FOR teacher Becky Santos, art is a powerful vehicle to teach children, especially the deaf, the basic concepts of education. She realized the importance of art when she was asked by the Department of Education (DepEd) to handle a pilot school for hearing-impaired children.
Impressed by her efficient handling of the school for the hearing impaired, Santos was granted a scholarship for audiology and deaf education in Hokkaido, Japan, for three months. In 1994 she resigned from the DepEd to broaden her avenues. Santos worked at the outpatient department of the University of Santo Tomas serving indigent patients with special cases.
Two years later, Santos established the Saint Francis School-VSA Arts Philippines Inc. (SFS-VSAP) to pursue her advocacy of teaching hearing-impaired children through the medium of art.
“Our mission is to help the hearing-impaired children through quality education to enhance their values and skills,” she said.
The school implements several approaches primarily on speech and language development, with partnership with the parents, teachers and other professionals connected to the institution.
Santos said SFS-VSAP’s education thrust is anchored on detection, prevention and intervention as it lives out and advocates the hearing experience among the deaf community. She said SFS-VSAP aims to develop the skills and the values of hearing-impaired children through different methods that are focused on speech and language development, complemented by the assistance of the parents, teachers and other professionals supporting the school’s objectives.
A believer in the proactive approach, SFS-VSAP advocates detection, prevention and intervention programs to ensure the students are prepared to handle situations in life as they mature. In teaching the children, SFS-VSAP trains them to develop listening and conversational skills. “We don’t encourage the kids to use hearing aids, because we think it will not harness fully their hearing and communicating skills,” Santos said.
SFS-VSAP believes it must start training at a young age. The school provides opportunities to the hearing-impaired children and children with other disabilities to communicate with the people at a young age through an interactive process.
Santos also believes in involving the community by assisting families who have children with special needs to share their experiences with the other members. It has a Start with the Arts curriculum—a thematic approach that aims to develop language stimulation and speech development.
Further, the program fuses the regular students and select special children from preparatory to elementary level.
It is implemented side by side with music therapy to boost the auditory and oral components of learning.
“We found out that art therapy helped our deaf students to talk,” Santos said. For their outreach program, Santos and her staff involve the parents to help them achieve early prevention hearing problems of their children.
Looking back, Santos said it was a tough and an exciting ride in her teaching career.
“At 20, I started teaching in Gregoria de Jesus Elementary School. I started teaching deaf students at 35 years old. It was initially challenging but I enjoyed teaching them later,” Santos said. SFS-VSAP is an affiliate of the Council of Oral Educators for the Deaf, Japan Ear Foster Parent, VSA Arts International, Saoru-Hiroba, National Commission for the Culture, and Arts and Museo Pambata Foundation Inc.