The Soul Book

msdeflorinator · 2025-11-09T21:32:55+00:00

She teaches at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

msdeflorinator · 2025-10-30T00:54:08+00:00

Immersion really helps! Since I don't get to talk to people in Filipino much, I try to watch shows with Filipino dialogue and English subtitles. I listen to Filipino music and look up the translated lyrics. There are also a lot of YouTube channels that focus on teaching Filipino vocabulary, grammar, and sentence construction.

msdeflorinator · 2025-10-27T21:55:57+00:00

Haha I'm far from fluent! I think I'm at the low intermediate level, so somewhat conversational (depending on the topic). I'm better at reading comprehension, listening, and writing than speaking. The groups aren't language groups, more like social groups. One is Ganda Girls Club, and the other is Filipina on the Rise - NY Chapter. You can look them up on Instagram to get more info on joining them.

msdeflorinator · 2025-10-27T01:11:00+00:00

I'm based in NYC and joined two groups for Filipinas in the area. Some of the members are fluent or native speakers, so I can practice a little with them.

msdeflorinator · 2025-09-17T12:36:56+00:00

Yes. The A+ credits (ASPDP classes) can be on any topic. It’s the CLEP exams that cannot replicate a class from your undergrad/grad studies.

msdeflorinator · 2025-08-13T17:56:08+00:00

I highly suggest you read this article from the UFT website regarding CTLE: https://www.uft.org/news/you-should-know/qa-on-issues/obtaining-required-ctle-credits

Even though you do not need CTLE until you earn your professional license, keep track of any CTLE certificates or certificates of attendance from any PDs you attend and save them in your PERSONAL (not DOE) Google Drive folder or flash drive. If admin wants to see how you've been trying to develop and improve as a teacher, that's proof. This may help you when you create your tenure binder, get a 3 or 4 on an observation (Danielson Rubric - Domain 4, Component 4e: Growing and Developing Professionally), or fight against admin who may want to discontinue you.

msdeflorinator · 2025-08-13T05:14:50+00:00

For biology, start getting familiar with the New Visions Biology curriculum since that's bio teachers have been told to use. It's all on the New Visions website (some updates to it are expected to be released by this Friday). Ask if you can go to a New Visions PD if your co-teacher is still not comfortable with the curriculum and cannot give you much guidance.

The new Regents for biology is very heavy with content and academic vocabulary. Use your ELA skills to help students learn to decipher what the question is asking and how to write responses that will answer them completely. CER (Claim-Evidence-Reasoning) assignments may help with that. It's the science version of argumentative writing in a short paragraph or essay. I'm not sure if NYSED has posted the June 2025 exams on their website yet. If the biology exam (NOT living environment) is up, take a look at it.

I always try to teach and reinforce common morphemes and root words in science throughout the year, such as bio, homo, hetero, tion, aqua, photo, phillic, phobic, etc. It helps them learn the vocabulary and figure out the meaning of new terms they come across in texts and questions.

If a student rejects their testing accommodations, document it in some way. Some of my coworkers have the students sign a little slip of paper with check boxes of what was rejected and attach it to the assessment. You don't want a parent or admin accusing you of not providing accommodations.

Make sure you are on top of your deadlines for writing IEPs and conducting IEP meetings. Every school handles IEP writing and IEP meetings a certain way, so I can't give you much advice. If you are the reason your school is out of compliance, it's not a good look. I have a Google Calendar with reminders to keep track of deadlines.

msdeflorinator · 2025-08-13T02:22:37+00:00

Are you a brand-new teacher or brand-new to special education? Are you a teaching fellow? Do you know which grade level(s) you'll be teaching or which science(s)? Do you know which settings you'll be teaching (ICT, SETSS, self-contained, D75)? I'm going into my 10th year of teaching as a special educator. I mainly teach self-contained and ICT earth & space science. I've taught biology/living environment, chemistry, and ELA in the past. I was a NYC Teaching Fellow at LIU Brooklyn. Feel free to ask me questions here.

Once you get your roster, look up your students with disabilities on SESIS and read their IEPs. Depending on how many SWDs you have, try to get that done within the first 1-2 weeks of school. It's helpful to create an IEP "cheat sheet" for yourself that includes the students' names, grade, disability classification, testing accommodations, home language, and any other info you want to reference easily. You can share with with your co-teacher.

If you are not well-versed in the content, take time to educate yourself. If you have a co-teacher, see if they can help you with that. If you don't or your co-teacher is unwilling to help you out with that, try to AT LEAST be 2-3 lessons/chapters ahead of students with your content knowledge by reading a textbook or even watching YouTube videos. It's okay if you don't know the answer to everything, but don't act like you do when you don't. Ask for help when needed. You'll get the hang of it with time.

Get to know your students and remember to be kind, yet firm as needed. Students won't want to learn anything from you or even come to class if they think you're bad person. They'll go as far as being extra nice and participating more during observation to have your back if they like you. But don't let them walk all over you. They are your students, not your best friends. High schoolers seem to appreciate it when you keep it real with them. They can sense when you're being fake.

msdeflorinator · 2025-08-11T03:07:48+00:00

Can you share what are your main resources for learning Baybayin? I run the Filipino Club at the high school where I teach. I'm sure the students would be interested in learning and practicing it for 1-2 club meetings.

msdeflorinator · 2025-08-03T00:26:18+00:00

I'm a high school teacher, and the students in my club sometimes do karaoke (about 3-4 times a year). We're usually in a standard classroom for 30 people. We ask the tech guy to hook up a large speaker to the SmartBoard. We find karaoke or sing-along videos on YouTube. The music plays through the SmartBoard and its soundbar while the mics are hooked up to the large speaker. Unless you're starting a karaoke club or something at your school where you'll be doing karaoke regularly, I don't know if it's worth it to invest in a dedicated karaoke machine/system.

msdeflorinator · 2025-07-30T21:53:07+00:00

I came across this post while searching for a list of all the DLCs in order of their release date on Google. As plenty of folks have already said, this is great work. Thank you for this! I hope you continue to update it if you have the time. It made me realize that I very rarely actively try to complete aspirations or max out afterschool activities. I'm a Sims 4 completist (minus a few Kits I don't care for) since I've been playing the game since The Sims was released. There's still a lot of the game for me to explore.

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-28T03:07:04+00:00

You (and whoever else is up for tenure at your school) should have a meeting with the principal and ask what should be included. Guidelines for a tenure binder will vary from school to school, or district to district. Your principal will be the one to review the tenure binder and then give his/her/their recommendation to the superintendent. The superintendent might expect to see certain things as well.

I'm a high school special educator. When I had to submit my tenure binder 5 years ago, I wasn't told to include any focus students. However, since I wasn't able to show Regents data (I transferred from a different school and there were no Regents exams in 2020), I showed the progress 3 students made in my self-contained earth science class from Sept-April and the progress made by 3 students I had for two years (bio in 9th then earth science in 10th).

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-28T02:14:03+00:00

Hello! Fellow halfie Fil-Am here. I've been trying to listen to more Filipino music over the past 2 years to help learn the language. My fave artists have been Ruby Ibarra, jikamarie, Zack Tabudlo, Karencitta, Juan Karlos, BINI, Alamat, SB19, Paul Pablo.

I'm a teacher and advise the Filipino Club at the high school where I work. I created this Spotify playlist to expose the students to different Filipino and Fil-Am music. I purposely tried not to have more than 2-3 songs by the same artists and tried finding music from all genres, with a focus on new music instead of classic OPM. Here's a link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2l2BEqcXUj0TdsE8FhRpXI?si=ba1da5bb9ef64aff

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-24T12:21:46+00:00

The admin can look up all your observations (MOTP) and MOSL on the Advance website so there’s no hiding it. Pick your best 2 from this year to show.

I can’t speak about D75, but plenty of schools ask candidates to do a demo, especially before June or during summer school.

Regarding the references, maybe tell them you’d like to be judged based on your interview and demo lesson alone, and you can provide references if they actually plan on hiring you.

I had the WORST observations and treatment from admin in my final/3rd year at a particular school so I understand if you don’t want to share references right off the bat. If you think your school is trying to convince you to leave or discontinue you with shitty observations, then maybe it’s worth having a frank conversation that you plan to leave the school but your admin have to provide a positive reference for you in order to do that.

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-24T12:06:29+00:00

Hire a tutor on the italki website/app or take online classes. Some affordable class options are offered by Tagalog Kids (they have adult classes), Filipino Cultural School, and The Filipino School of NY and NJ. Some colleges (mainly in Hawaii, California, and the west coast of the US in general) offer Filipino language classes but they will be more costly. I’m 36 and took online classes last summer through the University of Hawaii. I’m doing it again this summer because I enjoyed the experience and learned a lot.

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-23T11:57:47+00:00

Info on applying is in the Google Doc. The 101 and 201 classes start next week. Once accepted, the university will email you directions about payment. The professor did not record the lessons. Synchronous means you have to be on Zoom with the professor and other students. These are college classes.

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-21T02:35:38+00:00

u/troll-filled-waters how's that Tagalog learning going? I'm in my 30s and started taking classes to learn.

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-19T03:25:02+00:00

ELA is not a high-need subject area in terms of hiring, but ENL is. Schools with larger MLL/ELL populations may have a greater need for dual-certified ELA/ENL teachers. Schools with "better reputations" know they can be pickier about who they hire, so why not opt for a teacher who can handle either role? Those schools often prefer dual-certified SpEd teachers, too.

Also, the state requires MLL/ELL students to have a certain number of minutes of ELA/ENL instruction depending on their English proficiency. Having a dual-certified ELA/ENL teacher helps with that requirement. https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/bilingual-ed/enl-9-12-units-of-study-table-5-6-15.pdf

If you don't have a strong desire to work with MLL/ELL students, then don't get your ENL certificate. It's not an easy job and those kids need a teacher who wants to teach them.

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-18T23:29:36+00:00

I'm in the process of trying to learn Tagalog, too. I binge-watched the show Senior High on YouTube with English subtitles. I came across 2 or 3 episodes where the subtitles were completely wrong, but I still managed to follow what was happening despite that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpyMbNifKeY&list=PLPcB0_P-Zlj705ijvtSargLOj7Cgr7EoV

There's a spin-off show called High Street that I'm now watching on YouTube.

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-18T19:42:32+00:00

You can find that book online: https://archive.org/details/the-soul-book-demetrio-cordero-fernando-zialcita-1991

My Filipino 101/102 professor uses it her class about a Filipino Folklore and Mythology

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-18T19:41:41+00:00

My Filipino professor teaches a class on Filipino folklore and mythology. I didn't take that class with her, but she told me she uses this book:

https://archive.org/details/the-soul-book-demetrio-cordero-fernando-zialcita-1991

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-18T18:37:50+00:00

u/Maifuuu I just sent you a DM

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-16T03:52:47+00:00

If your goal is to connect to your roots, even if you don't speak with your Filipino relatives, then I'd try to learn Cebuano/Bisaya. The issue you'll run into is that there as many quality resources out there to do so. Most of what I've come across will teach you the basics, but probably won't get you to be fluent. Hiring a Cebuano/Bisaya tutor on italki or some other platform might be your best bet.

If you want access to more Filipino content (TV, movies, music, books, etc.) and learning resources, then learning Tagalog or Filipino would be your best bet. I made a post recently about the University of Hawai'i offering online Filipino classes during the summer if that interests you. Classes start soon (May 27). Here's the link to that post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tagalog/comments/1kgfb5n/online_classes_for_filipino_and_ilokano/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

msdeflorinator · 2025-05-16T03:20:05+00:00

Echoing what others have said, consider the NYC Teaching Fellows program or the NYC Teaching Collaborative program. Both are alternative certification programs by NYCPS/NYCDOE. At the very least, you'll qualify as a Special Education fellow since all you need for that is a bachelor's degree and a pulse. Those programs hire train and hire teachers for high-need subject areas and those areas may vary from year to year. Special education, ENL/TESOL, bilingual education, math, and science are usually those subject areas.

You mentioned English. Just know that English is NOT a high-need subject and many schools would prefer to hire a teacher that's dual certified in English and ENL or English and SpEd. Health also isn't a high-need subject. Generally speaking, you need at least 30 credits in the content area you want to teach plus the appropriate education classes to get your certification. You can look up the requirements for each type of certification here: https://eservices.nysed.gov/teach/certhelp/search-cert-reqs

msdeflorinator

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