(For My Mother, Liliosa Genova Valiente and all those teachers who had to cross streams and rivers to teach young children in distant barrios.)
The World Bank, it appears, has apologized, for the “early” release of the dismal report on the state of Philippine education. The Department of Education and its officials are, it seems, happy now that their demand for respectability was heeded.
As for the state of our Philippine education, nothing has changed. As that other tramp, Estragon, in Beckett’s masterpiece on despair, moans: “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!”
But, at least something happened to me. In my search for documents to write about, I found a copy of what comes across as a simple but radical approach to education. Elementary education.
The document, more than 200 pages all in all, tackles language education for Grades I to IV. Its title is Course of Study for Primary Grades. The first chapter opens with “Model Programs” treating the subject of language. First of all, the document has a very specific bias—that of using English as a mode of instruction.
The introduction opens with this sentence: “In making programs as well as in outlining courses of study for our primary pupils, we must give first consideration to our language problem.” Fair enough. Then it continues: Since the language that the Filipino child hears out of school is his own native language and since he enters school with the vocabulary and the modes of speech of that language pretty established, the problem of teaching him in English presents peculiar difficulties.”
Immediately, we sense a colonial crisis in the offing, but as this is about pedagogy, let us proceed and listen to the solution. The idea being that what must work for an instruction done in English may also function with efficacy when other languages are employed. The next paragraph offers an approach: “To overcome these difficulties, we must surround him [the pupil] with an environment in which he hears and speaks English as many hours a day as is compatible…” A practical proposition, if you may.
It is, however, when the programs are further explained that the liberal notion of this material comes to the fore. It explicitly says that “the model programs should not be followed slavishly [underscoring mine] nor should they be used without modification if modification is thought desirable.”
Each year, we hear about “new” and “progressive” methods of educating the young. Prep schools, massively expensive by reputation, are at the forefront of many experimentations and state-of-the-art technologies.
This document I have with me seems to be singular as well with its pedagogical tool. It has a very firm stand on where to begin language learning and instruction and this it affirms in its solid belief that everything begins with oral instruction. It states thus: “A large amount of oral language work must be done by children in their early years of their school life in order to give them even a fair speaking vocabulary.” It even goes out to emphasize how “no amount of word drill will accomplish the same purpose.”
How do we accomplish what it sets out to do? The document enumerates the modalities, which include conversation or plain talking, telling stories, playing and using words in games, and getting into “dramatization.”
Clear about the necessary technologies, the makers of this instructional material declare how “little attention has been given to oral composition” and “too much formal work has been done.” With emphasis, they say: “Subject matter other than the child has been made central.” Then it proceeds to underscore a most practical aspect of language learning and that is to recognize and use language that is “vitalized” or alive. Introduced to the Filipino child, the English language should reflect the realities of the child both in and out of the academic space: “Language activity in the schoolroom should be as nearly like that of life as possible.”
The next paragraph that follows are most impressive: “The Filipino child’s interests, emotions, and social life outside of school are in his native dialect. Therefore, our surest way of getting results in developing speech power in English is to bring home and community life into the schoolroom. We must study the child’s interest; that is, we must find out what he thinks and talks in his own language. We must bring these interests into the classroom and we must talk about them in English. Only in this way can we give the child a usable vocabulary in English.” This is followed by what I call a punch line: “Formal schoolroom English should be avoided.”
What can be more progressive than that!
There are nuggets of teaching wisdom in this document. One reminds of what many teachers do, which is to craft sentences with grammatical errors and let the pupil spot them. This is for the Grade III and Grade IV, where writing is introduced. The document warns how the “teacher should never teach good usage by giving the children incorrect forms to correct.”
The book goes on to more specific exercises. It suggests the use of Mother Goose Rhymes but where there are local tales, then the latter should be used for learning.
There are more exciting cases and startling classroom exercises from this document. I could go on and on but it is pathetic that this book, from which I have been quoting these wise instructions, came out when there was no Department of Education yet but a Department of Public Instruction, under which was the Bureau of Education. And the year was 1924.
What happened between those years and now?
I rest my educated case.
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com