DepEd Secretary Abad — there is hope!

This column is a collaborative effort between me and my daughter Sara Francesca Soliven de Guzman, the Operation Brotherhood Executive Vice President and guest columnist when her father Max V. Soliven travels abroad, under the banner - As A Matter of Fact.

Montessori for everyone

Sara is my assistant in the annual OB Montessori teacher-training program of novice teachers for the four schools each of which has complete Basic Education inclusive of the preschool level. This 38-year old effort is extended to training Pagsasarili preschool teachers in the NHA (National Housing Authority) improved slum areas of Caloocan, West Crame, Cubao, Marikina, Pasay, Las Piñas and Dasmariñas, Cavite where I succeeded in making the Montessori system affordable. Since 1983, they have been self-sustained with P400 monthly tuition fees.

How is this possible? The National Housing Authority General Manager Gaudencio Tobias arranged the collaboration of his CRIO (Community Relation and Information Office) staff and provided a rent-free room in the barangay halls. A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was signed with the mayor of each site. Community teachers are recruited, tested and trained, and supervised weekly. Majority of their preschool graduates become honor students in parochial or elementary public schools. Evidences of the amazing behavioral transformation were studied and recorded by SEAMEO-INNOTECH chief researcher Eligio Barsaga.

In 1984, we introduced the Pagsasarili Mothercraft literacy program for village mothers in Cadiz, Negros Occidental at the time when sugar prices drastically dropped in the world market, leaving the families of Negrense farmers hungry since hacenderos began to stop operating their sugar plantations. The literacy program resulted in "mother and child learning together". It consisted of activities in Grooming and Hygiene, Housekeeping, Cooking and Nutrition, as well as Child Care, eventually giving them backyard business and livelihood opportunities. This program won one of the UNESCO International Literacy awards in New Delhi, India in 1993.

The yearly critique of the public school system

In the education sector, we have been preoccupied in the preparation for the coming school year. The issue on tuition fee hikes has never been resolved, the concern on textbooks still persists and the lack in the number of classrooms in public schools is increasing year after year. To top it all, the recent issues on CAP (College Assurance Plan) and PEP (Pacific Educational Plans) have brought up more strains to DepEd Secretary Abad as he embarks on a new journey this coming school year.

When you talk about Philippine education in the public schools it seems very depressing. Let us set aside DepEd’s political problems and go straight to the root of the problem. The main problem of DepEd lies in how public schools are run today. These include school management by the school principal, teacher training and supervision, as well as monitoring. Lastly, academic programs of poor standard are being implemented.

If we do not act to improve, streamline and standardize such programs, the public school system will fail and our country will continue to promote illiteracy. Let us have a change of heart and begin rebuilding it to be of better service to our citizens who will be instruments of change in our country.

Helping the public school children ‘to become’

Secretary Butch Abad, there is hope! Four years ago, I started a pilot project in the Angeles Elementary School using the 20-year old result-based PAGSASARILI program.

Right after UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura called for "the Framework of Action for Quality Education" in the 31st General Conference of 2001 in Paris, I signed a Memorandum of Agreement with DepEd Region III Director Dr. Vilma Labrador to pilot the Montessori Pagsasarili system at the Angeles Elementary School of Pulung Bulu. This EFA-DAKAR pilot project has been intended to work out the whole Basic Education continuum program of preschool, elementary school, and high school with its corresponding retraining of public school teachers. This project has been calendared to work out within the UN Millennium Development Goal of 2001 to 2015.

For the past four years, Sara and I, with the help of my senior teachers in the OB Montessori school branch of Angeles, have been training and monitoring enough teachers to handle two sections of preschool, Grades 1 and 2, who are now in Grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. Although we shall have the Grade 6 graduates this year, the fully trained students who started at the Montessori Pagsasarili preschool in 2001 will only graduate by 2007.

There Are No Textbooks!

The OB Montessori Child and Community Foundation donated the hands-on Pagsasarili materials, which provide a continuum series of lessons in Practical Life, Language, Math and Geometry, Geography and History, Botany and Zoology for the exclusive use of the pilot classes.

Gradated in difficulty but effectively integrated in a two-part continuum syllabus, two teacher training programs, one for Grades 1 to 3, and the advanced one from Grades 4 to 6 have been drawn up as the Pagsasarili Cosmic Curriculum. Training and refresher courses have been done every summer since 2001 until 2007 when the high school will start.

Using the UNESCO strategy of partnership, Filipino philanthropists and companies have helped rebuild a lahar-damaged nine-classroom unit in the same compound of the Angeles Elementary School in Pulung Bulu. A second floor was added for the high school, as well as the orientation and training rooms of superintendents, supervisors, principals, and teachers of Pampanga, Tarlac, Bataan, Zambales, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, and Bulacan — who could eventually start with a pilot Montessori Pagsasarili preschool.

Observations of public schools

During these four years of experience, my daughter and I made several discoveries as we received weekly reports from our assistant teacher-trainors in our Angeles OB Montessori branch. There were two Montessori head teachers who would monitor the preschool, grade school and the intermediate grade school weekly and then I would personally visit every quarter.

The teachers are not used to monitoring and evaluation. Each of them are required to write a self-evaluation every week, however when their grammar is corrected, they tend not to submit anymore. Outside the EFA DAKAR pilot, the reaction of the traditional teachers is: "If their system requires monitoring, I would rather not be an EFA DAKAR teacher."

The teacher’s eight-hour job could merit a double session. For the past 38 years, most of our OB Montessori teachers would have double session earning them quite a good salary. We presumed that we could do the same since it is difficult to train two sets of teachers for the morning and afternoon sessions. However, the principals and teachers found it hard to accept the change since they had set ways in using their time after class. The principal is used to leaving the teachers on their own. She does not do any observation or upgrading of skills since she has to look after the maintenance of facilities. This is usually left to superintendents with specialization in each subject — but cannot manage regular visits.

At the start of every school year, the PTA fund has always been questioned. Most politicians and radio commentators back up the parents’ complaints of public schools charging PTA fund. With the parent orientations explaining the need for well prepared Pagsasarili classes, not only was the standard P450 PTA fee given, but they also donated electric fans and water jugs. The parents are met regularly, ideally after each quarter when report cards show progress or inadequacies of each child, so they know where the fund has gone to and they do not become suspicious.

Re-engineering the training of public school teachers

What is the difference between the conventional and the Pagsasarili system? While traditional education sees the child as empty jars to be filled by all-knowing teachers, the scientifically tested 100-year old Montessori system from which Pagsasarili is derived, provides a specially trained teacher to recognize the psychological strengths and learning ability of the three stages of human development: the absorbent mind of preschoolers; the enormous reasoning power of primary school children; and, the economic independence of the creative adolescent students.

While the conventional teacher directs herself to the memory power of the intelligence via books, blackboard and lectures, the Pagsasarili teacher is trained to condition students to work with self-educating apparata per subject — gradated in difficulty. The Pagsasarili child follows a cycle of work, respecting the materials and habitually puts them away in their individual containers. Each wait for his/her turn. There are sufficient materials and a series of exercises for each with a "control of error" enabling the child to correct himself, lessening conflicts with the teacher.

Finally, the Pagsasarili child has such energy and love for work. The "secret teacher" within him is truly busy during the whole 18 years of childhood.

A promising solution to the dilemma of accessibility and quality of education

During the inauguration of the public school pilot last March 2004, then Education Secretary Dr. Edilberto de Jesus spoke before Regional Director Dinah Mindo and her superintendents, supervisors, principals and teachers, my UNESCO commissioners, Janet Lazatin (daughter of Angeles Mayor Carmelo Lazatin), representatives of donors Aboitiz and Lhuillier companies. Secretary de Jesus reiterated the Philippines’ problem of accessing 100 percent education to Grade 1, which usually results in only 30 percent completing Grade VI. UNDP statistics show that 11 million Filipinos, ten years old and above are functionally illiterate and therefore can barely be employed. De Jesus noted, in his 18 months work as secretary of Education heading the programs of Basic Education and Non-Formal Education, that the "universal access to education" is competing with the attempt to provide quality education. Although, more children in the Philippines are enrolled today, parents often wonder — "Is learning taking place?"

Describing his impression of the Montessori Pagsasarili Grade 1 to Grade 5 students demonstrating Math, Geometry, History, Botany, and Zoology materials with such enthusiasm and focus, specially articulated in clear English, Sec. De Jesus remarked extemporaneously with a smile, a rare expression in his usual serious and contemplative face — "I see in this small pilot something promising. Perhaps, this will solve our dilemma of accessing quality education to public school children!" (This is a major concern of the Department of Education.)

Testing the pilot

Secretary de Jesus wanted to test if the program was indeed working so he tasked his head of research Nelia Benito to make a study of the project. However, her study was erroneously made. The diagnostic test used was intended for public school children under the traditional Makabayan curriculum. They did not consider that the primary purpose of the EFA Dakar pilot public school project was to use an alternative system of Montessori teaching. Thus, the test used was not a good measuring tool since it was not accurate. This should be a point of awareness — when exams are made they should use the international standards of testing.

Another point observed — the "control group" was reviewed by their teachers on the Makabayan curriculum prior to the tests being given. Therefore, the result was clearly biased favoring the "control group".

If we want to help one another and improve, we must do things professionally. We must engage in a sincere partnership. Then, progress will result. Our society will see the "glimmer of light" — HOPE!

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