One Year Old and Counting...

by: Rolly delos Santos, Teacher: La Salle Zobel (Philippines), PTN Entries Moderator

On July 4 of last year, I was surprised to receive an email from Marisol (a high school special ed teacher) asking me to join a group she was conceptualizing with other teacher bloggers. I did not hesitate to accept as I am not only interested in meeting new people but also learn about the trade of teaching. I told myself that at last, now I have a venue where I can share, probably vent my frustrations, and read other people’s sentiments and experiences and learn from them. Some of them would probably be new to me, something I have never encountered, some old ones which would affirm that I am not alone in committing errors, be affirmed about my shortcomings and strengths knowing that I am not alone.

A few more invited personalities, mostly people we’ve already met in blogosphere, soon joined in. We knew we were on our way to becoming a group. Next on the agenda was to come up with the group’s constitution and by-laws and procedures. We all pitched in ideas, discussed them until we came to an agreement which ones to use. Wiith these done, the group begun to have a soul. The mission and vision thus sums up:

Realizing the need for us to be united and proactive, we need our voice to be heard. We will start small, let's focus on the cyberspace for now...

We are joined together to start this community of Pinoy Teachers because we believe in our capability to be teacher leaders. Let's begin now. We may start here and there is no telling where we will end up. But let's stand tall and work together...

Core Group members (click here for the names and assignments) volunteered to keep the group going. As this line-up will tell, you know we almost covered everything necessary to keep this group alive. Once all these posts have been manned, we knew the major backbone for the group had been established and we were on our way.

Working from the inside, the next item in the agenda was its physical get-up. We had to work on a logo. Several designs were submitted to the group by Jonas Diego which we all commented on until we finally decided we all wanted the present design found in the masthead of this blog designed by J. Angelo Racoma, our technology liaison.

Thus Pinoy Teachers Network or PTN was born. Under Core Group’s leadership activities for the group were underway. Sharing of ideas and resources, EB’s , Christmas parties transpired to give these cyber people a face and a real name. We are working hard to make PTN a bastion of innovative ideas that would cross the channels that in spite of the group's diversity, both in personality and locus, we would be able to withstand the obstacles facing Philippine education by helping one another and providing the impetus for growth.

And guess what? We are now a year old. Come join us and be part of this worthy endeavor.