De-marginalizing Education

2nd Philippine Conference-Workshop on MTBMLE

2011-07-29T09:51:00.002+07:00

Venue : Iloilo City (the site of the Aguilar Vernacular Education Experiment in 1948)
Date: February 16-18, 2012 (coinciding with the International Mother Language Day)

Call for papers will be sent out soon

Suggestions for the program are welcome -- email: mlephilippines@gmail.com

First congressional hearing on language in education

2010-08-19T23:00:00.002+07:00

this is a note i posted in my three egroups - TEDLOOP (Teacher Education and Development), MLEPhilippines, and Talaytayan

I attended the congressional hearing yesterday where the English Only bill of Gullas and the MLE bill of Gunigundo were presented. It was an SRO and there was a certain feeling of excitement in the air. Kudos to Cong. Gunigundo for giving a powerful and convincing presentation (which Nap Imperial described as “pamatay”). Also kudos to USec Yolly Quijano for her bold assertions that DepEd favors the MLE bill because it develops the cognitive abilities of the pupils leading to acquisition of reading and math/science skills. She also cited several MLE experiments in a number of schools all over the country. The Chair of the Basic Education Committee, Cong. Salvador Escudero III facilitated the discussion quite dexterously. The Bicolanos should be proud of him.

Cong. Magi’s presentation highlighted the Thomas and Collier study, the economic benefits of MLE and PNoy’s speeches extolling the value of MLE. Later, there were many congressmen who manifested their support for the MLE bill in spite of the fact that during the last congress, majority of them supported the Gullas Bill (something that Gullas would harp on every now and then). Especially supportive was Cong. Henry Teves from Region 8 who said that he survived early schooling (with Tagalog as MOI) simply because his mother (a native of Laguna) gave him extra help at home but he pitied his classmates who had to struggle with an unfamiliar MOI. He said that when he heard about the Lubuagan study two years ago, he asked DepEd to implement MLE in his district. He was proud to talk about the MLE initiatives in his area. Cong. Fatima Dimaporo spoke saying that she was particularly impressed with the idea that MLE develops the child’s cognitive skills. The congresswoman, a young charming lady probably still in in her 20s, said that her L1 is English which was reinforced by her schooling experience in Brent. However she admitted her feelings of regret for not learning her ancestors’ languages–Maranaw and Binisaya.

Cong. Gullas’ main argument was that his bill had previously gained the support of the majority and that it responds to the failing English proficiency of our children. He also cited our pupils’ dismal performance in Trends in International Math and Science Study. Unknown to him, NISMED had a study attributing our students’ poor performance in TIMSS to the non-use of the mother tongue in teaching science/math concepts. Joining Gullas were Cong. Eulogio Magsaysay and Cong. Carmen Cojuangco. I was quite disappointed with our congressman from Pangasinan (Cojuangco) who said that the pupils in her area (5th district) knew little of Ilocano anymore and so they should just focus on learning English (and let go of the little Ilocano they still have!) At the end of the hearing, Gullas and his camp capitulated and said that they were willing to work for a melding of the two bills.

The two camps already agreed on the use of mother tongue from pre-school to grade 3. Differences to be discussed are :

1. MOI for grades 4-6 . Cong. Magi said grades 4-6 will be a transition period and MT should still be used to scaffold learning but that Filipino/English would be introduced gradually. Cong. Gullas insists that English should be introduced abruptly.
2. MOI for high school. Cong. Magi proposes that Filipino and English should be used as MOI in high school while the Gullas camp insists that English alone should be the MOI.

We hope that whatever compromise between the two bills the two camps come up with, it will be something that would best facilitate learning and the development of cultural/linguistic pride among our young ones. We hope too that the groundswell for MLE would continue, especially when it is debated on in the plenary. In spite of the presentation of research reports saying that MLE promotes language learning, many congressmen still mistakenly think that MLE retards the acquisition of the English language.

Somebody in the Senate (Guinguna, Recto Escudero?) should now immediately file a Senate counterpart of the MLE bill.

Let’s keep hoping, praying and working for the best. Will inform you about the schedule of the next hearing so that you can be there too.

PNoy's New Education Team

2010-08-04T07:39:00.004+07:00

The only familiar name is Dr. Yoly Quijano. I know her to be a sensible and low profile (not into grandstanding) leader. She has been with us in promoting MTBMLE being a major implementor of the Lingua Franca Project. I hope that during her stint as USEC she can push strongly for BESRA (financed by a $200 loan from WB but was stalled since 2005 because of lack of push from GMA's administration).

Googling the other DepEd appointees showed that they are from the private sector, mostly products of Jesuit-run universities (working with a boss who virtually spent all his schooling life in DLSU). They are new to the basic education sector and will need sometime to know the intricacies of basic education, as a bureaucracy, a sector and a discipline with its own history and worldviews. I am pretty sure that their children have been educated in the private school system. It will take some time before they would see and understand the culture within our public school system. I hope they will try their best to immerse in the system so that they will earn their right to lead and not be treated as perpetual outsiders.

They will take their seats during a time of massive hemorrhaging of our workforce. Flights are canceled because 25 PAL pilots have left the country and more are posed to leave. There was misforecasting of weather because our experienced meteorologists are gone. Not too long ago we read of hospitals closing down due to lack of doctors. And so on. I wonder how corporatist neoliberal minded leaders would address this concern. It would be interesting to see what kind of market oriented solutions they will craft together to address a problem caused by the same worldview that they subscribe to.

Their presence in DepEd would reinforced the managerialist orientation to our education system. It has its advantages since it tends to promote efficiency, accountability and bottomline kind of thinking. However such orientation when pushed to the extreme tends to be pro-globalist, prescriptive (accdg to global/western standards) and sees learners more as labor inputs. It does not place much value on strengthening cultural identities and local knowledge, contextualization of education to local realities and the formation of critically minded citizens. These concerns are marginalized in a pro-market corporatist educational system.

My only hope is the fact that PNoy's new usecs most likely come from a business group that in the past advocated for transformative solutions like MTBMLE and school-community partnerships. I wish them all the best.

about sexuality education

2010-07-14T07:57:00.004+07:00

All the brouhaha about sex education may be caused by the fact that English is not our first language. If we translate "sex" to Tagalog or any Filipino language, it would refer to coitus or the sex act. For one, how would you translate sex education to Tagalog? For most native English speakers, the word sex has a broader meaning and they have long used it in academic discourse. However, the UNESCO's framework on sex education uses the term "sexuality education." I think that's a more appropriate term. The material has been around for sometime and interestingly its curriculum is much broader than sex. It covers friendships, courtship, family relationships, physiology, gender issues and the like. DepEd should have referred to it before coming out with the mislabeled sex education. It could have been called gender, family and sexuality education. I also hope DepEd is not copying everything from that UNESCO's curriculum. It is very western in its assumptions. It should be situated into our culture and context.

A while ago, I was talking to Julie, a laundry woman with seven children. She said that she needed some money to have their flooring repaired. It sagged due to the recent typhoon. She is slaving herself to death just to provide for the basic needs of her children. Her husband was recently hit by a jeepney while negotiating the highway driving his padyak which he uses for collecting junk materials. During summer Julie sends her kids to take in summer jobs so that they would have money to buy for their enrollment needs. Now she is worrying about the future of her eldest daughter who is supposed to enter college next school year. She was asking if there is a job for her that would support her college education. Earlier, she was relating how her son would go to school without enough money to buy for food. For lunch, he would buy a cup of rice and ask for a little sabaw as his ulam. Many times he would walk to school so he can use his meager allowance for a more urgent need.

I asked Julie if she ever said sorry to her kids for not providing them their needs. She said she couldn't do it but she said that she is definitely repentant (nagsisisi) that she bore so many children that she cannot adequately support. Seeing the daily saga of Julie and millions of families like hers makes me wonder why there is such a strong resistance towards sex education. It is like depriving children of information that can save their own bodies and from having a future like Julie's.

The UNESCO's document harps on the danger of AIDS and STDs as the main reason for sexuality education. Tho such diseases are also on the rise in the Philippines, I think the more pressing reason for sexuality education is to develop responsible parenting. Anyway, only a small percentage of the youth becomes vulnerable high risk sexual behavior. Majority would become normal parents.

I think we all should open our eyes to increasingly difficult lives of large families around us. We should not just say they live in poverty but we should be aware how poverty is translated in their daily lives, specifically in ways that affect their health and the education of their children. I am sure that most of such parents, like Julie, would also say that how they wish they planned their families well. That should make institutions like churches, schools, media and others apologize or at least feel sorry for not doing their job in enabling young people acquire responsible parenting skills. This would be a good starting point for a program like family/gender/sexuality education.

12 years of schooling

2010-06-30T13:44:00.002+07:00

I am happy that during his campaign period, PNoy included in his platform the use of the mother tongue in education. This would certainly help facilitate his other platform -- the "every child a reader" program since it was found that children learn to read more quickly and with comprehension when texts they read are in their mother tongue (of course since it is the language that they understand the most). Aside from facilitating acquisition of reading skills, MTBMLE also makes education truly inclusive.

But what dismays me about his education platform is the first in the list-- implementation of the 12 years of schooling. Even my little kid who heard the news from TV queried why such move when we have a shortage of teachers, classrooms, desks etc? When I asked the proponents of longer schooling about the reason for such move, the only reason they can give is that we are the only of two remaining nations that have 10 yrs of schooling. The rest of the nations have 12 years. They cannot give any other reason. It does not make sense that we make such billions of pesos move when we only want to be like the rest. The only reason I can think of is that in our marketized system, education provides business to many.

Installing longer years of schooling presupposes that schooling is the only source of knowledge. Learning happens informally and nonformally and DepEd's role must increasingly towards the certification of learning. Such is the specific function given to BALS. Unfortunately due to the low passing rate of A&E exams (cannot go beyond 30%), they now require that every exam taker should go thru the BALS modules. What they should do instead is to make their assessment tools more attuned to the language and knowledge construction of their takers. Make the exams less dependent on paper and pencil tests and I am sure there will be more passers. Unschooled individuals are often streetsmart. They can understand their world and are able to function at work using their own Math and management skills. However exams are constructed in a very schoolish language and form.

Instead of longer schooling, what DepEd should do is to increase the quality of our ten year schooling. If that does not work then address the length of schooling. Extending the years of schooling of poor quality education would make education more oppressive to children and their family.

And if they are really bent on becoming like the rest of countries in the world with 12 years of schooling, then they should at least provide a means for acceleration, accreditation and equivalency so that learners who are able to acquire knowledge from non-school resources would not need to go endure the 12 years of schooling and have other options to gain that piece of paper called diploma.

De-obssessing ourselves from English

2010-01-28T16:59:00.000+07:00

As I travel around and talk to various people about the issue of language in learning, one thing I found so glaring and quite worrisome is our pathological obsession towards English. I agree that English provides a great advantage to many. It would enable you to communicate to more people in the world and make sense of the language of the Internet.

However, we have gone far beyond seeing English language as a tool to be deployed according to our purposes. We have become its slave. We hear ourselves saying, "edukado siya kasi magaling siya mag English." It does not matter if that person does not pay his taxes and maltreats his employees.

We also hear, especially the way people describe TV personalities, "Wow, ang talino niya kasi magaling mag-English at may slang pa!" Of course, those young stars were raised in America. We also make parody and overly criticize people who speak "carabao English." I see it though as an honor to the carabao. I find people who speak the carabao English as the most creative and empowered. It's like a teacher who said, "that child recitates a lot." It might sound reprehensible to her supervisor but at least that teacher was able to invent a new verb form that might be included in a dictionary someday (like the recent word "mentee"). At least that teacher put words to her thoughts. Most people would simply remain silent listeners and passive spectators refusing to engage in a thoughtful discussion simply because they are afraid that they might be criticized for their grammar and pronunciation.

It is our obsession for English that we began to believe that the purpose of schooling is for people to learn English. The streamer that we often find hung at the gates of many schools announces-- "We are an English speaking campus." This indeed speaks about the frivolous expectation of parents who would sacrifice a lot to pay the expensive tuition fees of such schools.

Our fixation for the English language is tragically manifested by the insistence of authorities to use the language as the medium of instruction. I can't still understand the logic of such policy. English is used as medium of instruction for intellectually demanding subjects like Math and Science for the expressed purpose of strengthening the children's knowledge of the language. Science and math virtually became language classes. It does not matter if at the end the children were not able to comprehend, analyze, critique, compare, synthesize, extrapolate the rich concepts found in math and science.

Our pathological obsession for the English language can be partly explained through our history of institutionalized education. The introduction of free mass public school system by the Americans as recorded in legal documents was said to be a strategic means to assimilate the Filipinos into the American culture. The main tool was the imposition of English as the only medium of instruction. Children from day one in school had to listen to wonderful and stimulating stories told in the English language. They were forced to write their thoughts and feelings using the same language. And yet since English was not the language of their soul their output, if there was any, was not comparable to that of the native English speakers. I am not discounting the fact that there are Filipinos who have learned to write well in their second language. But that came about after much struggle. And oftentimes, those writers or scholars are not as articulate or even literate in their local language.

The use of mother tongue based multilingual education provides a fissure to the seemingly indestructible English Only narrative. It provides us with the opportunity to be diagnosed of our pathological obsession and grieve over our silenced childhood and of the lost opportunities to speak and write from our soul. The grieving and healing process would result to regained courage and confidence to rectify the past and ensure that the 22 million Filipino children in school today would learn in a kinder and more humane environment.

UN Report on Phil Education and MLE

2010-01-20T23:45:00.000+07:00

The article below appeared in today’s paper. It highlights how we are trailing behind in providing quality and inclusive education. The report points to poverty and regional disparity as the main reasons for the sad state of education. As a remedy, it prescribes that we make it as an urgent priority the use of the local language in education.

In our MLE lecture-forum at Valenzuela City last Monday, the Div Supt verbalized her sense of awe in seeing the passion and sense of idealism among the MLE teachers that we trained last summer. It must be unusual for her to see the usually docile grade one teachers voicing out their excitement over MLE (before a big crowd) and giving concrete and intelligent recommendations in making the curriculum MLE friendly. One teacher said that MLE indeed is effective in developing thinking skills among her pupils and for the first time she is assured that her pupils are indeed learning.

After that meeting I came to realize the value of MLE as an avenue for education reform mobilization. MLE has become not a mere rational choice for the best teaching method or innovation. It departs from the usual technicist/program-oriented discourse on education reform that is often top down or “pinatulo” instead of bottom up or “pinatubo”. MLE is about acquiring a new set of mindset and pedagogical/cultural orientation that enables each teacher to develop creative and contextualized approaches. It is indeed encouraging to find that MLE has the capacity to stoke passion and touch the yearning of every Filipino teacher and education stakeholder for inclusive/quality education and also for cultural/linguistic pride.

Ched Arzadon
www.mlephilippines.org
www.mothertongue-based.blogspot.com

Inquirer Headlines / Nation

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100120-248349/UN-RP-trails-Tanzania-Zambia-in-education

UN: RP trails Tanzania, Zambia in education
By Philip Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: January 20, 2010

MANILA, Philippines—The United Nations has warned that the Philippines is in danger of leaving the poor behind when it comes to their education.
Noting an “absence of decisive political leadership,” a major UN report on education on Tuesday said the Philippines was in “real danger” of missing its target of providing universal primary education by 2015.
The 2010 Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report, which was launched by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at UN headquarters in New York cited the Philippines as a “particularly striking example of under-performance” in educational reforms as its current polices were failing to make a difference in improving the education of the poorest Filipinos.
“Education indicators for the Philippines are below what might be expected for a country of its income level … With an average income four times that of [African countries] Tanzania and Zambia, it has a lower net enrollment ratio,” the report said.
“The unfavorable comparison does not end there. Whereas Tanzania and Zambia have steadily increasing net enrollment ratios, the Philippines has stagnated,” it said.
RP could miss its goal
“Given the country’s starting point in 1999, achieving universal primary education by 2015 should have been a formality. There is now a real danger that, in the absence of decisive political leadership, the country will miss the goal,” the report added.
The Global Monitoring Report (GMR) is produced annually by an independent team of UN experts and is published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The report assesses the global progress towards the six EFA goals to which over 160 countries committed themselves in 2000.
These goals include expanding early childhood care and education, providing free and compulsory primary education for all, providing learning and life skills to young people and adults, increasing adult literacy by 50 percent, achieving gender equality by 2015, and improving the quality of education.
In the portion “The Philippines—leaving the marginalized behind,” the 2010 report said “extreme poverty and regional disparities were at the heart” of the mismatch between the Philippines’ income level and its poor educational outcomes.
It noted that, in 2007, the number of out-of-school youth aged 6 to 11 “broke through” the one-million mark and “there were over 100,000 more children out of school then than in 1999.” It added that around one-quarter of those entering school drop out before Grade 5.
Deeply marginalized
“The net enrollment ratio was 92 percent in 2007, which is comparable with countries at far lower levels of average income, such as Zambia, and below the levels attained by other countries in the (East Asia) region, such as Indonesia,” the GMR said.
“Why have countries that were so close to universal net enrollment at the end of the 1990s failed to go the extra mile? One factor is the difficulty in extending opportunities to certain regions and parts of society,” it added.
The report said that this happened to countries like the Philippines and Turkey that faced “problems of deeply entrenched marginalization.”
“In the Philippines, marginalization is strongly associated with poverty and location, with the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and some outlying islands falling far behind,” the GMR said.
Low investment
“It is evident in the cases of the Philippines and Turkey that current policies are not breaking down inherited disadvantage. One contributory factor is the low share of national income invested in education,” it added.
The report noted that the gap separating the poorest 20 percent of Filipinos from the rest of society was “far wider than in most countries in the region.”

“Those aged 17 to 22 in the poorest quintile average about seven years of education—more than four years fewer than in the wealthiest 20 percent. Data on school attendance provide evidence that current policies are not reaching the poorest,” the GMR said.
“Around six percent of 7- to 16-year-olds from the poorest households are reported as not attending school or to have ever attended. Extreme economic inequalities fuel education inequalities, notably by pushing many children out of school and into employment,” it added.
Deep fault lines
The report said regional data also reveal “deep fault lines” in educational opportunities within the country.
“Nationally, about six percent of those aged 17 to 22 have fewer than four years of education. In the best-performing regions—Ilocos and the National Capital Region—the share falls to one percent to two percent. At the other extreme, in the ARMM and Zamboanga Peninsula over 10 percent fall below this threshold,” the GMR said.

“The disparities are driven by a wide array of factors. The impact of high levels of poverty is exacerbated by conflict in Mindanao, and by the remoteness and wider disadvantage experienced by indigenous people in the Eastern Visayas and Zamboanga,” it added.
The sound of howitzers
To give a “human face” to the conflict in Central Mindanao and its ill effects on education in the region, the report included the story of 13-year-old Muhammed, a refugee living in a tent on the grounds of Datu Gumbay Piang Elementary School in Maguindanao.

“Most of the children come to class to escape the dismal living conditions in their tents. But there is no immediate escape from the destruction and violence they have witnessed,” the report said.

“When the children are in class, they are either lethargic or very nervous because [evacuees] often hear howitzers being fired not far from [them],” it added.
Quoting an evacuee who works in the school, the report said: “‘Students are often absent because they spend hours lining up for rations and water at the pump or because they’re sick.”

Shortages
Given these problems, the GMR said Filipino authorities faced “difficult policy choices if the Philippines is to achieve universal primary education by 2015.”

“Far more weight has to be attached to reaching marginalized populations and providing them with good quality education. Social protection and conditional cash transfer programs, such as those in Brazil and Mexico, could play a vital role in combating child labor and extending educational opportunities to the poor,” the GMR said.

The report added that another urgent priority was the use of local language when it comes to teaching in indigenous areas.

“The diversity of the challenges sets limits to what the central government can do. Regional and sub-regional authorities need to develop and implement policies that respond to local needs. However, the central government could do more to create an enabling environment,” the GMR said.

“The education system suffers from chronic shortages of teachers and classrooms, rising class sizes and low levels of learning achievement. Addressing these problems will require an increase in the 2.1 percent share of national income directed towards education in 2005—one of the lowest levels in the world,” it added.

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Clearing our waterways -- Bued's Success Story

2009-10-06T23:18:00.004+07:00

A week after Typhoon Ondoy, with 400 people killed and billions of pesos worth of damage and loss, people are beginning to realize that all these could have been minimized, or even avoided, IF we did not allow our waterways to be a free-for-all dumping site. Now there is an urgent call to unclog our drainage, clear our creeks and rivers, and instill proper waste management. Local executives are even threated to land in jail if they refuse to cooperate. If only local ordinances, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003) and the Clean Water Act of 2004 (RA 9275) were enforced and properly inculcated right after they were enacted long time ago then we could have had a lesser burden now. The thought reminds me of my MA thesis which is an ethnographic report about a flood-prone village in a peri-urban area in the Northern Philippines. Through persistent efforts of their local leaders, they were able to clean and revive their biologically dead river and inculcate proper waste management practices in every household. Below are excerpts from that study which is entitled "The Greening of a Local Community."

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Barangay Bued is located in Calasiao, Pangasinan. It is a town known for its puto (rice cupcake), a favorite “pasalubong” (take home gift) among travelers in the area and tourists from other parts of the country. The main road by the plaza has a long line of commercial stalls displaying huge mounds of its own brand of rice cupcake. This native treat is characteristically small, about half the size of a ping-pong ball. It comes in white or amber with a soft and chewy texture, a bit sticky, and sweet. It is worth the detour—something that motorists have to do to buy some since the town plaza is not along the main highway. During an extremely heavy downpour, however, motorists would think twice before passing by the area since it is prone to severe flooding.

The town lies on a major route that connects the three cities in the province. Due to the town’s flat topography, it is often among the worst hit when flood submerges the province. The town’s 24 barangays are usually subjected to moderate flooding and, occasionally, severe flooding. And severe means floodwater reaches the rooftop. The same record states that that flooding is due to two nearby hydropower plants, known to release water during a heavy rainfall (Land Use Plan, 2000). And another hydropower plant—considered Asia’s largest—has just been constructed in close proximity.

Barangay Bued is geographically located at the central region of the province. The town lies on a major earthquake fault line, the San Manuel fault line. Its relatively flat terrain makes it favorable to urban development. Hence, though its land use is still predominantly agricultural, there has been a trend of using former agricultural lands for urban land purposes to accommodate the spill over of robust commercial activities from the nearby business and educational centers of neighboring cities. (Land Use Plan, 2000).

The barangay has an area of 158.3 hectares and a population of 5,500 as of 2000. According to an estimate, by year 2010, the population would reach 7,123 with a density of 45 individuals per hectare (Barangay Bued Experience, 2004). Though it occupies only 2.9% of the total land area of the municipality, Barangay Bued is known to be the third most populated and fourth densest barangay. It is linguistically homogenous since 94.8% of its population speaks the local language (Land Use Plan, 2000).

There are two main streets in the village and they are lined with tightly clustered houses. Landmarks in the community include an elementary and a high school, several printing presses, a large hotel-restaurant, and several small shops. Perpendicular to the major thoroughfares are some tiny alleys that lead to some more houses. As one walks deeper into the alleys, he would find a river and at the other side, some vast farm lots.

One prominent structure in the community is a multinational beverage plant. Going north, it stands at the left side of the road, a few meters from the Barangay’s boundary. The plant displays two giant beverage can models, about the same height as the building adjacent to it. For travelers, the plant signals that one has reached Barangay Bued. Previously, a traveler need not peep through his vehicle’s window to know that he has reached Barangay Bued. One just had to sniff the air.

Getting Rid of its Signature Smell
The journey of Barangay Bued into environmental care began with a dream to revive a dying river. The Parongking River, a tributary of the Sinocalan River System that traverses the village was once classified as a dying river, a victim of pollution from factories, agricultural run-off, and household wastes from the residents. It was a well-known joke among travelers that even in pitch darkness or with eyes closed, they knew they were passing by Barangay Bued because of the foul smell emitted by the river. A resident called it as the Barangay’s signature smell. A newspaper article reported, “Even those aboard air-conditioned vehicles still complained of the odor that emanated from the river” (Fuertes, 2000e).

In early 1997, a woman journalist and a resident near Barangay Bued approached the incumbent barangay captain of Bued to present a complaint about the river. With the barangay chairman’s approval, she tapped the help of the Women in Development Foundation and organized the first meeting for the revival of Parongking River in February 1997 at a local restaurant. Earlier, the Foundation scored a victory by stopping a cement factory from putting up a plant in another town in the province.
The meeting to revive the river was attended by officials and residents of Barangay Bued and an adjacent barangay, representatives from factories along the riverbanks, concerned agencies, and environmentalist groups. Foremost in its agenda was the presentation of a laboratory result of a water test undertaken by a nearby state university. The test confirmed their suspicion that the river water was silted with toxic elements. An earlier test taken by the DENR did not show anything unusual, that is why they decided to bring samples to another institution. A series of meetings followed during which proposals to revive Parongking were presented.

While the meetings were ongoing, Kapitan Dion (the newly elected barangay chairman at that time) brought some barangay officers to start the manual cleaning of the river. They used their bare hands, some crude implements like rakes, shovels, and sticks. The cleaning process continued and some people stood at the side and watched. After two months of manual cleaning, the barangay leaders realized that they were moving slowly and so they decided to write a letter to the governor requesting for a backhoe. Their request was granted and the backhoe was provided for a month to lighten their load and hasten the dredging process. After three months, the first phase of the major cleaning and dredging project of the river was completed. Overall, 250 linear meters were dredged and 500 meters were cleared to widen the river (Fuertes, 2000a).

Kapitan Dion said in an interview that he believed that the river would flow once more; that the water will be clear and fishes will come back. He also expressed that their initiative to clean the river by themselves was because they got tired of waiting for the government to act on their previous request to revive their water. They hoped that their move “will open the eyes and hearts of apathetic government officials” (Fuertes, 1997). Joining Kapitan Carlito Dion were Yolly Fuertes, a journalist, and Janet Albano, a high school science teacher. Members of the barangay council, the principals of three schools in the Barangay, religious associations, NGOs, and community-based organizations also took part. They formed a local organization called Eco-Care Management Group.

As the community was quietly cleaning their river, some government and NGO officials took notice. Other community-based organizations would sometimes come over to help. Excitement began to build up as local residents unpretentiously worked to clean the river. As a result, the group that met with the aim to revive the river decided to formalize their organization, calling themselves Kalikasang Vigilantes. A series of awareness building and community education programs were conceptualized and implemented. Other activities included a symposium on Environment Stakeholders, a motorcade on Earth Day, and a showing of the movie Puerto Princesa, which depicted the preservation of Palawan’s environment. The day also included the launching of the River Revival Project at the Parongking River. KVP evolved into a foundation and the group adopted the name Kalikasang Vigilantes—Save the Parongking River Ecosystem Foundation Inc (KVP-SPARE). It was a loose coalition of initial members that include 13 heads of LGUs, four national government agencies, private institutions, and concerned individuals all committed to Parongking’s revival.

Wala Kayong Laban Diyan (You are not Qualified to Fight)
A few months after cleaning the river, the water was again full of sludge that reportedly came from untreated wastewater of the beverage plant. Kapitan Dion and his team suspected that a major culprit to the river’s degraded condition was the Plant. They observed that the pipes coming from the plant flushed out bluish, greasy, and smelly liquid waste. Kapitan Dion and some residents by the riverside would keep vigil at night to wait for the plant to flush out its waste. They would collect some samples and observe them for days. To make the matter worse, a regional official of the DENR discouraged the group in their effort to put a stop to the plant’s environmentally harmful practices by saying that they were up against a giant company.” Wala kayong laban diyan the official said. But Kapitan Dion replied, “We are not discouraged. We will fight for our right for a clean environment even if it means fighting against a giant company” (Fuertes, 2000a).

Bued’s leaders stood their ground and explored other means. They released press reports in some local papers and later presented their case to the Senate Committee on Environment. The senator who headed the committee heeded their appeal and issued an official warning that was published on paper that he would initiate an investigation. Barangay Bued residents were also being prepared to stage protest actions in front of the plant. A DENR official gave an ultimatum that the plant could pack up if they refuse to comply. Finally, the plant’s management acceded and built a 37 million pesos waste treatment facility, their largest and most expensive waste treatment facility in the country.

Three years after the first major river clean up, life began to creep into the river. Continuous cleaning is done by the Barangay Bued Integrated Farmers Association. The farmers also planted mahogany trees along the banks to protect the river from erosion. A local newspaper reported:
It’s summer, that time of the year when Parongking would be at its ripest. But nobody is complaining now. Reason: the river has been cleared and cleaned of pungent debris. Its water is clear now, although not as clear as we would have wanted it to be because of lack of headwater. There are fish there now (Fuertes, 2000b).

Let’s Segregate!
Right after the first major river clean up, the barangay council passed a resolution prohibiting the dumping of household waste into the river. Since the people did not know where to dispose their trash, the barangay council decided to collect the garbage from each household. They found a possible dumpsite in Barangay Banaoang in a neighboring town. They signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Mayor and agreed to pay a certain fee. However, the moment the garbage truck entered the premises of Barangay Banaoang, the residents saw “Bued” on truck and they immediately blocked the truck from coming in.

As recourse, Barangay Bued’s leaders chose to use one of their farm-to-market roads to serve as their dumpsite. They were stunned to discover that in little time the space would be filled up so quickly. They requested fuel donation from the nearby beverage company and started burning the garbage heap. Some waste debris would be blown into the rice fields and farmers began to complain. Kapitan Dion said, “I was not happy with our process. After much thinking, I said, let’s segregate!” In year 2000, they mobilized their homegrown organization Eco-Care Management Group to teach residents how to segregate their waste. Unable to gather enough people to attend organized meetings, Eco-Care officers went house-to-house, like itinerant preachers. Bringing with them samples of waste materials, they demonstrated to residents how to segregate waste. The barangay council made a resolution that unsegregated waste will not be collected by the garbage collectors of the Barangay. They required that every household segregate its waste before putting them out for collection. Every Monday, plastic and bottles were collected, on Wednesday tin cans and on Friday, wrappers and cartons were collected. The recyclable materials were sold and the money went to the wages of the garbage collectors.

At first, they asked residents to dig a compost pit at their backyard for their biodegradable waste. Only the non-biodegradable trash would be collected by the garbage collector. However, some households did not have a space for a compost pit so that the barangay garbage collectors had to take the biodegradable waste too. Another reason that backyard composting did not work out was because the area was prone to flooding. The beverage plant donated 250 segregators and a pick-up truck to be used in garbage collection. Five garbage collectors were hired and were called “Bio-Men.” A waste processing center called “Bued Recycling Center” was put up. Collected waste was segregated further and recyclable materials were brought to junkyards. A crude and simple backyard composting system was applied for the biodegradable waste.

Every event in the Barangay was used to preach segregation and environmental-care values. Recycling became a permanent theme of barangay fiestas. One time, when such fiesta was featured in a national newspaper, a private waste management enterprise took notice and they went to present their products to the Barangay. Kapitan Dion and his team went to visit the company’s showroom at Tarlac and saw how waste was processed using hammermills, composting drums and enzymes. “This would work!” thought the group and after obtaining an appropriation of 125,000 pesos from the mayor, they purchased a five horsepower electric operated hammer-mill (used to grind biodegradable waste to expedite composting process), several composting drums, and their initial supply of the enzyme that accelerate decomposition. In the previous method of crude backyard composting, biodegradable waste would be spread on the ground and would be mixed manually. It would take 1 ½ months to complete the composting process, while newly collected waste materials continued to pile up. Now, with the composting drums and composting enzyme, compost was produced in just seven days. The enzyme also removes the stench and keeps the flies away. Equipped with new waste processing technology, Barangay Bued’s Recycling Center was relocated to the farm lot of Kapitan Dion, which was more accessible to the barangay center. Soon, officials from DENR began to take notice. News about the recycling center began to be known and visitors from other places, as far as Zamboanga City began to come regularly to check on the Barangay’s waste management practices. A shed to accommodate meetings and training sessions was set up at the waste-recycling center.

Rescuing the Municipality from Garbage Crisis
There came a time in 2001 when Barangay Bued rescued the entire municipality from its own garbage crisis. It happened when right after the former mayor lost the re-election, the municipal dumpsite was closed without prior announcement. It was because the lot owner of the dumpsite was a relative of the defeated mayor. Men were placed to bar garbage trucks from coming in. Even after some pleadings, the dumpsite’s operation was not extended even for a single day. As a result, garbage piled up, especially at the market. It was alleged that the move to close the dumpsite was meant to embarrass the newly elected mayor. It so happened that the new mayor came from Barangay Bued, a friend and former classmate of Kapitan Dion. He immediately called the Eco-Care Management Group to set in place intermediate measures to avert the looming garbage crisis in the municipality. Tents were set up at the market to segregate and process the waste. They scouted for a permanent waste processing center and found a space at Barangay Malabago. Barangay Bued’s waste processing facilities were transferred to the center. Giant composting drums and other machines were purchased through a bank loan to accommodate the municipal waste. High school students who are members of the Earth Savers Club along with their adviser, Janet Albano, were regularly fielded to several poblacion barangays to teach people how to segregate their waste. Kapitan Dion became the Project Director of the municipality’s solid waste management program. Eco-Care officers were tapped by the municipality to spend a few hours a day to do community work on waste management that includes giving orientation and lectures to visitors in the waste processing center.

Kapitan Dion and his team began to be invited to various meetings organized by DENR. In many instances, they served as resource persons to other barangays and municipalities. In the process of their interfaces with DENR, they learned to conform to some standardized practices. At that time, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 was just being introduced. The waste-processing center, formerly called “recycling and composting center”, was renamed as Materials Recovery Facility, the official and standard name for such facility. In late 2003, the Barangay submitted an entry for the Nationwide Search for Model Barangay for Eco Waste Management System. The contest provides the standard of an ideal waste management system for a barangay and it was these contest criteria that compelled Kapitan Dion and his team to modify some of their waste management practices. They stopped using the municipal MRF and built their own. They changed their collection system to conform to the requirements of the contest. Kapitan Dion and his team had difficulty in compiling data for their entry and they realized that much of what they did were undocumented. They reasoned that they did not do so because joining a contest or getting recognition was far in their mind. At the end, Barangay Bued bagged the fourth place and received a prize of 100,000 pesos.

Paalam, Tita Cory!

2009-08-04T08:26:00.003+07:00

I pay tribute to the woman who showed a poetic example of loving God, country, and family beyond self. Thank you, Tita Cory, for rising above your private comfortable life to fight for freedom and democracy,especially during a time when success was uncertain.

New MLE DepEd Order

2009-07-18T07:54:00.002+07:00

Thank God that the new MLE DepED order is now finally signed! You can download it from the DepEd Website

EFA 2015: The Grand Alliance strategy

2009-07-04T22:05:00.002+07:00

Below is an article written by someone I deeply respect and admire for his passion and hard work in promoting EDUCATION in the real sense of the word. He was part of the Philippine delegation in the launching of EFA in Jomtien. In our TEDP loop, he lamented the fact that instead of becoming education for all, EFA has virtually been perceived and implemented as "schooling for all."

The constant school drop out rate (out of 10 grade one entrants, 4 of them won't finish grade six) over the past 30 years indicates that we need to think beyond schooling to make all our citizens functionally literate. In reality, various groups are promoting functional literacy tho they do not call it as such. They include cooperatives where members learn "business math" as they compute their patronage refund and interests of their savings. AVON and Natasha ladies strengthen their reading and computing skills through those colorful catalogues. Bible sharing groups read and analyze verses and engage in lively debates. Bgy health workers teach women to read medicine labels and read and interpret thermometers. Junk shops or environmentalist groups teach their collectors various classification of recyclable materials, including alternative ways to measure quantity and quality. These groups are more effective in promoting functional literacy because reading and writing are done in a particular context of need (usually economic in nature). They are also not bound by an English Only policy and therefore free to use the mother tongue and popular education methods. They are not confined in a classroom (where things are represented by drawings) but they are in places (like junkshops/MRF) where they can actually handle the real thing. Compare those groups to the traditional literacy classes where participants are stigmatized as they are labeled as illiterates.

These beyond schooling educators are to supposed to join the grand alliance for EFA. I suppose this might take quite a process since they have to know that they are actually doing functional literacy programs (and not just promoting cooperativism or environmental awareness, or what some groups call "life skills").

A backgrounder of Education For All (EFA)--

EFA is a global movement led by UNESCO, aiming to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015. The movement was launched in 1990 at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand. There, representatives of the international community (155 countries, as well as representatives from some 150 organizations) agreed to "universalize primary education and massively reduce illiteracy by the end of the decade". In 2000, ten years later, the international community met again in Dakar, Senegal, and took stock of many countries being far from having reached this goal. They affirmed their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015, and identified six key measurable education goals which aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.

The six goals are:

* Goal 1: Expand early childhood care and education
* Goal 2: Provide free and compulsory primary education for all
* Goal 3: Promote learning and life skills for young people and adults
* Goal 4: Increase adult literacy by 50 per cent
* Goal 5: Achieve gender parity by 2005, gender equality by 2015
* Goal 6: Improve the quality of education

Inquirer Opinion / Columns
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090704-213773/EFA-2015-The-Grand-Alliance-strategy

Commentary : EFA 2015: The Grand Alliance strategy

By Napoleon B. Imperial
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: July 04, 2009

Almost 10 years since the inception of the second decade of the Education For All movement and with just six years left before it closes in 2015, I just discovered how little most people in the country’s education community know about EFA. What is startling is that the innocence afflicts those who are supposed to be in the inner circle of the movement of what is supposed to be the EFA Grand Alliance at the national and sub-national levels.

You might have been wondering how different it is from the day-to-day business of the Department of Education (DepEd) in general and basic education in particular.

I hope that the following foreword I have written for the Mid-Decade Monitoring and Evaluation Report in 2007 will shed more light and deepen everyone’s perspectives. Beyond mere understanding, the new perspective of delivering what for whom may spur some thinking and action for innovating basic education so that it will be enjoyed by and benefit all.

Attaining functional literacy in the country in the next 10 EFA years is not just about schools and schooling. It is about education. In line with the World Declaration on Education for All embodied in both the Jomtien Declaration and the Dakar Framework, we would like to meet the totality of the so-called Basic Learning Needs (BLNs) of Filipinos of all ages and circumstances. This is to be pursued within EFA’s “expanded vision of education” in a manner that will fulfill our people’s basic human right.

This is not the usual type of educational planning. Our EFA 2015 Plan of Action’s significance to the country and the international education community lies more in its being a document of political will, imagination and creativity that should address long-persistent problems of basic education. This is about harnessing technical change or new ways of doing things that have been proven valid, feasible and desirable in the past in order that the marginalized, those outside or shut out of school system, those in danger of getting out of the school system, special groups and gender disadvantaged may be redeemed and prevented from further marginalization.

The school remains as the backbone of our educational delivery system. We would like to improve on it as the conventional venue for teaching and learning. However, for all the natural limitations and social and financial constraints of the school system to attract, enroll and keep children in schools, EFA 2015 is a time to maximize the use of educational innovations and technology, both simple and appropriate or advance, where applicable, to reach out to and keep more children and enable them to learn better. This way, we can move toward universalizing quality primary education and making secondary education more accessible to all.

Schooling need not be the end and sole venue for acquiring functional skills needed for life. We realized during the past 15 years since EFA 1 that if we would depend on the schools alone, we would not be able to provide education to All educable Filipinos. Thus, consistent with the EFA vision, it is also our intention to deliver or cause to deliver the BLNs via the non-school modalities. Those who cannot be accommodated in schools or choose learning outside the classroom have the Alternative Learning System or ALS as an option for our youths and adults from all social classes. With ALS, they can utilize their prior learning and go on learning and be empowered by the basic but useful competencies to survive and develop themselves for greater upward social mobility.

Whether in school or out of school, such learning shall be delivered with quality assurance anchored on the Philippine concept of “functionality.” With this as the hallmark of the plan, gaining “life skills” will be afforded to all Filipino learners.

The Department of Education, thankfully, is not alone in the pursuit of this goal and provision of the BLNs for all. Full partnership with the key stakeholders, particularly those responsible for delivery, planning and funding, is operationalized under the Grand Alliance for EFA prescribed by the World Declarations. Hence, a new way of looking at and counting, allocating and mobilizing financial and non-monetary resources has been launched under EFA. These processes will be orchestrated under one strategy and governance so that with the comprehensive set of old and new monitoring and evaluation indicators attuned to the educational objectives, the synchronized efforts will bring out commonly desired results preferably at the scheduled time.

Lastly and with a sense of humility, EFA 2015 and its Grand Alliance strategy behoove learning from and capitalizing on the past experiences of our successes, pitfalls and inadequacies. Through this strategy, we hope to ensure continuity, coherence of purpose and complementation of efforts regardless of management and administrations until the year 2015.

(Napoleon B. Imperial (nbimperial@bayanmail.com.ph) is former assistant coordinator of the EFA Project Management Team and an education reform advocate.)

the crafting of the new MLE DepEd Order

2009-06-11T08:54:00.000+07:00

One Friday morning last week, I was in a cozy rustic bahay kubo in the DepEd compound to help finalize the draft of the DepEd order that seeks to institutionalize MLE in all schools. Facilitating the process was Nap Imperial of NEDA and some feisty DepEd lady execs (including a former DepEd Secretary). It's heartwarming to see their youthful sense of humor and gentle courage having managed to introduce innovations and significant changes in such a gargantuan organization.

We finished the task at around 2:30 pm. It was certainly a serendipitous moment. We were all in a celebratory mood. I do hope and pray that the document will be signed into a DO to complement DO #60 which authorized the use of MLE.

The features of the new MLE DO are the following:
-institutionalization of MLE in all public and private schools from pre-school to high school
-the use of mother tongue as the language of learning and instruction (it evolved from MOI to LOI to LOLI)
-mother tongue as a subject in all levels and LOI in all subjects (including English and Filipino)
-the establishment of an MLE support system (orthography devt, locally developed instructional materials, community participation, teachers training, etc)
-contextualized MLE implementation thru local MLE TWGs
-proper bridging process to introduce additional local/foreign languages. The bridging also involves starting with oral fluency (listening and speaking) and moving towards reading and writing
-Tagalog speaking areas to learn another local language as their L3
-MLE certification process

informal learning

2009-06-10T08:41:00.000+07:00

below are my recent posts in my homeschooling egroup (i homeschooled my kids for 7 years before integrating them in a regular school in 2000)

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I was watching the morning news by a major local TV station when they featured a project of the TV foundation in which they donated an ETV package (TV, DVD player, educational tapes) to a grade school in one remote town in Apayao. In the opening of the segment, there was a scene of a 9 year old boy living near a forest tending some chicken and pigs. He was described as most unfortunate because he entered the school at a very late age (how can he be unfortunate when he did not have to suffer the indignities of going to a school at a very early age?).

At the end of the segment, the punch line was – Now that the children in Apayao have an ETV, they will no longer be educationally deprived, especially in Science. What? Didn’t they see that boy living amidst a rich environment of flora and fauna? And they think that teaching thru a small two dimensional idiot box is the best way to teach Science? What the boy had was far better than learning Science thru the most colorful Science encyclopedia or some video materials. Who knows, the boy might be a real scientist. It is just unfortunate that he’s not able to verbalize what he knows thru a textbook type language which is recognized by our society as the legitimate means to express knowledge.
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i-thank-God-i-homeschool-moment
This morning we wake up with the cold heavy rains and the news about a school suspending its classes due to H1N1 flu infection among one of its students. Aren't you glad you homeschool?

During these cold rainy mornings, your kids can snuggle and sleep a little longer or sit beside the window and enjoy the sight of raindrops, while most of their peers while it still dark (and rainy) are yanked out of their bed, would grudgingly take a shower, get dressed, eat a quick breakfast, put on their raincoat, walk to the corner to wait for the school bus, and endure a long day supposedly learning about the world while walled in in a small dreary cramped room. And these poor kids face a greater risk of getting infected with that dreadful flu.

The unquestioned logic of teaching through an unfamiliar language

2009-05-14T20:29:00.000+07:00

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At least Bartimeus knew that he was blind. Upon hearing that Jesus is in town, he cried like crazy calling for Jesus to come and make him see.

For decades of struggling to use an unfamiliar language in classrooms for the supposed intention of formal education which is to enlighten ignorant minds, no loud objections have ever been raised. Making learning a torturous experience by using English in classrooms when the teacher can very well speak the child’s home language, has long been an unquestioned logic. It was like speaking, reading, and writing in English and being educated are one and the same. Teachers overlooked the fact that the real purpose of education is to enable children to see and understand the world clearly. A perplexing thought especially if we consider that teachers spend at least four years analyzing the process of learning. Children who failed the mark and eventually dropped out were blamed for being slow or problematic.

Actually, one does not need to refer to sophisticated theories and research reports to understand that teaching thru the child’s home language is most logical. The ancient book tells us that when God wanted to build a relationship with human beings, he became like them. He, known as the Greatest Teacher, was born and spoke the human language. In one episode in Jerusalem God enabled his followers to speak miraculously in various tongues so that they could communicate the gospel to all the out-of-town visitors who trooped the city for the Feast of Pentecost.

I guess seeing the light is not the first thing we need. The first miracle we direly need is to realize and accept that all along we are blind and cannot see, and had the gumption to call ourselves “a teacher.”

The Greening of a Village: Popular Education in Action

2008-11-29T07:50:00.000+07:00

(Note: this is a summary of my presentation in PAFTE conference held on Nov 28,2008 at PNU)
Education in the recent years has been unlatched from the limiting paradigm of schooling into its broader meanings as indicated by the ideas associated to lifelong learning and learning community. Due to such shift, the theorizing and practice of Education should engage with the community and examine how learning occurs in the larger context of a community. This process of social engagement can be truly empowering and mutually transformational especially if it is organized around the philosophical framework of Popular Education. This paper presents some insights about how teachers can work with community leaders in bringing about personal and collective transformation using the precepts of Popular Education. Its basis is a qualitative research using ethnography and critical discourse analysis that was conducted on a village in Pangasinan Province called Barangay Bued.

Popular Education (PopEd) is "popular" in the sense of being "of the people" or being anchored on a community’s own cultural and collective imagination and experiences. Often associated with PopEd is its method that often draws on popular or mass culture, using drama, song, dance, poetry, puppetry, mime, art, storytelling, and other forms. (Kerka 1997) Theoretically, PopEd is founded on a broad sociological body of knowledge called Critical Theory, developed by philosophers and social thinkers whose social mission in theorizing is social change to bring about a more humane society.(Popkewitz 1999) Critical theory’s application to Education (often referred to as Critical Pedagogy) has been developed by Freire, Dewey, McLaren, Giroux, Shor, Torres, Popkewitz, Burbules, Berk, and a few others.

Originally, the theory’s first vision of transformation was tied to actors in the context of class struggles. In this period PopEd became known in Latin America with Paulo Freire as its major exponent. But a shift took place the 1980s with the emergence of new variants known as postmodern, poststructuralist, and postcolonial. This new movement diverged from class struggle analysis into an examination of how discourse, which is a system of knowledge or commonly called reason or logic, is constructed and legitimized so that it has power to normalize or tacitly control how people see themselves and participate in the world they live in (ibid).

In this paradigm, one major task of a popular educator is to engage with the community in demystifying and deconstructing so called “high-tech” knowledge so that the discourse can be either be resisted or reconstructed and contextualized according to the values and worldview of the community. If a community is robbed of such opportunity, they become disempowered and unable to hold the community together. Their core values erode and there will be alienation and disintegration of collective identities resulting to all sorts of pathologies that require imposition of various forms of external control (White 1988).

The collective learning of Barangay Bued began with their desire to revive their dead river that became a dumping site of waste coming from the households and the softdrink manufacturing plant in their midst. Bued being located along the main highway became known to travelers for their so called “signature smell” emanating from their dead river. Not getting any response from government to their pleas for help, a group of barangay leaders and some teachers organized themselves and connected with other environmentalist groups. At the same time, they also initiated cleaning of the river with their bare hands and crude implements, extracting soiled diapers, animal carcasses, bulky furnitures lodged underneath. They engaged into a battle against the multinational softdrink company and residents who resisted joining the zero waste campaign. In the end, the softdrink company capitulated and built a 37million peso waste treatment system. Household waste began to be segregated, recycled, and processed into compost –fertilizer to enrich the farmlots in the area. They got rid of their signature smell, became one of the cleanest barangay in the country, and served as a learning site with visitors coming from as far as Zamboanga City.

In the process of community learning, the community had to engage with the technicist oriented discourse being promoted by the government and businesses. The technicist discourse of environmental management is about complying with international standards (ISO), using “right” chemical and mechanical processes that require highly expensive equipment and facilities. It renders knowledge about the environment as accessible and intelligible only to experts. It normalizes non-experts as deficient, needy, mere consumers of knowledge.

Instead of defining environmental management success through the establishment of equipment and waste processing facility, the popular educators reconstructed success a way of life and a sense of stewardship over their God given resources manifested by practicing segregation, recycling, and preference for biodegradable materials. They also contextualized waste management into a discourse of a war against polluters. Therefore, instead of mere consumers of technology, they recast themselves as a band of strong and capable warriors that will protect their environment having called their group “Kalikasang Vigilantes.” High school students organized a group called “Earth Savers Club.” When the softdrink company repulsed their demands, the community issued press release and submitted their concern to the Senate. They won their battles against resistance through various information and education campaign. An NGO staged a theater arts production entitled Magagandang Anak. Yearly fiestas were a display of colorful floats decorated with recyclable materials and pro-environment slogans. The experiences of cleaning the river and tree planting were transformative and happy events. One participant of the river clean-up said: Ang baho, isang linggo kang mag-aalcohol pero happy sila. Happy silang nagwo-work.

When people asked what made the greatest impact in their learning process, they pointed to the example of their leaders. People distinctly remember that during the first day of cleaning the river, the men froze at the sight of dirt and filth until their village chief walked into water to begin removing the debris. He was known to go visit the river at 2:00am to check if sludge is being released from the softdrink factory. He was the first who walked out and boycott the softdrink products. Students described their teacher as one who would require that every quiz, examination, term papers should utilize scratch papers and recycled materials. She was dedicated to her advocacy, would go house-to-house, conduct study groups on environmental care even without any promise of reward or promotion. The students would talk about a time of their life-- “…nuong nag-environment ako…” like a moment of conversion to their teacher’s “religion.”

Interestingly, what proved to be the most potent PopEd method were not the organized cultural shows or formal meetings and seminars but enacting and embodying the discourse in lives of the leaders and teachers. Stories about their heroic acts, how they resisted giants like the multinational company and DENR, how they practiced beyond what they preached were often told and passed on to the younger generation. These stories have become like modern day folklore that have the power to instruct, inspire, or bolster collective pride.

Kerka, S (1997). Popular Education: Adult Education for Social Change. ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult Career and Vocational Education Columbus OH.
Popkewitz, Thomas (1999). Critical Traditions, Modernisms, and the “Posts.” Critical Theories in Education: Changing Terrains of Knowledge and Politics (Social Theory, Education and Cultural Change). Popkewitz and Fendler (eds). Routledge, NY and London.
White, Stephen (1988). The Recent Work of Jurgen Habermas: Reason Justice, and Modernity. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, New York.

A Manifesto for Mother Tongue-based Learning

2008-11-15T19:35:00.000+07:00

Education for All: Building Strong Learning Foundations thru the Mother Tongue

Philippine basic education is now at a critical crossroad.

It now calls for the revisiting of our commitment to Education for All (EFA) 2015. All stakeholders have to be vigilant and involved. Otherwise, education will just be a weak transformative power in our society. Instead of education for all, it will be education for the few; instead of seeing Filipino youth become critical thinkers, coherent communicators, and productive citizens; we will see a generation of unreflective and mediocre mouthpieces of languages not their own.

We affirm the need to improve learning competencies in all subject areas, including English. Our educational system has to move forward following a roadmap drawn by experts in language and education based on empirical proofs. Experiences of other multilingual countries all point to the mother tongue as the best language of learning, especially in the early grades. The mother tongue is the most effective bridge to and foundation for the learning of other languages like English.

At this stage, however, many of our lawmakers and national leaders still hold on to the unfounded but long-held belief that an English-dominated initial basic education will produce superior learners. We submit that such educational strategy will only benefit a very small number of Filipinos—those who belong to families where English is the home language. But the truth is that the majority of our school children come from homes where the mother tongue is the predominant language. This explains their marginalization in the classroom.

Such marginalized learners, as pointed out by scientific evidences face the double burden of learning. They are struggling to learn the 3Rs on top of the big burden of learning an alien language in which they are taught. This predicament is one of the major culprits of poor performance and high drop-out rates. All of these imply the needed approach-- teach the yet unknown 3Rs through the already familiar local language and culture, build the learner’s capacity to learn and introduce a second language with the correct phasing. With such mother tongue-based multi-lingual education (MLE) framework, the mastery of all the learning areas including English is effectively attained.

It is a basic truth that language embodies a person's cultural identity and heritage. To uphold this truth, even international law guarantees and directs states’ educational system to develop respect for the child’s own cultural identity and language (Article 29-c Convention on the Rights of the Child). Thus, we reject any assertion that a local language may be inferior, inadequate and poses an obstacle to learning.

We also reject the usual argument that MLE is costly and, therefore, very hard to implement in the face of limited financial resources. Papua New Guinea, a poor Asian country of more than 800 languages, has demonstrated that reliance on local initiatives and resources for MLE is highly feasible and substantially saves on much costs of developing and producing learning materials. Recently, our own DepEd’s Agusan Pilot MLE Study corroborated the practicality and merits of local self-reliance and initiatives. Thus, we submit that ultimately, to insist on teaching with an alien language is more costly and inefficient when children do not become functionally literate and hardly develop higher order thinking skills and whose English competencies are mediocre.

In view of the rush to pass a law on English-based teaching in basic education, stakeholders need to collectively reflect and act now. We call on the following and other stakeholders:

The Department of Education - to have the resolve to uphold and adopt its own framework on Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education set by the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA) as the touchstone of the national policy on languages in education;

The Legislature - to pass the amended House Bill 3719 (The Multilingual Education and Literacy Act) as a measure to rationalize and institutionalize a language of learning policy;

The teachers, school heads, and education managers - to provide the initiative and creativity that would bring about a learning environment conducive for mother-tongue education to flourish within the framework of School-Based Management (SBM);

The PTCAs, local school boards, LGUs and other community stakeholders to mobilize and develop the needed resources such as policy framework, learning resources, awareness and capacity building, and advocacy to guarantee implementation and contextualization of mother tongue-based learning.

And all concerned citizens who believe in the cause of Education for All, we call on you to make your voices heard and to give your wholehearted support to mother tongue-based education initiatives.

Let us strengthen the basic foundation of an educated nation: FUNCTIONAL LITERACY FOR ALL. Onward with Education for All through MLE 2015.

For more information and links to MLE reports, please visit our blog

http://mothertongue-based.blogspot.com/

To indicate your support for MLE, please sign our online petition found at the link below:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/support-mother-tongue-based-learning-in-the-philippines.html

For paper-based signature campaign, please include name, town, province, organization/sector, contact number. Scan the document and email to mother.tongue@yahoo.com

The end of a "common sense" reaction about English as a medium of instruction

2008-11-02T23:28:00.000+07:00

This blog was born out of recent exchanges about language of learning in an online loop called Teacher Education and Development Program or simply TEDP loop . This online community where I belong was formed in 2005 and its members are educators, policymakers, and other concerned Filipinos. It's an avenue where anyone can share/discuss/critique ideas and best practices about education reform initiatives. The thread on language of learning or medium of instruction (MOI) was sparked by recent deft maneuverings of the majority of our congressmen supported by an invisible hand to expedite the approval of the Gullas bill (English as the MOI from grade one onwards).

In the past, when I read reports about the declining English competency among our Filipino learners, my common sense reaction was to propose programs to intensify exposure to the English language. In fact I even facilitated a project that provided English workbooks for grade one pupils. And so I thought at first that the Gullas Bill was something good and helpful. It was not until I was confronted with volumes of studies about the efficacy of mother-tongue education as foundation for development of higher level of thinking and as bridge to second language acquisition that I realized that my common sense reaction was grossly misguided.

Gullas Bill or sometimes called English Bill is clearly contrary to research reports, language learning principles, and expert opinion given by credible institutions like UNESCO, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Linguistics Society of the Philippines, SEAMEO-Innotech, Komisyon ng Wikang Pilipino, NEDA, Department of Education, and others.

Should the bill becomes a law, the ones who would benefit are only the pupils from the middle class and up, who are exposed to the English language at home because their parents are most likely educated and they have access to cable TV, Internet, and English storybooks and reference materials. But the ones who would be disadvantaged are the pupils who do not enjoy such privileges. And in this country, they are the majority.

Dr. Dennis Malone of SIL provided a bridge illustration that shows the sad plight of disadvantaged children in an English First setting. He described it as "double learning burden." The illustration shows that children that come from homes where the language of school is spoken (dominant language community) are able to cross the bridge to the school. However those who come from homes where the language of school is rarely used (minority language community), their tendency is to fall from their fragile bridge and unable to survive long in school.

Though public school teachers are directed to use either Filipino or English as a medium of instruction, some noble teachers in remote barangays resort to using the local language as MOI because otherwise their pupils will not understand what they say. But the hovering pressure on their shoulder is to expedite by all means the use (no matter how crude) of the English language.
Imagine a scenario where a child does not have the burden to acquire a second language (L2), where his language at home is the medium of instruction at school. This means then that all his learning energy would be focused on the sole vital task of understanding and explaining the world around him through the language of his heart and mind (L1). Through time, the he is able to reach a level of awareness that empowers him to be a productive young citizen. Without the burden to learn another language, he also develops abstraction skills, critical thinking, and other higher level of cognitive abilities as he solves problems in Math, Science and Civics, all taught in the language of his heart and mind. Years later, he develops what is mentally required to allow him to handle more complex ideas and create or recreate new knowledge (like the Japanese and Koreans who inspite of their ignorance of the English language are able to develop world class technologies). In such advanced period of one's schooling, he has already formed a strong foundation and linguistic readiness to engage into the more complex task of learning not only English but also Chinese, Arabic, and other languages (L3, L4 etc) that might interest him. This learning framework is presented by another Malone's bridge illustration.

The principle, therefore, is that a second language is better acquired when it is introduced at the right time. If it is forced too early, the child uses all his learning potential on language acquisition and not on things that would make him a thinking and creative person. If we allow the passing of the English Bill, what we produce in the end are mediocre mouthpieces of the English language. Sure, they can temporarily fill the employment demand for service workers. But they can be easily displaced due to increasing automation in the workplace. What is tragic though in such scenario is that education is used a tool to disempower people instead of enabling them to meaningfully participate in changing their world.

It is unjust that our already scarce resources are wasted to promote an English First policy. What we need is to divert such resources towards development of appropriate culture-based instructional materials and training of teachers.

For education to be a truly demarginalizing force, it requires that learners be educated in the language of their hearts and minds or within their socio-cultual context. In that way, they start from the known to venture into the unknown, instead of starting from an unknown to move into further unknowns.

Indeed, mother tongue education is the only way to go. We should not allow an English First policy like the Gullas bill to be imposed on our children. Let us instead support mother tongue education initiatives like the bill that was recently proposed by Rep. Magtanggol Gunigundo.

The best form of advocacy we can do is to start now our own culture-based education programs in our communities. One of the first tasks is to locate experts of the local language and culture. They do not have to be scholars. Some wise old folks will do. We can organize them into some sort of a local language resource group that will clarify and answer questions regarding difficult words, local idioms, cultural meanings of customs and traditions. Another task is to convince the parents and leaders about the value of mother tongue education. Usually they mistakenly believe that their little children should be educated either in Filipino or English. They take pride when their children can sing an English nursery rhyme or recite a poem (even if they do not understand a single word).

Effective mother tongue education program starts with oral fluency (since our languages are strongly oral in form) and move towards mother tongue literacy (reading and writing). The following are some possible projects that can be done in a classroom or in a barangay or parish hall.

MOTHER TONGUE ORAL FLUENCY

Conduct regular storytelling sessions. Let the children retell the story or interpret it through a skit
Organize creative and artistic activities that like debates, community theater, declamation, singing and dancing, etc
Discuss and contextualize difficult topics taught in Math and Science using familiar terms and images.

MOTHER TONGUE LITERACY

Put up a collection of reading materials written in the local language. The local parish might have a local translation of gospel stories.
Make colorful storybooks about local legends and folklores using the local language as the text. We can also translate existing stories found elsewhere or come up with contemporary stories
If not yet available, make a simple local dictionary
Conduct writing workshops
Provide translation training
Put up a village bulletin board
Translate posters, billboards, labels, memos and other materials
Ask learners to label things around them like trees, furnitures, tools, etc

There are various possibilities of culture-base and mother tongue education out there. Below are links that lead us to a rich minefield of ideas.

source: http://mothertongue-based.blogspot.com/

---------NEWS/UPDATES---------
DepED-IX intensifies lingua franca education project (DepEd 2008)
Legislators push English as medium of instruction (Llanto 2008)

----------COMMENTARIES---------
Mother-tongue education is the way to go (Martin 2008)
Languages do Matter (Nolasco 2008)
Improving English Competence (de Jesus 2006)
The right to learn in one’s own language (Gunigundo 2008)
Myths about languages in the Philippines (Martin 2008)
English First’ policy will hurt learning (Luz 2007)

---------LEGAL PAPERS---------
HB 3719 MLE Act Draft (Gunigundo 2008)
Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

----INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDES----
Vernacular Language Teachers Guide
Vernacular Language Trainers Manual (2005)
The Philippine Roadmap to Multiliteracy (Ocampo 2007)
Framework in Mother Tongue Based MLE (SEAMEO)
First Language First: Community-based Literacy Programmes for Asia (UNESCO 2005)

-----RESEARCH REPORTS-----
The Use of Vernacular Language in Education (UNESCO 1953)
Teaching Chilren in a Language They Understand (Prouty)
The Lubuagan Mother Tongue Education Experiment: Report of Comparative Test Results (Walter & Dekker)
First language education in Lubuagan (Dumatog/Dekker 2007)
Language issues for Marginalized people (Malone 2007)
The Use of First and Second Languages in Education: International Experience (Dutcher/Tucker 1995)
Mother Tongue Instruction in Philippine Schools (Castillo)
Education in a Multilingual World (UNESCO 2003)
Papua New Guinea’s Vernacular Language Preschool Programme (UNESCO 2002)
The Language Planning Situation in the Philippines (Gonzales 1998)
Language planning in multilingual countries: The case of the Philippines (Gonzales 2003)