A big dream for a small school

MANILA, Philippines - Pax et Lumen or “Peace and Light” is the name of an elementary school near Clark, Angeles City that focuses on science and math education. With these emphases, it also hopes to upgrade the language skills of its young students.

The comprehensive school was conceived in 2000 when two brothers, Giordan and Giorel del Rosario, two young science and engineering Filipino students in the US, remarked to their mother that the levels of science and math training in US universities were so rigorous that they would have had a hard time coping if it were not for their own preparatory training in these fields in their earlier years. They had both studied in science and technology-oriented high schools and research-oriented elementary schools abroad.

Science and mathematics are subjects considered by most as “for the nerds” or for those who want to become doctors or engineers. Extensive training in these fields – without the medicine and engineering degrees – is supposed to land one a job “only in the academe” or in musty research laboratories.

As a confirmation of this commonly-held view, one of the brothers was asked bluntly by a successful businessman in Makati, when he revealed that his major fields were chemistry and marine biology, “So, is there money there?” He could only smile in reply. Who, indeed, would be interested in science and mathematics if there is no money there?

The answer to that question is this: science and mathematics are the fields used by technologically-advance societies to create wealth. Without them there won’t be new technologies and new discoveries that improve one’s quality of life. And with each new technology and new science application, new products are created – thus creating new production and new means of employment. One only has to think of pharmaceuticals, biodegradable plastic, personal computers, iPods, YouTube, electric cars, lighter and bigger planes, renewable energy, and a host of innovations to understand how wealth is created through products and processes.

The brothers point out that one has to differentiate attitudes about preferred careers that prepare one “to achieve wealth for himself,” while science and mathematics prepare one to “create wealth for a bigger circle” by creating products and employment for others.

The idea would resonate in their mother, Laura Quiambao-del Rosario, a foreign service official, and her close friend, Myrna Gopez-San Agustin, a financial consultant in New York. They became good friends as freshmen in high school, went their own separate ways in college, and led their own lives in various countries pursuing their own careers. 

Their paths crossed again in the United States and in 2003 they started discussing the concept of an elementary school that would prepare young minds who would be at the same level as their peers from other countries with good math and science curricula. They thought that even if these local students would not become creators of new technology or discoverers of some scientific process, they hope that their students would at least develop a strong intellectual curiosity. Intellectual curiosity, after all, is what differentiates a good leader from a mediocre one. Wasn’t President Bush often described by the US media as intellectually uncurious, while Presidents Clinton (a good policy wonk and discussant) and Obama (a good listener to any good discussion) are known for their intellectual curiosity?   

Pax et Lumen Academy will introduce simple science concepts as early as the pre-elementary or kindergarten years. Equipped with advance teaching reference materials and teaching aids in science and math from abroad, the school will create an excitement about a “whole new world” of wonders about what composes the earth and the universe and what makes them work. 

So, why is a science and math academy called “peace and light?” It goes with the belief that peace can only be achieved through enlightenment, intellectually and spiritually. Peace cannot be achieved without personal and social progression; violence thrives in moments of darkness of the mind and of the spirit.

Pax Et Lumen Academy will open its doors this June 2009, from nursery to Grade 4. It is located at Santo Entierro St., Angeles City in Pampanga. Its principal is Irene Barcelon who just came back from the United States teaching mathematics in Georgia. Visit their website www.paxetlumen.org