Adapting Pagsasarili into the public elementary school

(Part II of “Reaching the milestone of providing Pagsasarili preschool….”)

From 2000 to 2018 the OB Montessori Child and Community Foundation piloted the UNESCO EFA Dakar quality school model for K to VI at Pulung Bulu Elementary School in Angeles Pampanga, fulfilling a MOA with then Region 3 Director Dr. Vilma Labrador. Although most of our Pagsasarili outreach projects were preschools, we attempted to include some experiments in other public primary schools of Cavite, Hulo Elementary School in Mandaluyong, Manila and Maria Kalaw Katigbak,  in Lipa Batangas.

The zero dropout experiment in Cavite public school

Formal experiments were conducted in 1988 and 1990 with the collaboration of DepEd and Seameo Innotech to determine how quality primary education not only helps decrease the dropout rate in public elementary schools but also improves students’ IQ level. The Zero Grade I Dropout experiment was conducted in the Bagong Bayan Elementary School of Dasmariñas, Cavite in 1990. This was fully supported by the Bureau of Elementary Education Region IV Director, Dr. Edith Carpio and Dr. Dinah Mindo of the Cavite Division. Grade I teachers were trained for six weeks to use the Pagsasarili materials in Language, Math and Cultural Arts. Two of them were selected for the experimental group of 70 children who were taught using the Pagsasarili materials for a period of five months. By November of that year, Dr. Mindo and her team’s evaluation of the children revealed that the experimental group performed better in Math, Sibika at Kultura and Pagbasa and Wika than the control group from the central Cavite Elementary School. Likewise, the experimental group had zero dropout rate, while the control group registered 2.5% drop-out rate. Dr. Mindo then recommended that the Pagsasarili “Zero Dropout Rate” Program for Grade I be adopted in other schools.

Mother-tongue instruction undermines the preschool child’s absorbent mind

With the K to 12 reform was the declaration to use mother-tongue as the medium of instruction for ECCD and K to 4 programs. This is a violation and offense! Maria Montessori emphasized the Absorbent Mind of the preschool child constantly absorbs impressions in his environment, including languages. As the child matures from preschool, grade school to high school, learning another language other than the mother tongue is effortless during the first stage of birth to six years. Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, have been struggling to learn English to be globally competitive. They found that introducing English to older children in grade school and high school has been  more difficult.

Inaccuracy of ECCD, R.A. 10410 that affects grade school

In March 2013, the Early Years Act was signed into law as Republic Act  10410. It is “an act recognizing the age from zero to eight years as the first crucial stage of educational development and strengthening the early childhood care and development system, appropriating funds therefore and for other purposes. Children aged from zero to four years shall be the responsibility of the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Council while children aged five to eight years shall be the responsibility of the Department of Education (DepEd).” It failed to recognize the psychological stages of human development: birth to six, six to 12 years and 12 to 18 years, concluded at 18 to 24 years. This is referred to by the four pillars of the UNESCO 21st Century Education – Pillar I Learning to be, Pillar II Learning to Learn, Pillar III Learning to Earn and Pillar IV Adulthood – Learning to Harmonize With Others.

More so, the early childhood education service of DSWD is now being overseen by the ECCD Council. Along with the implementation of the ECCD curriculum, the Council also goes around accrediting day care centers and day care workers. DSWD is then obliged to have their workers and centers comply with the ECCD requirements. This has caused the replacement of some Pagsasarili materials with ordinary toys and other manipulative materials prescribed by ECCD. A trained Pagsasarili teacher may be required by her DSWD head to follow whatever is needed to be accredited by the ECCD Council. But this contradicts the special attributes of the Pagsasarili teachers and its standard materials which has constantly upgraded the students’ competencies up to third grade for the past 30 years.

‘Planning the young child’s education’ –  a UNESCO-sponsored preschool manual (1997)

It took 20 years (1992-2012) to institutionalize ECCD into the Philippine Educational ladder. In 1987, then DECS Secretary Lourdes Quisumbing began the campaign to do this organizing nine kindergarten experts known nationally to be the founding members of CONCEP, the National Coordinating Council of Early Childhood Education in the Philippines, this included me. The late Dr. Quisumbing, assisted by her deputy BEE Director, the late Dr. Nita Guerrero, called for three national conventions to consult preschool educators and parents updating the criteria for quality preschooling. Then without fail Dr. Guerrero accompanied the whole CONCEP board to brief all the succeeding DECS and DepEd Secretaries, about the thorough attention given to establish quality kindergarten. This ultimately ignited K-12. By then I co-authored and edited the book “Planning the Young Child’s Education” – a guide for parents, teachers and preschool administrators in 1995 with 165 pages with charts and illustrations. Not since 1965 was such a book written.

Under-privileged parents invest more in Pagsasarili preschools than in free day care centers

Enrolment in our Pagsasarili preschools for 3 to 5 years old has decreased, since the five-year-old children are enrolled directly into Grade I. This is devastating because the five year old children in Pagsasarili Montessori preschool prefer to work on the most advanced lesson in Reading and Writing, Decimal Numeration using the golden beads representing unit 1’s, 10’s, 100’s and 1000 with corresponding number cards, the Asia puzzle map with 37 countries, while the threes and fours work on the 7 continents of the World puzzle map.

If it were not for the sudden decision to let fives go straight to Grade I, the Pagsasarili Preschool enrollment used to increase yearly since parents have observed that their Pagsasarili children excel in both private and public primary school, achieving advanced competencies, a feat that traditional education cannot achieve.

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