We
always get to the point where we have to pronounce the final words after we
start drifting away from each other. We do this to express rancor or love or
gratitude. This also gives us the opportunity to say about things we directly
or vicariously experienced along the journey of doing things we performed
together.
At
the beginning of the course, I mentioned that I want to know how guidance and
counseling impacted student achievements. In the process, I've met questions
that need insightful answers. I wondered if guidance can exist without
counseling or can counseling exist without guidance. I learned that these two
concepts – or human activities – are also two different things. They are not
transposable. They cannot happen in the absence of the other. Otherwise, their
goals to transform and improve life cannot be achieved. I learned that guidance
and counseling have to happen together, one after the other or both at the same
time.
In
doing our portfolio, I was bombarded with many apprehensions and awareness
about helping. We matter to the lives of those people around us. And
it only takes a touch of a hand or a tap on the shoulder to start the act of
helping and consoling. Our words matter to people who value us. That’s why when
we write them messages; we show them how we treat them. This portfolio has
compelled me to linger on the internet, to confirm my personal answers to
trivial questions. This portfolio has encouraged me to become creative. I
swear, I've never been this creative before. Even in my Humanities class. I
don’t like cutting out papers, or drawing things and mixing up colors. I am not
skilled in these things. But this portfolio swayed me to the other side. I
learned that I have the potential to be creative. I am creative, in the way I knit
words together or in the way I systematize my ideas. I am overwhelmed with
gratitude that despite the bunch of stuff to complete at the end of the
semester, I was able to accomplish them with patience and determination of a
teacher. I can’t believe I did this!
The
writing of my biography was very exhausting. Seriously, I suffered several
repetitive strain injuries on my right arm in the process of writing. You know
that feeling when your ideas are flowing ceaselessly and you don’t have the
speed of hand to write them all? It’s frustrating. The memories jam at some
portion of the paper and you don’t know how to unclog them. It is difficult
telling your own story because you have the opportunity to lie or just be
honest. You know you have to tell them honestly, without pretensions yet
you’re scared that someone will be reading them and they judge you because you
did those things in the past. But I acknowledge the fact that this writing is
only a way of getting acceptance of myself; that when I tell them about a part
of my experience, I unload the burden that I endure for so many years that I didn't share them to other people. I am thinking about the days in the future
when I tell stories to my students and I need to remember things in college. I
want to remember this because this is remarkably a great thing to remember.
I can’t tell exactly how much I learned in this course. My grades won’t
literally tell them. But when I wake up each day and I still have something to
ponder about from the making of this output, I know I have learned more than I
am ought to learn in this course.