Making the ‘multi-grade’ classroom in conflict areas work

For years, Michael Landon’s television series “Little House on the Prairie,” delighted a worldwide audience of family viewers who watched how early America, represented by Michael’s family, pioneered life in the wilderness of a new country. Life centered in the little schoolhouse where the children of the pioneers, whose ages ranged from six to 16, learned together under one teacher.

When America was poor and in civil wars

Usually an outsider, the teacher would come from the teacher training institute of the city where she would be prepared to handle basic subjects with a sprinkling of Social Studies and Science for a mixed-age group of village students. To see an illiterate teenager learn the three R’s together with the younger children was normal. He would not be made fun of.

At the height of the Indian Wars, the pioneer families were always on the move. Thus, their children failed to get regular schooling for years. Families would form wagon trails to protect themselves from the rampaging Indians. When they would stop for a while, the educated mothers or older sisters would take time to tutor the children. The pioneers were generally coming from Germany, Ireland or the Scandinavian countries, where education is considered essential as food and weapons.

A similar “state of war” has been occurring in the Philippine villages after President Magsaysay died. Insurgency was resurrected by Joma Sison, who organized the Maoist Communist New People’s Army (NPA). The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in the meantime has built itself up during the two decades of the Marcos regime. Thus, we have the phenomenon of “schools without children” especially at the Cordilleras, Bicol, Samar, Leyte and the Muslim provinces of Mindanao.

TV close up of public village school multi-grade class

DepEd Secretary Fabella then candidly announced that, with conditions as they are, he cannot expect excellence in the system. He can provide most of the missing 11,000 elementary school classrooms just to give the village children who are not yet enrolled access to education. Still, he realizes that the worst problem is to find teachers and train them for effectively grading a “mixed-age group” of village students just like in “The Little House on the Prairie.”

Che-Che Lazaro gave us a close-up of the DECS version of a “multi-grade classroom” in Nueva Ecija in “The Probe Team” story on TV.

Ms. Hipolito, the newly-trained multi-grade teacher, enthusiastically explained that it is really simple to give a Grammar lesson, “I would simply divide the lesson into three parts: For Grade I, I teach ‘I, you, he, she, it’; for Grade II, ‘we, you, they’; and for Grade III, I would combine the pronouns with verbs.”

The camera also focused on an over simplified arithmetic lesson of subtraction. The main lesson was to make the class memorize the words: subtrahend, minuend and difference.

This television episode just gave me the chills. They were exactly the same lessons taught me by my Grade I teacher, Ms. Red, at the San Andres Elementary School (renamed Aurora Quezon Elementary School) way back in 1945. That was almost 70 years ago. Now, the lesson is not only the same but it is even split into three parts to make do for Grade I and III as well. Has “The Probe Team” documentary deliberately exposed the futility of the exercise? A tiny boy whose family transferred from Tanay to Nueva Ecija commented: “Ang dali-dali po ng leksyon” (The lesson is so easy).

Meantime, the camera caught Secretary Fabella’s blasé expression when he referred point-blank to the possible outcome of the DECS multi-grade implementation: “Of course, I know the outcome will be worse.”

How difficulties in language, math and science are gradated

How does a multi-grade classroom work? When we were just starting our elementary school level, the enrolment was rather small. I just arrived from Italy with an assistant Filipino teacher, whom I took along with me to train at Bergamo, Italy for my second course in Montessori. The Elementary Grade School Program was entirely different from the Montessori preschool teacher training. The grade school Cosmic Curriculum requires a set of materials per subject displayed in open shelves, from where individually, each student can help oneself. The culture-loaded syllabi for Grade I to Grade III can be set up in a room. Likewise, the advanced Grade IV to Grade VI materials are placed in a separate room. Each academic subject had a ready-made set of modules. The difficulties were all gradated from the first three grades (called first level or simplified lessons) to the last six intermediate grades referred to as the second level or complex lessons). Each mini lesson belonged to a “continuum” of knowledge linked to one another as it progressed. The Integrated Multi-Grade Cosmic Curriculum works.

Unlike traditional teachers who are assigned a specific grade like Grade II, and will be committed to teach Grade II throughout her life, the Cosmic Curriculum requires the teacher to master a continuum of Grades I to III in all subjects, or to specialize in only one advanced subject (departmentalized for Math, Language or Science) and teach it continuously from Grades IV to VII.

Thus the Cosmic Curriculum would enable the Grades I to III teachers not only to teach Grammar but also to blend it with Orals, Writing and Reading. Given a mixed-age primary level class, the Grades I, II and III groups will discuss with the teacher, or let four to six students narrate individually, how they groom themselves for school, for example. The dialect will ease their narration in the beginning but eventually, the teachers should converse in English. English equivalent may be written on the blackboard. After the class has warmed up, the teacher can let them translate their “Orals“ to “Writing”. Initially, the first graders can write single words then lead to sentence writing. The second graders can write the sentences or one paragraph. The third graders may do two paragraphs. The teacher must sit down with each group to correct their work simultaneously, while she gives further instructions to the slow ones.

Math continuum for numeration and operation

For Math, the whole class can be taught numeration 1 to 10 with Number Rods then proceed to unit, tens, hundreds, thousands with the Wooden Decimal materials. There should be accompanying number cards from units, 10s, 100s to 1000s. While the first graders concentrate on numeration and arithmetic problems using unit numbers, the second graders may proceed to “static” addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with two to three-digit numbers, without carrying. Drills on changing 10s, 100s and 1000s over 10 pieces will enable the second graders to do dynamic operations during the second half of the year. The third graders can concentrate on dynamic operations or sums with “remainders.”

Linking Geography to History for Social Studies

In Social Studies, Grades I, II and III kids can be made aware of mapping his home within his community. The Puzzle Map of the eight continents of the world is offered to Grade I students and lead to working with the 27 piece Puzzle Map of Asia, and concluded with the 17 Region Puzzle Map of the Philippines. These can be made-to-order from a wood-craft store (Visit O.B. Montessori Greenhills where the geography and Math models are available or the EFA-DAKAR pilot elementary school of Pulung Bulu, behind the O.B Montessori Center in Angeles, Pampanga along MacArthur highway)

History Time Lines can be made up of the Grade I child’s Family Time Line, where the ages of grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters can be indicated with numbered paper strips pasted on a sheet of paper. Grade II students can work on cutouts or illustrations showing the Time Lines of the Needs of Man: evolution of food, clothing and shelter 20 years before Christ (BC) and 20 years after Christ (AD), are laid out on a time scroll on the floor. A more advanced illustrated scroll of the Creation: the first epoch Paleozoic Era shows water life; the second epoch Mesozoic Era, shows the reptiles; the third epoch, Cenozoic Era shows the mammals; then at the end, MAN appears at the Neozoic Era. The message: God prepared first the needs of mankind before He created people.

DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro, the ball is in your court now

The above multi-grade materials can be easily packed in a large suitcase and brought to children in conflict areas. But it will require a trained Pagsasarili teacher, who is committed, selfless and courageous to make it work.

We have experimented with this system at the Bagong Bayan Elementary School at Dasmariñas Cavite using a UNESCO budget for the “No Drop-Out Scheme” during the time of BEE Director Edith Carpio. The DECS Committee led by National Literacy Council Coordinator, Mrs. Rose Sese and the Cavite supervisors observed its 100 percent success in preventing “dropouts” in Grade I. They have endorsed it for use in the public school, but it was never followed up.

In spite of this, our O.B. Montessori Child and Community Foundation persisted and set up the full Cosmic Curriculum “prepared environment” to achieve the elusive quality standard in Basic Education in Pulung Bulu Public School in Angeles, Pampanga. Labeled as a UNESCO action program for quality education the EFA-DAKAR pilot project for Region 3 took 2 years to retrain and monitor the public school Grade I to III teachers and equip the classrooms. The lahar damaged cottage within the large central school was reconstructed by the friends of Max V. Soliven, my late husband. Today it is financially sustainable for K-6. Region 3 Director Isabelita Borres intends to help us integrate it with Grades VII to XII.

The Montessori Cosmic Curriculum technology is available and modified to be cost-effective. Secretary Luistro, the ball is in your court now. It is up to you to throw it back to us.

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