The Habitos wage a silent revolution in Laguna

Following the aroma of buko pies and the arrows pointing to popular hot springs in Laguna is a place where a silent revolution in education is taking place.

At Cahbriba Alternative School Foundation, Inc., students not only mind their homework and grades but sit with their parents, teachers, and members of the community in a Parent-School Improvement Council (PSIC), tasked to run the school’s affairs.

Teachers meet regularly to plan role playing, music, cooperative learning, exposure trips, inner reflection and other activities to encourage "learning by doing" and "learning while playing" among students.

The concept of a "school" is not limited to the four corners of the classroom but goes beyond 1071 Mt. Pulog Street, Los Baños Subdivision where Cahbriba is located.

A recent whole-day field trip in Pila, Laguna not only taught students the history and culture of old Chinese civilization in the country, but also math and science. A study on bees led to a trip to a bee farm in Ilog Maria, Laguna and inspired the Student Council to engage in the production of wild honey under an entrepreneurship program that their parents, the school and the community will help fund. An outreach project involved students in constructing roofs for shanty homes of squatter families in a nearby community.

At Cahbriba, American freshman student Mia Pettyjohn says: "Books are for research and are not to be memorized."

Nina Hilario, a senior, says she learns more from being exposed to the realities in a community than from being confined to a classroom. "Here, you learn more from asking and talking to people."

"In the traditional school where I came from, teachers focus on getting the correct answers from their students. Here at Cahbriba, there are no right or wrong answers. What teachers want to hear are our opinions – and we have a lot," freshman Katrina Distor said.

Seed of a revolution

Cahbriba is a non-stock, non-profit, non-government organization established in 1987 by Cielito Habito, UP Los Baños economics professor and former director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority during the Ramos administration. Wife, Pilar Habito, serves as president and chief executive officer of Cahbriba, but is addressed as "teacher", de-emphasizing the corporate hierarchy in the school setup.

Unlike most schools where the traditional notion of intelligence is based on a student’s I.Q., the Cahbriba approach to learning focuses on the "M.I." or multiple intelligences.

Pilar Habito says the theory of M.I. was developed by Dr. Howard Gardner, a professor of education at the Harvard University.

In a study on human intelligence called "Project Zero" that spanned a decade – from 1972 to 1992 – Gardner found that I.Q., which measures man’s ability to answer items on tests of intelligence, is far too limiting. I.Q., he says, boxes intelligence and "does not change much with age or experience". Instead, he discovered that there are nine types of intelligence that are located in the human brain. These are:

• linguistic (talent for speech and debate such as those possessed by writers);

• logical-mathematical (talent for numbers, analysis and problem solving like those of chemists, engineers and bankers);

• spatial (the ability to form a mental mode of a spatial world such as those of architects, painters, and photographers);

• musical (talent for configuration of sounds such as those of singers);

• bodily-kinesthethic (ability to solve problems using one’s body such as those of dancers, golfers and boxers);

• interpersonal (ability to understand other people such as those of ambassadors, salesmen, and counselors);

• intrapersonal (the ability to form an accurate model of oneself such as those of psychologists);

• existential (proclivity to pose questions on existence such as those of philosophers and bio-engineers); and

• natural (ability to observe flora and fauna such as those of biologists, ecologists, entomologists).

Habito says she learned about Gardner’s Project Zero when her eldest son, Cicero, studied Grade 1 at Martin Luther School in Cambridge, Massachussetts in the United States in 1979. The school, which was right across Harvard University, became the laboratory for Gardner’s M.I. theory.

At the time, Habito was working at the Harvard library while attending night classes in interior design. Habito‘s husband was doing a Ph.D program in economics at the same university.

Despite their hectic schedules, the Habitos would take turns supervising their son’s basic education. Gardner’s project encouraged parents to be "more participative" in school affairs, on the assumption that they "could learn more from their children", says Habito.

Parents formed a "reading fellowship" and would meet regularly outside of school hours to discuss projects and to read books with their kids. Cielito Habito says parents were required to devote time to help in the school. "Every other week, I went to school to sweep the floors in the morning," the former top government official narrates. Other parents, which included doctors and Harvard professors, also took turns in cleaning the classrooms.

The tasks may be menial but what was more important was the degree and quality of involvement of the parents in the school, Habito says. He realized that at the core of an "alternative" school is the formation of the family as a community. "Intelligence is not measured by I.Q. but how you use your knowledge to benefit the community."

Parental gauidance

Upon returning to the country in 1985, the Habitos decided to apply what they learned from the Harvard pilot project. Cielito Habito started to invite his colleagues from the UP Los Baños’ Department of Economics to bring their kids to their house.

The veranda at the Habitos’ two-story antique house on Mt. Pulog Street was transformed into a "play group" for five kids and their parents. "It was all play but it was guided play. Our motto was ‘learn while you play’," says Habito.

The project’s success prompted the Habitos in 1987 to "go deeper" into the study of multiple intelligences by setting up an "alternative school" called Cahbriba, which Pilar says is a Biblical term for "garden of love".

The school now sits on a 500-square meter lot at the back of the Habitos’ residential compound, donated by businessman Mario Labadan, an active member of the community. Its first building was also funded partly by donations and partly by the P250,000 Habito saved from a scholarship grant in Kyoto, Japan which he took before joining NEDA.

"Whenever I look at the school building, I would remember a car that I could have bought with the money I saved," he now says with a chuckle.

For its pioneering efforts, Cahbriba is a recipient of grants from two big foreign funding institutions. The school got a P2.4-million grant from the US-based Ford Foundation, Inc. for a project called PEACEWORKS (People Engaged in Active Community Experience Work), designed to effectively link schools with the community. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) also made Cahbriba the pilot site for a P9.8-million project that will enhance the participation of the youth in community-building.

Cahbriba also helps parents in the community run an autism center within the Habito family compound. The center houses around 40 special children. Aided by funding from the Australian government, the autism center is among the first its kind . Prior to its replication in 11 cities nationwide, children as far as Zamboanga were sent by their parents all the way to Cahbriba to receive special education.

Cahbriba has also adopted three public schools in the community, including one in a squatters’ area along the railway (dubbed Patay na Riles) which the Habitos used to visit to read books to children as part of an outreach program.

Soon, the school will also set up a cooperative that will be owned and run by the students, parents, teachers and other members of the community acting as a business consortium. The cooperative, which will be based on a sound business plan, will receive initial funding from Ford Foundation.

Future challenges

Carina Tanzo, an anesthesiologist, says she is happy seeing her two kids – one in grade four, the other, six – adjust well to the learning methods at Cahbriba after attending schools in Japan where the family was once based.

Carina says she usually hangs around the school compound to bring lunch to her two kids "and help them cope", mostly with carrying out conversations in the native language. She actively participates in the Parent-School Improvement Council and shares her knowledge of medicine with students and her fellow parents through free lectures.

Raymond Llano, an electrical engineer, says his six-year-old son John Ervie had been turned away by regular schools in San Pablo, Laguna after being diagnosed having an attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

"What struck me was Cahbriba’s learning model that is not just for the intellect, but it is more experiential… It opens one’s emotional avenues and creative alleys, not just one’s intellectual highways," Raymond says.

He says the school encourages parents to be heavily involved in their children’s education and "this made me learn more from my kid". Like the other parents, Raymond also shares his formal training with students. Being an electrical engineer, he conducts free lectures on changing the fuse box, safety wiring, and energy conservation, among other things.

Both parents agree that the "alternative" method of learning provided at Cahbriba makes their children better equipped and prepared to cope with real-life challenges. The bigger challenge, however, starts when their children leave Cahbriba and return to a "traditional" method where learning will be confined within a classroom.

Although Cahbriba is not about to teach other schools to reinvent the wheel, Pilar Habito says "we should recognize that there’s a new competency level, one that we need to produce 21st-century leaders."

Many countries, she says, are already moving towards the M.I. approach and are integrating the community into their school system.

High school freshman Katrina Distor says she looks forward to her high school graduation but is anxious to know what would be in store for her after leaving Cahbriba.

Asked what she would do if college turns out to be a disappointment, Katrina says: "Then I will just apply what I learned at Cahbriba. I might even teach my professor how to teach and learn the Cahbriba way."