BPI SHAPE - YGOAL Project: Source Book on Personal Development for Senior High School

Personal Development and Entrepreneurship Resource Books  

Apart from writing stories for children and academic papers, I also write training manuals and teaching modules for teachers. In the past, I have done this kind of writing project with Ayala Foundation and Sa Aklat Sisikat (SAS). My years as trainor for teachers and workshop facilitator in storytelling gave me the hands-on experience in creating training modules. I was also fortunate to work with brilliant master trainors who I considered as my mentors.

When YGOAL came along with a proposal to write a source book cum training module for Senior High School teachers, I considered accepting the project. It was a source book on Personal Development and much of its content is based on the DepEd SHS Curriculum. The risk taker that I am, I said yes.

Rounding up a young team of librarians who can write and create content, we set forth on the journey, along with YGOAL people, Yani Alonto and JR Demacais. What proved to be a challenging journey was peppered with moments of insight, learning and reflection.

The writing team I worked with was made up of Darrel Marco, Ann Grace Bansig, Mennie Ruth Viray and Audrey Anday. They are amazing! While each of us has a module to write, at the home stretch, we worked as a team by pitching in work for a co-writer and team members when content and deadlines loom like Dementors on our path. Each librarian-writer made a contribution in the development of the modules, from content, validation, training design and facilitation. I am so proud of the team! As librarians, we were able to flex our professional muscles to become content developers. With a keen eye on research and skills on Information Literacy, we were able to create a new set of knowledge based on standards and prescribed criteria.

Yani Alonto as project leader is such a positive force to work with. His work experience as a teacher helped us understand the bigger task at hand and the details required for each module. He is patient and respected our artistic moods as writers. We were writing a training manual, yes, but enough creativity was given to us so we can give our best to the project. He also gave us enough time for research and development. This made the writing pretty much a manageable endeavor.

The "by line" gives you a good feeling.

As for myself, I can say that I enjoyed working on the project because, as a high school librarian, I can see my students in the modules I worked on. Teenagers may come from varied demographics, but a common thread binds who they are regardless. They are young people on the road to self discovery. As a writer of the training module, I had to provide activities for teachers to use that will allow these young people to gain confidence in themselves, within a designed environment that is kind and compassionate, fair and good.

Finally, the project ended with a Training of Trainors (TOT) in two high schools: one in Laguna and one in Taguig. I look forward to phase 2 of the project. This is the real test of the modules for teachers will be using them as part of their teaching arsenal. Then, we will know how to further improve this!