Changing lives through education

How do you teach the concepts of justice and peace to a four-year-old?

"Through game activities," says Ma. Belen B. de Jesus, PhD., CEAP’s (Catholic Education Association of the Philippines) Superintendents’ Commission consultant and board member of the Philippine Association for Graduate Education. "Through game activities, you can demonstrate what it’s like to isolate one or to befriend another. You can show how one is disturbing the peace or promoting peace by working together."

"Research shows that the building of negative attitudes and values starts not at age seven but at age three or four," says Iris Melliza, PhD., president of Holy Cross of Davao College in Davao City. "The theory of moral development says that whatever the kids see a significant adult in their life doing, is right for them, no matter what society at large is doing. A study in Gen. Santos showed that children as young as three years already accept that stealing is OK, because this appears to be the accepted norm among their adults."

"You have to provide a counter culture," Dr. De Jesus says. "The ultimate objective is transformation," Rev. Fr. Romeo V. Gonzales, M.S., PhD. interjects.

Fr. Gonzales, president of the University of La Sallete and regional director of CEAP, is one of four authors of Transformative Education: A Source Book for Basic Education, which was launched recently with His Eminence Jaime Cardinal Sin at the Villa San Miguel in Mandaluyong. The other co-authors are: Sr. Lourdes M. Dulay, ICM, Sr. Carmeli Ma. Catan, OSA, and Dr. Ma. Belen B. de Jesus.

"The two-volume work is a source book that attempts to empower educators to be instruments of transformation within the basic education system in the context of their own classrooms," Sr. Dulay explains. "In the same way, the source book envisions the learners to be transformed and in turn, to be themselves instruments of transformation in our diverse and multicultural society."

"We’ve heard it said that the failure of society is a failure of the educational system," says Sr. Catan, president of the University of Regina Carmeli in Malolos, Bulacan and chairperson of the CEAP Superintendents’ Commission. It was during the CEAP’s Jubilee Convention which was held in Cebu City in September last year that its members found the opportunity to reflect on the role of the organization in reshaping Catholic education for the future. As a result, they identified four essential concerns and proposed their integration into the curriculum.

"These critical issues concern political education, environment education, gender sensitivity education and justice and peace education, " says Dr. Melliza, chairperson of CEAP’s programs committee. "They coincide and propose to enrich DepEd’s (Department of Education) present Basic Education Curriculum (BEC), with its Makabayan core learning area and its values-integrated approach."

"Political education will provide concrete support to improve the quality of the citizenry and family, imbued with a consciousness geared towards political maturity and responsibility." Sr. Catan explains, "while the basis of Environment education is the principle of conservation for sustainable development. The concept of justice and peace education is no longer new to teachers as they are known under different labels and forms such as democracy and freedom, citizenship and nationhood, God and His creation.

A fairly new area is gender sensitivity education which has, as its guiding principle, a shared commitment to the equal rights and inherent human dignity of women and men."

While the concepts were carefully identified, there was still the pending matter of how to translate and express these concepts in concrete form. "The conceptual depth of the subject matter may not yet be that available to our teachers," Dr. De Jesus points out, "so we need this kind of source book to provide some kind of knowledge-building for our teachers, for them to get a deeper understanding of these current burning issues."

At a time when moral values seem to be crumbling, it becomes important to guide teachers on how to create the kind of responsible and caring classroom community within which both academic achievement and value development will flourish," Cardinal Sin pointed out in his message during the book launching. "Of course, the development of these sourcebooks will not be possible without the logistical support of Phoenix Publishing House."

Sr. Dulay, who served for 15 years as Superintendent of the ICM (Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) and presently Regional Director of the CEAP-Cordillera Administrative Region, could not help but think that there was something providential about her chance meeting, during the convention in Cebu, with a former student at St. Theresa’s College, Ma. Erlinda R. Sibal, who happens to be the president of Phoenix Publishing House, the pioneer in publishing Filipino-authored textbooks.

"It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time," Linda Sibal recalls.

But it was more than just luck that Phoenix came to be the publisher of the two-volume source book. Linda had been grappling with the same question that had intrigued a good number of others who share the same high level of social consciousness and civic-mindedness: "What do we do when our country seems to have contracted a disease that has eaten away all the basic foundations of a good Catholic society and has spread to all sectors of our country, including our educational institutions, both public and private?"

"I heard one drastic solution to this menace," Linda relates. "It suggests that we have to eliminate all Filipinos over the age of seven, including ourselves! And then start teaching them the correct values from scratch. That solution did not mention who was to do the teaching as everyone over seven was deemed contaminated. But it does point out the key: the education of our youth. So, when my former mentor and principal, Sr. Lulu Dulay, said that she was in the midst of developing this source book, together with the other superintendents of CEAP, I deemed it to be a response to those same questions being discussed by the rest of civil society. Definitely, I said, we will find financing for such an endeavor."

The Phoenix Publishing House has been a major player in the education field for over 40 years. "It was our father, the late Dr. Ernesto Y. Sibal, who had the vision and patriotic drive to provide the impetus toward publishing quality instructional materials for and by Filipinos," says Penny Sibal-Balbin, executive vice-president of Phoenix Publishing House. "It is our commitment to carry on his legacy. Phoenix will continue to blaze new trails in teaching through innovative textbooks and other instructional materials, such as this source book."

"I am very happy that today, less than a year from its inception, we are able to launch this source book that should empower the teachers of our youth to be instruments of the needed transformation within our education system," Linda remarks. The source book is equipped with sample lesson plans, learning resources, glossaries and appendices of learning materials that are intended to enhance the teaching-learning dynamics.

"The materials also provide possible strategies on how to integrate the educational themes in the curriculum," Mariano Piamonte, Jr., CEAP executive director explains. Volume I is designed for teachers handling classes for grade levels Kindergarten to Grade II while Volume II is designed for Grades III to VI. It is hoped that the source book will reach all of the 1,184 schools within the CEAP network nationwide.

"With this effort, the Catholic schools are doing something to make the curriculum more relevant to the needs of the times," Fr. Gonzales points out. "Learning is not only focused on academics but also on the formation of values, of attitudes, and an awareness of issues that affect our lives. Transformation does not happen overnight. It is a lifetime process."

"With Transformative Education: A Source Book for Basic Education, we have taken the initial step," Sr. Dulay says. "We are sowing the seeds."