By Pacific Island Times News Staff
What is it like to teach in Guam public schools? See the world of eight public school teachers, who authored essays offering different views of Guam's public middle and high schools.
The authors, who work at the Guam Department of Education, recently launched an anthology book titled “A Window Unobscured: Stories from Guahån Teachers.”
Launched on Dec. 9 at the Guam Community College, the book was the culmination of the Sigi Mo'na Manfafa'någue Project Ta Tuge' Mo'na.
“A Window Unobscured" is a collection of essays by Renee Julia D. Blancaflor, Sarah Damian, Pamela Yamashita DeVera, Marcy Ermitanio, Leah Fuentes Llegado, Christine Joy Borja Mallari, Andrealline Fajardo Mayoyo-Buan, and Piyamas “PJ” Sablan-Jalique.
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The teachers participated in the Sigi Mo'na Manfafa'någue training and content development project and had the opportunity to dive into a six-session writing workshop from November 2021 to March 2022.
In those sessions, curriculum topics included lesson planning, community building through writing, stages of the writing process, approaches to responding to student writers, literary strategies and instruction.
The project also held a writing retreat at the Merizo Seaside BnB in April 2022 to support the teachers in the final stages of their writing process.
“The teachers not only learned about the writing process method as it is used
at GCC and UOG for their own classrooms, they also used the method to develop their own essays about teaching at GDOE,” said Simone Bollinger, program developer and teacher trainer for the project.
"Their essays have been compiled into this book to serve as a resource for pre-service and in-service teachers, as well as educators at all levels so that the
lessons and experiences that have shaped them as teachers can be passed on to others," she added.
The book was edited by GCC Prof. Simone Efigenia Perez Bollinger and UOG
Prof. Teresita Lourdes Perez. A foreword was written by Roberta M. Abaday, a National Board-certified teacher and past awardee of the National State
Teachers of the Year, Guam chapter.
The Sigi Mo'na Manfafa'någue project was funded through the U.S. Department
of Education’s CARES Act, with support from Humanities Guåhan and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guam Community College and
the University of Guam.
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