It was June 1985 when I first had a taste of teaching. I was filled with mix emotions. I felt very much alive, excited, and full of hope and of course great! How wonderful it was to teach! The flame of passion was burning me inside. Every class period was too short because I enjoyed every second filling my students with every drop of knowledge within me.

I was so full of passion for many years until one day; I was shocked to find out that I’m already burned out. I started to feel very bored, disinterested, useless, and lifeless. Each day seems to be a year. After ten years of teaching, the flame of passion extinguished. The passion and love for teaching became a routinary job discussing, giving activity, explaining, giving exercise, giving imaginary experiment, discuss.

Telling students to imagine and feel the concepts of the unseen became boring. Further, I discovered that boredom is very contagious. All my students caught the epidemic.

Every now and then I tried to be enthusiastic to bring back their interest but to no avail. After all who gets interested in something intangible? Figuring out how atoms, molecules, ions, gases, colloidal particles, solute, solvent, and mole look and behave could be a waste of time for the unmotivated and uninformed.

Thinking that I needed new environment and a new challenge, I packed my things, and turned my back to private school with the hope that the flame will ignite in my transfer to public education. A flick of hope came to me as I adapt to the new environment. But the spark was not strong enough, and despite all efforts, I remained exhausted and unmotivated. Not even the newly learned strategies and approaches could break the fangs of years of routinary life.

It was way back 2005 when I was asked by the principal to attend the FUSE Workshop for Chemistry Teachers in a very classy hotel in Metro Manila. Frankly speaking, I was not so excited over it. I thought I’ve attended numerous seminars already, I didn’t need another one. But then, my clamor to reignite my passion in teaching verged me to go.

The FUSE seminar, not like the seminars I have attended, is one of a kind. During the seminar we acted as students in simulated classes. This experience reminded us of the students’ conditions. Because of the FUSE, we understand the students better. Thus, we came up with better strategies, approaches outlook and most importantly, attitude towards teaching.

Full of hope and anticipation, I implemented the FUSE right away. The result of using the FUSE kit was way beyond my expectations. Going through each episode was really a wonderful experience for all of us.

Never in my years of teaching had I experienced such easiness and lightness in teaching, keeping the students’ interest for the whole period.Total change in the classroom environment has taken place. The students became more active and more compliant to the requirements. They really involved themselves in every activity supported by the FUSE episodes.

The video lessons are presented in a logical manner that students could really understand the concepts. What we used to imagine can now be viewed with vivid colors. The experiments that cannot be performed due to lack of materials are presented in the episodes together with the expected results.

Further the episodes are guided by questions, which can easily be answered by the students. There are questions that serve as guide for the teacher as well as the students to develop the concepts. There are also questions that are related to student’s experiences, making them appreciate more what they are studying. Using those guide questions we were able to come up to a most wonderful experience of teaching-learning process.

FUSE changed my students’ attitude toward studying and my attitude toward teaching. Because of the FUSE my passion and love for teaching was ignited once more. Because of the FUSE I became more confident in delivering my lessons. I really appreciate what FUSE has done to me so I required the teachers to use all available FUSE learning kits (Chemistry, Physics, and English) in our school.

EDNA B. LAUDATO
Langkaan II Dasmariñas, Cavite
09173756130
School Address: Congressional National High School
Via Verde Village San Agustin II
Dasmariñas, Cavite
Tel. No.: (046) 973 - 2534

Founded by Dr. Lucio C. Tan on December 1, 1994, FUSE seeks to improve the skills in English, Science and Mathematics teachers. Its programs include regular teacher training workshops; a post-graduate scholarship program for Science and Engineering teachers; production and distribution of telecourses in English, Elementary Science, Chemistry, Physics and Math; and a host of other educational programs in partnership with government and private learning institutions.