had the honor of teaching Mother Goose’s kids. It was somehow difficult to wake up at 6 AM to teach the kids who come to the house for what I call the Sunday school. Yes, you read that right- classes at 6 AM and on a Sunday. A real bummer one might consider. But the fact that the kids came knocking at our gate at exactly 6 AM and sometimes even earlier, encouraged me to become the professional instructor I claimed to be. The eagerness that they had was more than enough to stir or should I say, shove someone out of bed. The kids’ Saturdays were booked for their Catechism classes, while Sundays were for the review of the lessons they had in school. Hah! Someday, if time and resources would permit, I think Mother Goose would build a Catholic school for financially disadvantaged children. I was not ready to teach them about the Catholic faith and I don’t think I will be eligible to do so. It’s good that Mother Goose found a dedicated catechist. I believe you need to have a good training for that, and so I volunteered to tutor them instead on what I think I can handle- grade school lessons.
Some sessions were smooth-sailing and some were rough. From our sessions, it seemed that the main roadblock they had in fully understanding the concepts was the level of reading skill they had. I dealt with Grade 6 students who were still having trouble comprehending simple statements and explaining what those statements meant. Okay, maybe 6 AM was just not the most conducive time for some reading comprehension, but if that situation persisted throughout the day, that was really bothersome. This thought might bore the hell out of you or make the nerd ones rejoice, but I think it’s important that children be taught to read early and to communicate to others what they had read.
My interest in reading developed because of the various comics I grew up with. In effect, I also became a visual learner. One may question, “What kind of proper education would you get from comics?”. Others even consider them rubbish. Or Mark Twain may argue, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.” Well, I am not saying that comics are the best materials for developing reading skills, but they definitely can serve as catalysts towards that end.
During my elementary years, Mother Goose used to bring home about 20 Filipino comics once a month- Horoscope, Love Story, Kenkoy, Hiwaga, Aliwan, Wakasan… those were some household names I remember in the Filipino comics industry. I remember myself, looking forward to reading those comics. I remember myself trying to finish all of them in just one night. I remember my fingers filled with black smudges from turning the pages (they came in newsprint those days). Most of the time, I was out of the house because Papirus and I were nangangapit-bahay. Apart from the computer games and toy blocks that I enjoyed playing at our neighbors' house, I found another joy- Happy comics. For those of you who remember this, this comics is about couples who fight over a third party in their relationship but they get back together in the end. Of course there were sensual themes, and those were never censored from me…haha. Every first Friday of the month, I looked forward to another set of comics- Funny and Bata Batuta and …where you would find Tomas at Kulas (the Filipino version of Tom and Jerry), Combatron, Eklok, the Planet of the Eyps, Mr. and Mrs…so these were the kiddie version. My yaya and I would pass by a newspaper/comics stand on our way home. Now I wonder where have all those comics gone? My English learning was a part due to Archie/Jughead/Betty and Veronica comics- I believe I have a wide collection of those comics, and for some reason I don’t know where most of them are right now. I remember one summer, because I just had to much of them, Mother Goose thought of renting them out to her office mates, and yeah I made quite a sum of money from those comics. But those comics just got too expensive. So there, my education was made more interesting by comics, and yes I pay tribute to them, by reading, guess what- the comics section of the newspaper! Haha. Currently, my addiction is Calvin and Hobbes.
In my previous entry, The Journal Club, I've realized the importance of reading and comprehension. I thought of making something relevant out of my current profession (science background) and my addiction to comics. I remember Eenai, who was taking Psychology at that time as she was amused by the children’s books made by Filipinos. To make the books amusing, they appeared in full color and stories were really interesting. Well I thought of making science books for kids, but I wanted to make it comics style. I know it had been done so many times, but not that marketable. That’s one of the things on my list. Hopefully, I would have the right contacts, like illustrators and smart story-makers who are willing to cooperate with me in this endeavor and not expect a pay at least for a couple of years. Because the goal is to distribute these for free to kids in public schools, just like the kids Mother Goose have. I believe we still have hope.
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