What does the Philippines mean to you?

Tomorrow is Filipiniana, a day to celebrate all the wonderful things about our host country. I wanted to really push my students to see Filipiniana as more than just a day where we ride on Jeepneys and eat yummy food. I wanted them to understand that we all have some connection to this country, regardless of our nationality or length of time we've lived here.

To do this, I thought I would use a Kath Murdoch thinking routine called CSI. In this routine, students pick a colour, a symbol and an image to represent their thinking about a particular topic or question.

The question I asked my students was: "What does the Philippines Mean to You?"

Through this exercise, many of my students who had initially thought that the Philippines held no significance to them, actually came around to seeing that, in one way or another, the Philippines is an important part of their lives. For students who already feel a strong connection to the country (those who are from here, or who have lived here all their lives), this was a way to reinforce their beliefs and show others how proud they are to be connected to the Philippines.