The quality of teaching-learning environment is what counts
Congratulations for your very informative Education Section yesterday (1/19/12). The items in it gratified my curiosity about the K to 12 Curriculum which according to DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro will have cost P57 billion by school year 2017-2018.
As a retired (but not yet tired at 91) educator with 43 years (1941-1984) service in the public schools as elementary and high school teacher then as secondary school principal, and as implementor of the educational policies of various administrations I feel that I have sufficient basis for making a comment on this earth shaking revision.
While I agree that something should be done to improve, upgrade, and enhance the performance of our pupils and students so that when they graduate they either have employable skills and/or sufficient preparation for entering academe, I believe the solution does not lie in the addition of quantity of time spent in school but in the improvement of the quality of the teaching-learning environment where students are taught to love learning and will learn how to learn by themselves.
Why do I say this?
When I was Principal during the late ’70s and early ’80s, when I returned to my school (Quirino High School in Project 3, QC) after enjoying a grant from the Ateneo University to enroll in School Administration Course, I found the school ranked no. 27 among 30 high schools in the Division.
My staff and I together with PTA officers put our heads together and came up with a solution to the congestion (60 to a class), to the noise (3 shifts schedule where the next shift is already waiting in the corridors) to the dirty campus and stinking toilets.
We worked to provide a radical scheduling of classes A 3-DAY WEEK PROGRAM whereby only 1/2 of the school population was in the school in one day. The 1st and 3rd year classes come the whole day from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays while the 2nd and 4th year classes came on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays also from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with three 20-minute breaks for meals and rest.
The requirements of the DepEd of the time allotment for each subject were fulfilled. There was more time for extracurricular activities during the days off. Also the students were encouraged to get part-time jobs in nearby establishments such as in retail shops, beauty salons, automotive repair shops, and furniture shops which abounded in the area. The students not only earned money for their school needs but also honed their skills in their Practical Arts courses. Better still they gained the value of honest labor and strength of character. These values did not show in the results of the annual Division Academic Tests and the NCEE (which improved in two years time from No. 27 to No. 5) but in the grateful faces of their parents during graduation.
Besides, what is really the gauge of success in life? Is it financial reward because of employment? Is it a country’s high GNP? Or is it the degree of HAPPINESS shown by the number of smiling people one meets? I read in a news daily in the US last year that while walking along New York, if one meets someone who is smiling, he/she is a Filipino. The rest are hurriedly walking with frowns on their faces.
No, take it from this tested school administrator; it is not the quantity of time spent in school that matters in the long run. It is the quality of the teaching-learning environment that counts: good teachers — well trained and well paid are what we need who will be good models to her young, pupils of the skills and values they will carry throughout their lives.
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