by rossanahead | Jul 14, 2011 | children, Education, family, parenting, Ruth M. Floresca
By Ruth Manimtim-Floresca
Life is one big classroom. I have always believed that learning is not, and should never be, confined inside the school setting alone. The same goes for the pursuit of excellence. Not making it to the honor roll doesn’t mean a child can’t excel in other areas.
Personally, I am not too keen on putting too much pressure on my kids to earn medals and get high grades in their report cards. Yes, I encourage them to do their best but I don’t feel overly disappointed when they score lower than expected in exams or don’t come home with accolades after a scholastic competition.
What I better want to see in my children is the genuine enthusiasm to pursue their passions and hone their skills, academic or otherwise. My eldest son has already shown so much potential in the field of visual arts when he was just a mere toddler. He continued to focus on that as he was growing up. When he decided to take up Digital Media Arts as his college course, my husband and I gladly gave our full support. In the span of a few weeks since he entered school last year, our firstborn’s transformation from being a high school student getting average grades to becoming an excelling freshman in college was amazing! Now free from the high school subjects he thought were utterly boring, I’ve seen how eager my son now tackles his assignments and projects because they are in line with the things he truly wants to do.
My other two sons, on the other hand, showed a lot of promise when it comes to writing around three years ago. They were invited to write for Manila Bulletin’s Funpage section and have been contributing articles there ever since. I feel very blessed that these kids were given that chance to already show what they can do at an early age. To help them hone the writing craft, I make sure I provide them with books and magazines they’d like to read and provide guidance when they are writing their drafts. I also remind them every now and then that becoming a good writer always starts with being an avid reader.
When parents nurture a child’s God-given gifts at home through constant encouragement and ample attention, the knowledge and skills as well as the discipline and determination he gains will eventually become a way of life, radiating towards everything else he does.
In my opinion, that’s already one big step towards reaching the top of the class called life.
![Quality vs Quantity]()
by rossanahead | Jul 12, 2011 | children, Education, family, Gina Abuyuan, parenting
By Regina Abuyuan
The first time I heard about the proposed K-12 system of education being implemented here, I almost balked. What stopped me was that I was sitting across a senator who was clearly in favor of it. His steely glare told me to quiet down or he would leave our one-on-one.
The worst kinds of mistakes are usually knee-jerk reactions to age-old problems that need analysis, time, critical thinking, and effort to solve.
Where do I start? A paper by Abraham Felipe and Caroline Porio (“Length of School Cycle and Quality of Education”) starts out citing entrepreneurs’ “anecdotal evidence” of Filipinos’ dismal performance with requirements, and relates it to the quality of education. It goes on to cite our low scores in TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), attributing it to our short educational cycles. The graph and analysis accompanying the paper debunks this, though:
“…The lower left hand corner is the region for low performing countries with short preschool education sub-cycles [6]. Note that the Philippines is somewhere in the lower left hand corner but is appreciably higher than South Africa which is the lowest. Note also that a short preschooling does not condemn a country’s 8th graders to dullness. South Korea has the same length of preschooling as the Philippines but is one of the top performers in TIMSS. At the same time, other countries had longer preschooling (e.g., Ghana, Morocco, 2 years; Botswana, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, 3 years) but lower TIMSS scores.
In the comparable chart for 4th graders (Figure 2), one can note similar observations. South Korea (the top-notcher for 8th graders) did not participate; hence, its 4th graders had no TIMSS records. Australia had a respectable TIMSS score even if it has only one year of preschooling. On the other, Morocco (2 years of preschool), Norway (3 years), and Armenia and Slovenia (both 4 years) had lower scores than Australia.
“Long sub-cycles have been believed to contribute to higher achievement. This notion is clearly wrong in the cases of elementary cycle data. In Figures 3 and 4, the test scores of the Philippines which has a 6-year elementary cycle was lower than the test scores of all 13 countries with shorter elementary cycles (Russia, Armenia, Latvia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Italy, Egypt and Iran). The only exception was the case of 8th grade tests for Palestine.”
Clearly, the quantity or length of education is not the problem here—it is the quality of the education, which of course spirals into a chicken-and-egg debate about budgets allotted for teachers, classrooms, heck, even chalk and chairs. While I am no economist and cannot spout figures off the top of my head, I do know that parents play just as important a role in nurturing a child’s mind and his desire to learn.
I was a teacher for one semester, and it took all my patience and willpower to not fling the chairs at the students for not wanting to read, not hungering for more knowledge. I assigned them short stories, asked them to read it in class, and tell me, right after they read it, what the paragraph was about. Ninety-nine percent of them could not. And these were college kids!
The child takes cues from his parents. If he sees that education—learning—is an integral part of his parents’ lives, he’ll pick it up naturally as well. If he sees that his parents are “living curious,” to borrow a phrase from Nat Geo, then he will, too.
My twins go to the Center for Blended Learning, a school where the teacher to student ratio is 1:2, and where different approaches to teaching are used, not just the traditional blackboard-homework stuff. They finished first grade in around seven months. They’re looking to finish both second and third grade this year.
While most don’t have access to this kind of schooling, I have to emphasize the importance of my involvement and presence in their learning. School isn’t just a place where I dump ‘em off in the morning. It’s a partnership with the teachers to know where they might need help or reinforcement, or when they are doing well.
That said, I think the government and teachers need to seriously re-think their roles in giving Filipino children quality education. A longer education cycle will not work if the focus is still on rote and not understanding, on blind submissiveness than critical thinking, on the desire to merely pass rather than the value of learning, on the desire to achieve rather than the desire to make a difference.
The K-12 scheme is just another salve to patch over our deeply-rooted, flawed views on education. Just like PNoy’s Social Contract with the Filipino People, it is an impressively put together proposal that’s nothing but pretty words and loose promises. The Filipino needs more than changes based on anecdotes and comments. Change has to start from the inside-out, not the outside-in. It’s not the obvious what that has to be tackled, but the profound why.
by rossanahead | Jul 11, 2011 | career, woman
By Denise Congco
What do I dream of? What do I really want? Simple things, really: something to do, someone to love, and something to stand for.
I know that a stable job is still important to me. I know I have an innate talent to create something out of nothing, which in my industry means creating a marketing campaign with limited, if not zero budget. I know I enjoy making people feel beautiful.
Actually, I was already doing the things that gave me pure joy: marketing and makeup! I just had to find a company that would allow me to do both. I waited for the right job interview to come my way, not going to those that I knew wouldn’t allow me to explore my two passions. I had to stick to my vision! Soon enough, the perfect job offer came. I accepted and am now enjoying every bit of it. Plus, I have wedding makeup gigs every weekend! I am enjoying the best of both worlds!
Asked to describe who I want to meet in my Friendster account, I wrote “someone to hold hands and see the world with.” And I am happy to say that I have met that person. Gaining self-confidence allowed me to share myself again with someone I adore, respect, and believe in.
Little by little, I found myself getting closer to that self vision I created when I was down and out. It was not an easy feat. And up to now, there are days when I feel like I’m taking a few steps back. But then there are good days when the dream feels so close.
All those months of searching led me to several conclusions: Nobody should define who you are but yourself. Come to terms with what makes you sad, angry, or frustrated. Envision the life that you want to lead and then do everything in your power to attain it. Every day, decide and choose to create your own happiness!
Yes, I lost everything. But after all the hurt and the pain, I found myself.
by rossanahead | Jul 10, 2011 | career, woman
By Denise Congco
2009 was the year I thought I lost everything. I quit my job, ended a relationship, and cut ties with my best friend of 20 years. I thought it was too much to go through in one year. But today, two years later, I realized that those things had to happen so that I can find myself.
When the source of your happiness comes from external factors, whether it’s your career or a loved one, you sometimes lose touch of who you really are. You let yourself be judged by other people. You get affected by what they say.
But when you let go of all that, you start asking the right questions: Who are you when stripped of material things, friends, job, and boyfriend? What are your deal-breakers and non-negotiables? What are the causes you will die fighting for? If it’s self-fulfillment you’re after, what would you rather do?
At the time, I had all but lost my self-esteem. I had to figure out a way to love ME again. I took a vacation. I traveled around Asia and somehow gained a new zest for life. The world truly is my oyster!
Traveling gave me a different perspective on life. I realized that what might have been important to me was not necessarily relevant to the ice cream man in Singapore or the sales lady in Bangkok. What may be a big deal to you may not even matter to your neighbor, so what’s the fuss? If you failed at something, it doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the pieces, take all the life lessons that moment has taught you, and start anew somewhere, somehow.
But how do I love ME again? I found out that when you rephrase the question, it becomes easier to answer: What don’t I love about myself? My answers ranged from the most trivial to the most profound. I had a problem with my weight, my inability to say no, my tendency to lose myself in a relationship, and my lack of a dream.
So I zeroed in on the easiest: the weight issue. I read everything I could find online. I consulted a doctor and found out that I had polycystic ovaries, which made it doubly hard for me to lose weight. Apparently, my hormones have practically been making me obese. I had to treat that first and then searched high and low for that one exercise program that would suit my lifestyle. Because of the Tracy Anderson Method and a clear vision to reach my ideal weight, I managed to go down to a size 4 from a size 12! From large to small!
I got so excited because that kind of happiness emanated from within me! It was the result of sheer hard work and perseverance. It started from accepting the fact that I had a problem and facing it head on.
Next on the list: my inability to say no. I figured that being gracious is different from letting yourself be taken advantage of. I suppose that when you lose everything, you gain courage. A regained sense of self will give you the confidence to say no to something you don’t feel like doing. That same confidence will make you proud of who you are and what you have become! That solves problem number three: my tendency to lose myself in a relationship. By knowing what I hated about myself and doing something about it, I solved two problems at once!
[To be continued]
by rossanahead | Jul 7, 2011 | Mari-an Santos, woman
By Mari-An Santos
One of our household traditions is to clean out the closets at least twice a year. This not only means taking out clothes that no longer fit us (whether it’s for the happy reason that one lost weight or the undesirable horror that one has gained so much), but also getting rid of scuffed shoes, peeling bags, unused cosmetics, and old magazines. We pile them in boxes, bring them out to the corridor, and whisked away to people who my parents think might need them.
The exercise is always cathartic. Going through pairs of jeans that used to fit snugly brings back memories of gimmicks with friends during more carefree times. Discarding old magazines elicits laughter over former crushes and fashion trends in the dusty, faded pages. Fishing out old receipts or photos and other memorabilia from the corners of boxes or at the bottom of bags is always nostalgic.
It feels like cobwebs are being cleared not only in my room, but also in the attic of my brain. Though not completely forgotten, things that remind us of the past, distant or not so distant they may be, bring about a wave of emotions.
In the process, we make room for new clothes and new magazines, and more space for our things to “breathe.” Unloading boxes full of memories does not diminish or erase the experiences related to them. In truth, they are made richer than if they had simply been left inside boxes unopened, fading away with time, and crumbling over age.
