Amazing
Amazing
Posted 11:33pm (Mla time) Feb 26, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the February 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
AT A TIME so many doctors are taking up nursing so they can find employment overseas, Christopher and Maria Victoria Bernido would probably strike a lot of people as an odd couple. After going to the United States to earn their doctorate in physics, they came home. And they came back not to the University of the Philippines where they used to teach, but to their native Jagna in Bohol where Chris' grandfather had founded a small high school.
Even more amazing is what the Bernidos have done to their school and to their students in the relatively short time since they took over the school less than a decade ago. It's not so much that their neck of the woods has seen international conferences at which Nobel laureates in physics delivered lectures, although that is a rarity even in Metropolitan Manila. It is not even that they are helping institutions in the south improve their science teaching and research capabilities by conducting training sessions and seminars. The most wonderful thing they have done is make their students really learn and appreciate Math and Science.
One good measure of how far they have come is that four of their graduates qualified for admission to the University of the Philippines in the 2002 exams and five in 2003, while no one had passed in previous decades. Moreover, visiting educators have marveled at the quality of the work the students produce as shown in the folios of activity sheets they put together, including examination papers, exercise sheets and laboratory reports.
How the students get to imbibe so much of their lessons is the product of a method unique in the Philippine setting. The emphasis is on "learning by doing'' instead of the traditional "learning by listening,'' as Raul Fabella, Cristina Fabella and Vigile Marie Fabella observed in their contribution to "Talk of the Town'' in last Sunday's Inquirer. Thus, lectures on a certain subject are limited to 20 minutes, while the rest of the period is given to the discussion of concepts among the students themselves, solving problems and doing exercises, and conferring with the teacher when the going gets tough. "The basic behavioral premise is that if you create an environment that rewards inquiry and reflection, students will follow the cue,'' the Fabellas noted.
Studying at the Central Visayas Institute Foundation is less of a burden to its students than in many other private schools. For one thing, the annual matriculation fee, which covers everything, is only P3,700. And since the system requires that their "homework'' be done right in school, students have more time, if called for, to help their parents, mostly farmers, with the real work of earning a living.
The next amazing thing about the Bernidos' grand experiment is that they have accomplished so much with so little. Their school squats on property it doesn't own. With the school fees kept low, sometimes the school has difficulty meeting the payroll. Whether it is for economic or other reasons, lectures are conducted "seminar style'' with all the students taking a particular subject in attendance.
What the Bernidos have going in their school perhaps offers what could be the best hope of reversing the downward spiral in the quality of Philippine education. They have shown that being among the bottom-dwellers in international proficiency tests in Science and Math, the two areas in which our Asian neighbors excel, need not be a permanent condition. They have shown that lack of resources, be it classrooms, teachers or physical facilities, doesn't condemn anyone to the lowest rung in terms of academic performance. But more than anything else, they have taught us, especially our education policymakers and officials, that the only limits to learning and imparting learning are those set by our imagination or the lack of it.
Posted 11:33pm (Mla time) Feb 26, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the February 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
AT A TIME so many doctors are taking up nursing so they can find employment overseas, Christopher and Maria Victoria Bernido would probably strike a lot of people as an odd couple. After going to the United States to earn their doctorate in physics, they came home. And they came back not to the University of the Philippines where they used to teach, but to their native Jagna in Bohol where Chris' grandfather had founded a small high school.
Even more amazing is what the Bernidos have done to their school and to their students in the relatively short time since they took over the school less than a decade ago. It's not so much that their neck of the woods has seen international conferences at which Nobel laureates in physics delivered lectures, although that is a rarity even in Metropolitan Manila. It is not even that they are helping institutions in the south improve their science teaching and research capabilities by conducting training sessions and seminars. The most wonderful thing they have done is make their students really learn and appreciate Math and Science.
One good measure of how far they have come is that four of their graduates qualified for admission to the University of the Philippines in the 2002 exams and five in 2003, while no one had passed in previous decades. Moreover, visiting educators have marveled at the quality of the work the students produce as shown in the folios of activity sheets they put together, including examination papers, exercise sheets and laboratory reports.
How the students get to imbibe so much of their lessons is the product of a method unique in the Philippine setting. The emphasis is on "learning by doing'' instead of the traditional "learning by listening,'' as Raul Fabella, Cristina Fabella and Vigile Marie Fabella observed in their contribution to "Talk of the Town'' in last Sunday's Inquirer. Thus, lectures on a certain subject are limited to 20 minutes, while the rest of the period is given to the discussion of concepts among the students themselves, solving problems and doing exercises, and conferring with the teacher when the going gets tough. "The basic behavioral premise is that if you create an environment that rewards inquiry and reflection, students will follow the cue,'' the Fabellas noted.
Studying at the Central Visayas Institute Foundation is less of a burden to its students than in many other private schools. For one thing, the annual matriculation fee, which covers everything, is only P3,700. And since the system requires that their "homework'' be done right in school, students have more time, if called for, to help their parents, mostly farmers, with the real work of earning a living.
The next amazing thing about the Bernidos' grand experiment is that they have accomplished so much with so little. Their school squats on property it doesn't own. With the school fees kept low, sometimes the school has difficulty meeting the payroll. Whether it is for economic or other reasons, lectures are conducted "seminar style'' with all the students taking a particular subject in attendance.
What the Bernidos have going in their school perhaps offers what could be the best hope of reversing the downward spiral in the quality of Philippine education. They have shown that being among the bottom-dwellers in international proficiency tests in Science and Math, the two areas in which our Asian neighbors excel, need not be a permanent condition. They have shown that lack of resources, be it classrooms, teachers or physical facilities, doesn't condemn anyone to the lowest rung in terms of academic performance. But more than anything else, they have taught us, especially our education policymakers and officials, that the only limits to learning and imparting learning are those set by our imagination or the lack of it.
posted by Dante at 2:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home