COMING TO REALIZE WHAT A SALON TYPE OF CLASSROOM ATMOSPHERE WAS

I had another session of pedicure last Sunday, but instead of coming to this ‘suki’ salon of mine at 8 in the morning which I normally do to avoid waiting I came later in the afternoon because of some early errands.

As expected it was full packed, the owner do not accept reservations or appointments as it will just made some of their manicurist/pedicurist idle waiting for you if you would not come on the dot, or maybe just their anticipation of Pinoy Time, I understand them having to earn per toe that they had dug.

So, I have to wait for 30 toes to be finished before my turn, reading YES magazine was the best thing I can do to ease boredom, seeing Manny Villar’s enormous house, and talking to myself Wooah! Is this really what you will become of through ‘sipag at tiyaga’? I had been masipag at may tiyaga, how come I’m still a lowly pinoy? Oh yeah! Just me and my reckless thinking.

Somewhat like I’m doing an ethnographic study of the beauty parlor culture during that time I was there. While my eyes browse over the magazine leaves, my ears feast on the speckled stories here and there, there’s a lola that was laughed at by everybody when she stepped out of the parlor door having her toe nails colored in yellow, a Bombay that collects ‘pautang’ from the pedicurista, A boy that opens the door for alms and everybody was blaming the mother for not taking good care of her children, by the time my last toe was being polished the stories ended up with Willie Revillame’s mansion, in which all of them has a very good description of the house as if everybody has gone and has spent a night there.

When I was in college I can remember my professor would say, ‘I encourage a salon-type of classroom atmosphere’ at the beginning of the class. It made me realized that having this strategy for teaching will lead a class nowhere, but at some point this is also a good idea as it encourages everyone to chip-in their story of the moment.

But seriously, this kind of strategy in my class won’t work, students now are visual oriented, they learn more with visuals than mere chats of theories than confine them inside the classroom.

Thanks for reading, see you again for another experience in this side of town.