Updated: November 5, 2008
Contact information: cbatan@hotmail.com

Healing nature, healing time
November 5, 2008

MANILA , PHILIPPINES . I am fascinated with discovering the healing power of nature and time on my pain- body. Almost four weeks ago, I decided to stop taking antibiotics. Despite the discomfort and numbness, I taught myself to accept the everyday pain and live with it. I tried alternative medicine like acupuncture, herbs and water therapy. I also consulted with local healers. And I have also been prayed for by my family, friends and communities. Click here for more.

Tolerating pain
October 22, 2008

MANILA , PHILIPPINES . In the last two weeks I noticed a sudden shift in my everyday activities. Leisure reading is starting to be a good part of my everyday life and I have never been intense in creatively writing my thoughts in Filipino. I remained communicating with friends here and abroad with honesty about the state of my medical condition and always with a sense of excitement that soon, I would be fine. Ten months had passed since my dental operation, ten months of chronic pain but starting this October, as soon as I embraced this pain as part of me, I felt a substantial change. Click here for more.

Dizzy earthquake
October 1, 2008

MANILA , PHILIPPINES . Every week, my chronic jaw pain is always accompanied by dizziness. I will not call it normal headache; it is just a heavy feeling of disorientation that requires me to lie down for hours, sometimes even for one or two days. This incapacitates me to work, think and do anything worthwhile. My body seems to want only one thing – a deep sleep. But the pain and discomfort I am experiencing does not give me a restful sleep rather a gist of restlessness that weakens my body. As such, I am starting to develop a sensitivity to the language of my body as well as the external things happening around my everyday life. Now, I am more sensitive to nature: air, heat, wind, noise, temperature, sound and the types of energies these emit to my being. When one is sick, it helps living with one’s Presence in order to make healing, consciously possible. Click here for more.

Silencing my person
September 24, 2008

Mysterious chronic pain
September 20, 2008

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - This late morning, the CT scan result of my Para nasal sinuses (PNS) was handed-over to me by Julio, a radio x-ray technologist of the Hospital of Infant Jesus. Dr. Uy ordered this CT scan yesterday when he saw my swollen left cheek and confirmed that the wound inside my mouth has re-appeared. According to my doctor, the wound appears like leukoplakia, which is a precancerous lesion. Twice, I was scheduled to have a biopsy but both were cancelled due to swelling. Even a bite size biopsy would just lead to bleeding because this wound does not show any healing. The CT scan should determine any abnormalities in my Para nasal region. The result was negative. Click here for more.

16 Youthful Souls

This spring 2008, I have had a rare chance of meeting 16 Dalhousie students who studied with me a course, entitled SOSA 3186: Youth and Society: International Perspectives; a special topic offering under the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology.

Our first week was devoted to clarify conceptual distinctions among “age”, “generation”, “youth” and “cohort” with an end of understanding the fundamental basis of the academic enterprise known as sociology of age relations. Here we discussed about “youth” as a relational concept and as a social process (White & Wyn, 2008; Wyn & White, 1997) and how socio-economic and historical forces shape our knowledge of the process of “growing up”. Click here for more.

Sense of becoming

SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA, USA - Not too long ago, last August 30, 2003, I wrote a birthday poem for Robert. I remembered writing this poem inside the Canadian Martyrs Church (Inglis St., Halifax), penned it for 10 minutes as I was inspired by Robert’s employment in the US. He had the rare chance of working in Silicon Valley (California, USA), where the world’s best in information and communication technologies harbour. Robert happens to be one of these “high tech” guys, whose talent is recognized worldwide. Click here for more.

***

The Kite Runner and my creative istambay study

USA AIRSPACE, AIR CANADA FLIGHT 761 (from Montreal to California) - The last time I wrote my blog was more than five months ago. It isn’t because I do not have time to write, in fact, I wrote pages of insights on my personal journal, thesis drafts, and teaching modules. It is only now that I felt like sharing. “Being away” from my usual place of study gave me a sense of inspiration especially now that I am way, way up above the ground, flying-away from a tiring cold winter place to a sunny, summer-like destination like San Francisco, California. Click here for more.

***

Lessons from the last class
HALIFAX , Nova Scotia, Canada

esterday, November 29, 2007, I facilitated my last class. I felt a mixed sense of excitement and loneliness that I woke up too early at around 2:00 am. I know that yesterday was special because it was my last chance to interact with my 22 students as a “class”. (We started 24 but two dropped-out.) It has been a lovely academic journey with them, which may be the reason why I felt a bit sad. Often, when the reality of saying “goodbye” strikes my sensibility, it hits me with joyful pain generating neither contentment nor dissatisfaction. It was a feeling between “letting go” and “holding on”. Once in a while, I feel this kind of “contradiction” that I cannot fully explain, and whenever the theories that I know are unable to grasp my overwhelming emotion, I shut up!...Click here for more.

***

A certificate that bonds and bridges

HALIFAX , Nova Scotia, Canada -- I consider June 5, 2007 as one of my memorable days in Dalhousie University. It was a fine summer day. (Technically it is not yet summer but I am a Filipino, whenever I see and feel the sun, I call it summer!) The beautiful sun with its lukewarm temperament was ensued by the sweet breeze of the wind, which altogether gave me a sense of fulfilment. I have always wanted to graduate from my PhD studies. I cannot wait to finish my dissertation and graduate. I cannot wait to do other things beyond writing my thesis. I just want to graduate – and last June 5, I did graduate! Not yet from my PhD studies, but from the Certificate in University Teaching and Learning Program administered by the Center for Learning and Teaching ( Dalhousie University). It was a remarkable feeling being with fellow doctoral students from various faculties. I remembered the sumptuous lunch we had, and the fun-learning stories we shared with our supervisors. (Oh I loved this moment because my adviser did not get the chance to ask me about my thesis!)

The moment when Suzanne handed me the certificate, I felt a deeper sense of meaning. PhD work is not an easy task, in fact the more I think of it the more it becomes difficult. But these apparent complexities generated an illusion of meaning. Having the certificate on my hand, I realized that not only I will forever be indebted to the CLT for keeping track of the development of my teaching and learning skills through the various seminars and workshops they offered, and the lovely course I took under the instruction of Lynn on university teaching and learning but more so, (blaming my sociological training for thinking this way), I will miss the many fellow graduate students I have known, some of whom became my very good friends.

[I have had this similar opportunity of knowing other graduate students from different departments during the 2004 Teaching Assistants/Part-time instructors CUPE strike days. (Oh those were good times!) I would have wanted to have another strike this year so that I would make some more friends from other departments but it did not happen.]

The certificate program, in my opinion, has become a good occasion to meet other graduate students from different departments of our university. Thus, having this certificate does not only mean that I have a proof of training on teaching and learning but more so, what I have is a certificate that bonds and bridges social relations – reflecting the immense social network that have been built through this certificate program.

In sociology, the concept that captures this dynamic is the term social capital. One of its major theorists, Robert Putnam (2000) articulates two main components of this concept: bonding social capital and bridging social capital, constructs which were first developed by Ross Gitell and Avis Vidal (1998). “Bonding refers to the value assigned to social networks between homogeneous groups of people and Bridging refers to that of social networks between socially heterogeneous groups” (Putnam, 2000).

Playing with these social constructs, I am convinced that the CLT teaching certificate program is a social capital story for me. I consider myself as a lonely PhD student because I am the only cohort in my department. For the first four years, I have limited myself to the activities in our department. Of course I learned a lot from these interactions but the real world is not only about sociology. The real world is diverse and complex.

It was the bonding social capital that first worked for me, when a fellow PhD sociology student, Margaret, told me about this certificate program. She knows that I will like it and so, she encouraged me to register. Had it not for someone in my department telling me about this news, who took time in explaining its benefits; I would not have been interested in getting into this program, which requires “extra work”. So I guess, it is important that initially, there will be people from our respective departments who would encourage us to see that ‘learning how to learn’ and ‘teaching how to teach’ are essential features of our graduate life. By this paradigm, we can expect, to a certain degree, the birthing of the new generation of PhD students who are not expected to become boring lecturers or snob academics; whose primary interest is how to create what Fink (2003) calls as significant learning experiences. Thus, we become precursors of change in our respective department towards a creation of a new academic culture of teaching and learning. This mentoring dynamic will bond the very foundations of our disciplines between us, the future teachers and them, our future students.

On the other hand, in the process of fulfilling the requirements of this certificate program such as attendance to seminars, workshops and teaching conferences that make-up the professional development hours, as well as the one-term theory course, in my opinion, created a social network that bridged my sociological imagination with fellow social scientists, the engineers, the natural scientists, and the computer geeks inhabiting the various departments in our university. These training opportunities became occasions of articulating diverse thoughts and perspectives. I was exposed to the teaching strategies of biologists, chemists and engineers, as well as the learning preferences of those students taking their courses. I was able to give a share of my experience about teaching the social world, which to my surprise, was perceived as equally meaningful by my computer science and business management friends. Listening to these varying disciplinal perspectives allowed me to define my social space in the academic as well the practical world, in which I am constantly negotiating with.

Through the certificate program, my vision of the world has expanded because I did not only acquire a piece of paper but a piece of historical memory of the meaningful intersections I had with my fellow graduate students at Dalhousie University. Maybe in the future, I will find myself walking through the same bridge which was built through this training experience and who knows, I might come across old friends, and with our wrinkled eyes, we shall share the same laugh as I recall my old jokes. Oh yes, that will take me back to that lovely summer day when I received the certificate that bound and bridged my preliminary training on teaching and learning with the promise of becoming a sensible teacher and a life-long learner.

References

Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integration Approach to Designing College Courses. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Gitell, R., & Vidal, A. (1998). Community Organising: Building Social Capital as a Development Strategy. California: Thousand Oaks.

Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

***

September 7, 2007

Learning the first class

HALIFAX , Nova Scotia, Canada - I have always wanted to teach. For me, teaching is one powerful profession that has the capacity to effect change in the lives of those who actively participate in the learning process. In the classroom, I love the dynamics that transpires between the teacher and the students, and the ways by which topics and issues are discussed and debated upon. But what fascinates me is when such teacher-student interaction brings forth real learning, that is, when the lesson learned in the classroom leaves an imprint on the mind of the students beyond time and space.

Part of my PhD training here at Dalhousie University is teaching a course in our department. However, I chose a different path by developing an elective course not only for our Sociology and Social Anthropology department but for the entire Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and for other faculties as well. I thought of teaching a first year course on the various conceptions of cultures and societies using both the Western and Non-Western perspectives. To give it more focus, I designed it primarily for international students whom I thought will most need this type of course. I was fortunate to have been given the chance by our faculty’s academic council to teach this half-credit elective course this Fall term 2007-2008. The title of the course is Culture, Society and International Students.

Yesterday was my very first class. Out of the 14 who registered, 11 came. Not a bad attendance for a first day class, although I know that for some students, this day is like “shopping day”; they go from one class to another to see and feel which class suits them best! (I do not have a problem with this, only that I find it fascinating on how higher education in different parts of the world seems to be managed and driven by the dynamics of consumerism that has truly defined our present world order.) I wonder about the other three who did not make it? At any rate, I proceeded with the orientation to know who my students are; what faculty and department they are from; and what made them choose my course.

It’s an elective and most of them are candid enough to express that they think my course is an “easy” one. By “easy” it means that the course will not require so much of their time compared to the core courses that they are currently taking. Hmm.., they might be in the right elective course because I did not design the course to be “too heavy” for the students. The list of readings is short but insightful, and the requirements, in my view, are to a certain degree, “light”. However, what impacts me most is the nature of this metaphorical discussion about the elective class being “easy and light”, leading me to think that somewhere in the educational socialization of these students, studying appears to have become more of a task to accomplish or likened to a job to fulfill. The payment, of course, is the promise of “good” employment in the future. I cannot blame my students to think and feel this way because they know that they are preparing to run the “rat race” of the real world.

Thus, I ask myself, what about learning? I did not design the course for my students to just pass one more elective. Rather, I seek teaching this course as an educational opportunity to propose the making of significant learning experiences (Fink, 2003) with my students. I know that this process will entail good communication skills, creative class activities and lots of negotiations within and outside the classroom between me and my students.

Am I ready for the task? I am. But the significant learning experiences in my class will only occur when my fascination to teach is coupled by my students’ desire to learn. As I am excited to share whatever it is that I know about culture and society, I am hoping that most of my students will find it meaningful to participate in all our class activities, and thus, we shall learn together lessons that will leave an imprint in our respective lives.

Reference: Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integration Approach to Designing College Courses. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

***

July 2007

Summer 2007
This can be my last summer in Halifax.

***

January 2007

Growing-up on the margins of the virtual world
Welcome to my personal website.

Although I launched this website mid-2005, I have not updated it since. Guess I was too immersed with the world of social research limiting myself to thinking more about my dissertation project rather than making myself (and my views) known to the virtual world of the Internet.

My intention in having this website is not to advertise myself or my work, but to examine how many of those who have access to the Internet get to discover my existence. To date, I have a good number of online interactions as by-products of this website.

One was with an undergraduate student of the University of Santo Tomas (Manila, Philippines) who discovered my research works through googling. He was writing a thesis about the media and the Filipino youth and sought my help on the subject matter. With this, I realized that a website can be a powerful tool in ‘bridging connections’ among those who share similar interests.

 I, too, have had rekindled conversations with old friends who re-discovered me over the net, and new friends who shared fascination with the works that I have done or are currently doing.

Overall, I view this process likened to ‘growing-up’. This is because I have yet to really understand the technical logic of maintaining a website and exploit the power it endures.

For now, what this website offers is a new improved look with my biography, creative works, current research, selected publications and picture gallery.  I may still be on the margins of this virtual world, but should you find this website interesting, please let know by emailing cbatan@hotmail.com. I look forward to hearing your comments, my virtual friends.