How parents and teachers can help cultivate the learning revolution today

There is a strong endorsement of computers to facilitate education in the Philippines, prescribing it “as an antidote to the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the literate and illiterate in a developing country.” Generally what computer schools all over the country have done is to develop a new breed of clerks – the encoders.

3 decades of failure of IT education

The eager computer advocates of our country should read Claudia Wallis’s The Learning Revolution. She was featured in Time magazine stating “Computers are indeed everywhere in American schools for the past three decades, but they are generally used as little more than electronic workbooks for drill or as places for kids to play games during ‘free choice’ periods. The promised revolution has failed to materialize.”

The Education Commission (EdCom) formed by our Congress and Senate 17 years ago since 1990-1991 decided to let the DECS focus mainly on restoring quality to elementary and high school education, referred to as Basic Education. This was the answer to the global call of the newly ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

All education secretaries from DECS Secretary Armand Fabella (1992-1994) to current DepEd Sec. Leonor Briones, have been tasked to execute the EdCom 1990-1991 education reforms to “recharge the nation’s powerhouse,” namely to upgrade to global standards the basic education curriculum and teacher training, restore the academic excellence of principals, as well as reinforce functional literacy for all.

Right after the EdCom survey, these four school reforms were analyzed for 18 months by the DECS Basic Education Task Force, funded by the World Bank and Japan, 1991-1995. If the EdCom survey revealed that the average public high school science teacher’s competence is only equivalent to the science knowledge of a Grade VII student from a good private school, and neither is she articulate in English, one can only conclude that computer education cannot simply be the solution.

Computer knowledge goes with the profession on the job

In the past 30 years, majority of high school graduates have been misled to take up computer courses, instead of the usual college preparatory technical or degree course in education, business, engineering, law, science and medicine. Visions of highly paid positions abroad were dangled before them, while tiny computer schools began mushrooming all over the countryside. In the US many senior and junior high schools have a technical school right beside it. Computer schools by itself don’t exist.

The conversion of our agriculture economy to industries requires hands on professional technicians, scientists, engineers, accountants, artists etc. Modern life is now equipped with all types of computers, from the home or personal computers to the giant mainframes that are becoming more powerful. They are vital in banking. They supervise the flight of aircraft and spacecraft. They are used in medicine to display the internal structure and condition of the patients’ bodies.

Thus, learning how to operate computers and understanding its installed programs can best be done – on the job. Besides airlines, banks, government offices, hospitals, newspapers and schools have the larger storehouses of data.

Catching up with the computerized world

Now, the 50-year-old O.B. Montessori schools with its preschool to high school population reaching to 5,000 plus, the 292 faculty members and 182 administrative personnel had to catch up with this cyberspace era to become more efficient. In the year 2000 typewriters were discarded for computers. Under the so-called Management Information System (MIS) which we installed as early as 2005, we succeeded in integrating all the programs of each department into one system with the help of a reputable computer programming company.

For the first phase, custom-made program for the accounting office was linked to the registrar and academic offices, and the cashier. Another program was made for the warehouse and school stores to dispense books, uniforms, office and classroom supplies. The five libraries have their own special program.

This rigid computer training of administrative personnel and academic offices took place in the high school computer laboratory. In the second phase, all personnel of the guidance office, cafeteria, property section, maintenance officers, engineers and housekeepers of the environmental care office (ECO) took the training as well. Within a year all the administrative and academic departments of the O.B. Montessori schools and their support offices have a fully computerized integrated system.

The true learning revolution

Parents and teachers should act NOW to cultivate the children’s computer minds. First they must do this by developing the child’s LISTENING POWER with the power of a tape recorder. At dinner time read a list of objects, basketball players, names of book characters, etc. Let the child name this back in order, first seven or eight items, then eight to ten.

Make it harder with facts from a story or a news event with statistics. You’ll be astounded at his retention ability, for the secret of good listening is strengthening EAR CHANNEL MEMORY. Give him exercises in keeping pace with the teacher’s lecture or speaker’s talk. Second, turn LISTENING from PASSIVE to ACTIVE OCCUPATION. He’ll stop drifting if you teach him how to link the speaker’s ideas one to the other by SUMMARIZING it part after part. He’ll also think step by step with the speaker’s NEXT POINT. Then he must learn to LISTEN “BETWEEN the LINES” for points not put into words. Apply this to the day-to-day home situations whether the child is in grade school or high school.

In this modern, scientific, automated world of ours, one’s future success or failure is going to depend almost entirely upon one’s ability to absorb facts, and expertise to acquire one’s occupational skills. However it requires the advice and guidance of the mature and experienced parents and teachers.

Man’s mind especially during the formative years from birth to adolescence is the ideal computer. But the true nature of the student, whether he’s in grade school or high school, must be understood so he can be helped to double his power to learn. A revolutionary school system to fulfill the “becoming” or one’s maturation must replace the traditional system.