Feed the children first

Before we convene conferences on how to respond to the crisis in our educational system, let us feed the children first.

Reforming the curriculum is nice and called for, but unless we have children whose brains have been developed to absorb new knowledge, the outcome may be spotty.

After we get a good feeding program going, let us focus on training our teachers.

The basics should come first. Of course, they need good classrooms. They need good teaching materials. But we also need to focus on doing first things first because the challenge is overwhelming.

I am not an expert on child development, so I asked Google to help me understand why some things must be done first.

Interestingly, I found out that in Arizona, they created First Things First, a program to support the health, development, and early education of the state’s youngest children.

“First Things First partners with Arizona families and communities to help kids have the positive experiences they need to arrive at school ready to succeed. We do this through quality early care and education programs, preventive health efforts, and supporting parents in their role as their child’s first teachers.”

Why are they putting importance in out of school programs even before a child goes to kindergarten?

Simple. The negative long-term effects of early stress, poverty, neglect, and maltreatment are well documented in education literature.

“… research has shown that a child’s experiences in these early years — positive or negative, nurtured or neglected — directly affect how the brain develops, with long-term impact on the child’s health and ability to learn and succeed in school and life.”

Actually, the effort should start even before a child is born. The health of the mother, the nutrition she gets, and whether she is generally happy or stressed, all impact on the development of the fetus and the child.

So, the problem starts even before DepEd takes responsibility over a child’s education. The health and social welfare departments should have done their utmost to take care of the mother during her pregnancy. Otherwise, it will be tougher for DepEd to educate the child.

In this sense, it takes a whole country to bring up children properly. Rotary Clubs and other civic groups should put up feeding programs in their communities. Government may have a principal role and responsibility, but we must make sure pregnant mothers get good prenatal care and children in our communities are well fed from birth.

Now I understand why the late Gina Lopez, at one point, shifted emphasis from her educational television efforts to feeding the children first.

Businessman Ramon Ang also got it right when he launched a nutribun feeding program. San Miguel bakes those nutritious buns and distributes them to children. The effort, however, is limited and needs beefing up by other business and civic leaders so that more children will benefit.

Feeding the children is also an important part of the American public school system. My daughter, who teaches in California, was telling me that one of the bad effects of online teaching is that children from needy families no longer get their free meals.

We must take note, however,  that nutritious feeding must start very early… while the mother is pregnant, right after the child is born, and all the way through pre-school, kindergarten, and the early grades.

The other must-do is getting good teachers. I understand that this is a real problem for DepEd, specially in math and science. It is tough to get good math and science teachers, probably because if you are good in both, your career options provide more attractive alternatives to teaching in a public school.

I wonder how many graduates of our publicly financed science high school system end up teaching science and math in public schools? I am sure not so many. This is where an appeal to patriotism may help.

I have a niece in the US, a recent honor graduate from the University of Chicago. She is set to enter medical school, but will first take two years as a volunteer in Teach for America.

Raised in a well-off section of Washington DC, I am not sure how much exposure she had with the less fortunate in America. But she has a strong social conscience and was about to join the Peace Corps to teach in Indonesia or Latin America.

When the Peace Corps stopped deployment due to COVID, she decided to teach in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, one of the poorest areas in the country. She is having a good time teaching chemistry to 10th graders, lecturing to a hundred students at a time.

We need a local version of Teach for America. I recall we once had a similar one, but I am not sure if it is still ongoing. It would be nice to have someone from a Forbes Park family teaching in a public school in Sampaloc or Tondo.

Indeed, a Teach for the Philippines may provide an outlet for idealistic young students from UP, Ateneo, La Salle, and other top universities to serve the people without having to join the NPA. Young people from different socio-economic classes should get an opportunity to interact and banish preconceived notions of each other.

In fact, encouraging young students to volunteer to teach science, math, and English in public schools is far better than reviving ROTC if the objective is to instill love of country.

I am not saying we can forget curriculum change for a while and just focus on feeding the children and training our teachers. A good public discussion on what should be in the curriculum is important.

But first things first. Feed the pregnant women, the babies, the pre-school children, and those in the early grades. Secondly, train the teachers while attracting young college graduates who are good in math and science to teach our kids. We need to focus on doing first things first to get good results.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco