<Greetings>

It is the teachers unique guidance and methods that urges his students to excel in all
that they do. As what they have said, teachers are like candles of the nation. Teachers
are the people who light the fire of learning in our children, making sure they develop
and make the most of their potential.

Over the past few days we have talked about how to ensure that this fire continues to
blaze within teachers themselves and how they can continue to develop, improve, and
reflect using these pedagogical skills to teaching.

Pedagogy can be defined as the art of teaching. It involves being able to convey
knowledge and skills in ways that students can understand, remember and apply. The
very essence of this seminar is to help teachers how to teach better. Having good
pedagogical skill is essential for classroom and behavior management. It enables you to
reflect on your teaching practices and identify what works and what doesnt. It allows
you to create a learning environment that is challenging, open, engaging and rich which
enables students to meet their targeted learning outcomes as well as being interested
and motivated. It also helps you to know your students more.

Let me usher to you the two elements which I believe are essential to this process: time
and trust.

Time because we need to make time. We, in the school administration, together with
other staffs of the university and you, the teachers from the different campuses, and of
course the government need time and space for that process of reflection, of evaluating
one another and of working together to achieve quality. We should always be ready to
ask those key questions: Is this the right approach? Why do we do things this way and
not the other way? Saying we dont have time for such matters is no longer an option!

Trust because we need to trust one another to give teachers the freedom to take their
own responsibilities. But that freedom is not without obligations for there are things that
we want and need to change. Teachers too will have to open up their doors: to one
another, to the school administrators, and to society at large. We need to make the
transition from classroom to a better world.

This seminar is highly informative and inspiring one. This is largely thanks to the input
from all these teachers in front of me and special word of thanks to the following people:
Dr. Joji Recamara, Dr. Corazon Ochotorena, Dr. Narcisa Bureros, Dr. Ninfa Pangilinan,
Dr. Patrick Galleto, Dr. Paterno Baguinat III, Dr. Jay Telen, Dr. Daylinda Luz Laput, Prof.
Maria Loreen Borgonia, Dr. Ma. Rio Naguit, Mrs. Bobmil Flores, Prof. Ma. Corina
Camazo and Mr. John Wayne Jacinto for sharing to us your expertise especially to
those who are not education graduate. Of course, to all who made this seminar a
success, thank you so much. We are looking forward for another seminar like this
because I believe this is indeed useful in your everyday classroom setting. It allows us
to reflect within ourselves that stepping back and letting students work things out for
themselves is the best way to achieve learning.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is no single best teaching pedagogy. Its effectiveness will
depend on the learning objectives, the learners and skill of the teachers. Let us work
hand in hand to give our students a better learning experience.

Before I end, I would like to quote the words of Pedro Noguera, We must teach the way
students learn.

Thank you and God bless us all.