Speaking before the 1950 UNESCO General Conference, Dottoressa Maria Montessori stated: "The 20th century has the discoveries of two small elements which have influenced greatly the life of mankind — the atom and the child. The tiny atom became an instrument for waging war. Its destructive forces wiped out human lives in the split of a second."
She added, "Laws and treaties are not enough. What we need are the miracles of the ‘new children’ who enjoy working independently."
Half a century earlier, Dr. Montessori discovered these ‘new children’ together with the ‘new teacher’ in the first Casa dei Bambini (children’s house in Italian) at the slum district of the quartiere di San Lorenzo in Rome, Italy — a discovery of an alternative system of education. Writing a book about the system, which she introduced in her own school in Connecticut, USA, Nancy Rambusch entitled it, "Learning How to Learn". British educators rhapsodized about it. One of them, Dr. Mortimer Standing referred to it as a "revolution in education".
With UNESCO headed by Japanese Director General Koichiro Matsuura, the efforts to alleviate poverty through quality education is in full swing, particularly with this seventh cycle of the APEID Strategic Development meeting hosted by Japan’s National Institute for Educational Policy Research or NIER center at Meguro, Tokyo. This was organized by top officials of UNESCO Bangkok Regional office Dr. Zhou Nanzhao with Director Sheldon Shaeffer.
At the middle of this five-day conference, the Hiroshima University, a major APEID Associate Center and a Graduate School for International Development Cooperation, became our destination. Professor Yoshinori Tabata and Professor Shuichi Nakayama discussed the university’s focus on innovating quality teacher education in relation to national development in the Asia Pacific region.
The mission is to contribute to sustainable human-centered country development through jointly designed and implemented programs focusing on development-oriented innovation in education at the POST PRIMARY LEVEL particularly secondary school and teacher training programs.
During this conference, Dr. Zhou, in the spirit of UNESCO debate, entertained my argument that such ‘development-oriented’ educational innovation cannot be seen in fragments since education is a ‘process of becoming’ independent ‘from infancy to childhood to adolescence’. Therefore, since everything goes for sustainability, APEID must also respect not only the pedagogical division of education, but also its psychological nature. He and Dr. Shaeffer pointed out that Early Childhood Education (ECE) and Elementary Schooling or Primary School program come under APPEAL (the Asia Pacific Eradication of Illiteracy program instituted since 1986) while Secondary Schooling and teacher training program innovations are covered by APEID.
In other words, any fund sourcing for the continuum program of Early Childhood and Elementary Schooling will be drawn from the APPEAL budget, while that of secondary schools and teacher training will be drawn from APEID. UNESCO country projects get the so-called "Participation Program" funds of US$20,000 whereas regional programs involving several Asian countries have to use a bigger budget from the Regional offices of Bangkok (for education) and Jakarta (for science) or from extra-budgetary resources. The APPEAL budget for the Medium Term plan is quite large. The EFA-DAKAR public school pilots for Region 3 will need this funding for its primary school level.
What is the difference between the conventional and the Pagsasarili system? While traditional education sees the child as empty jars to be filled by all-knowing teachers, the scientifically tested 100-year old Montessori system from which Pagsasarili is derived provides a specially trained teacher to recognize the psychological strengths and learning ability of the three stages of human development: the absorbent mind of preschoolers; the enormous reasoning power of primary school children; and, the economic independence of the creative adolescent students.
While the conventional teacher directs himself to the memory power of the intelligence via books, blackboard and lectures, the Pagsasarili teacher is trained to condition students to work with self-educating apparata per subject — gradated in difficulties. The Pagsasarili child follows a cycle of work, respecting the materials and habitually puts them away in their individual containers. Each wait for their turn. There are sufficient materials and a series of exercises for each. They also have a control of error by which a child guides himself and need not be humiliated by the teacher.
Finally, the Pagsasarili child has such energy and love for work. Instead of getting tired, he is refreshed by it — all because the energy of his mind is synthesized to the work of his body. The secret teacher is truly busy within the whole 18 years of childhood.
For the past three years, my daughter Sara Francesca Soliven de Guzman and I, with the help of my senior teachers in the OB Montessori school branch of Angeles have been training and monitoring enough teachers to handle two sections of preschool, Grades I and II, who are now in Grades III, IV, and V. Although we shall have the Grade VI graduates by 2005, the fully trained students who started at the Montessori Pagsasarili preschool in 2001 will only graduate by 2007.
The OB Montessori Child and Community Foundation donated the hands-on Pagsasarili materials, which provide a continuum series of lessons in Practical Life, Language, Math and Geometry, Geography and History, Botany and Zoology for the exclusive use of the pilot classes.
Gradated in difficulty but effectively integrated two teacher training programs, one for Grades I to III, and the advanced one from Grades IV to VI have been drawn up as the Pagsasarili Cosmic Curriculum. Training and refresher courses have been done every summer since 2001 until 2007 when the high school will start.
Using the UNESCO strategy of partnership, Filipino philanthropists and companies have helped rebuild a lahar-damaged nine-classroom unit in the same compound of the Angeles Elementary School in Pulung Bulu. A second floor was added for the high school, as well as the orientation and training rooms of superintendents, supervisors, principals, and teachers of Pampanga, Tarlac, Bataan, Zambales, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, and Bulacan — who could eventually have each a pilot Montessori Pagsasarili school.
Education Sec. De Jesus: ‘A Promising Solution To The Dilemma Of Accessibility And Quality’
Greeting the inaugural assembly of Region 3, Regional Director Dinah Mindo and her superintendents, supervisors, principals and teachers, my UNESCO commissioners, Janet Lazatin (daughter of Angeles Mayor Carmelo Lazatin), representatives of donors Aboitiz and Lhuillier companies, Education Secretary Dr. Edilberto de Jesus spoke of the Philippine problem of accessing 100 percent education to Grade I, which usually results in less than 70 percent left after Grade III to complete Grade VI. UNDP statistics show that 11 million Filipinos, ten years old and above are functionally illiterate and therefore can barely be employed. He noted, in his 18 months work as head of Basic Education and the Bureau of Non-Formal Education, that the "universal access to education" is competing with the attempt to provide quality education. Although, more children in the Philippines are enrolled today, the complaint parents often pose — "Is learning taking place?"
Describing his impression of the Montessori Pagsasarili Grade I to Grade V students demonstrating Math, Geometry, History, Botany, and Zoology materials with such enthusiasm and focus, specially articulated in clear English, he remarked extemporaneously with a smile, a rare expression in his usual serious and contemplative face — "I see in this small pilot something promising. Perhaps, this will solve our dilemma of accessing quality education to public school children!" — the major concern of the Department of Education.
(For more information or reaction, please e-mail at exec@obmontessori.edu.ph or pssoliven@yahoo.com)