[ad_1]
It must be incredibly difficult to be a parent during this pandemic.
Pre-Covid, moms and dads have carried out their busy lives, working to get enough food on the table, protecting their children with a roof over their heads, and sometimes helping them with their homework to enable these school work and pass. to the next class.
The parents at least had a modicum of confidence that whatever tuition they paid for their children’s education, they would get their money’s worth. And with the teachers acting as surrogate parents, their children would grow up to be the intelligent cherubs they believed had been their children forever. Uh.
These days of Covid-19, with children stuck at home and facing mixed learning sessions, amidst shaky internet connections (Hello, Smart! Hello, PLDT! Hello, Globe! Hello, Converge! Hello, Sky!) Parents are finally realizing the pitfalls of relying too much on our schools, without the close supervision their children actually need.
Since the start of the 2020-2021 school year, some self-paced modules (SLMs), which allegedly had the Department of Education imprimatur, have proved lacking in terms of meaning, reasoning and, well … education. Our Facebook and Twitter news feeds have been inundated with screenshots of what exactly kids are being fed at school.
In one example, which even scandalized famous singer Lea Salonga, had to post it on her social media accounts, an owl was tagged as an ostrich. And while grammatical errors were found in many pre-Covid workbooks, which made netizens regret it, the slew of errors recently uncovered in these SLMs were so obvious, even the news organizations would not miss out on reporting them and look for comments from the DepEd. (For example “The city of Tagaytay is known for the wonderful picturesque of the majestic Mount Taal …”)
Not to mention the errors in the mathematical equations; frankly I’m not even the math genius of our family, but I also know how to solve for “x”, and it won’t give you “zero” by dividing 2x by zero, then cross-multiplied by zero / zero. Haller! Dr. Sheldon Cooper would have been mad!
Director Jose Javier Reyes was so shocked by an SLM module from his friend’s niece. He was supposed to teach Filipino to children using pulled out lines from movies and asking them to identify which characters from the movie said them. Reyes, who is also a university professor, said in his post: “I am not only disgusted, but enraged and demoralized at the educational standards shown to Filipino students. How can we develop a nation of critical thinkers while some of those entrusted with the responsibility of shaping the minds of young people are in dire need of brains and even dedication to their work? So today I invented a new term: “EDIOTS”. Idiots in education. “
In a way, this Covid-19 could be a “blessing in heaven” – I bet an SLM would likely include that Filipino joke, instead of the correct idiom “blessing in disguise” – because it made parents check what exactly is being taught. to their angels, especially in live streamed school sessions and approved DepEd workbooks.
Still, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise. We have seen the signs but have chosen to ignore them.
During my term of teaching at a university, I had some students from famous Catholic exclusive schools for girls and boys who could not write grammatically correct sentences on their exams to save their too privileged lives. And that was in the late 1980s. So can you imagine the kind of education kids are getting these days ?!
Privately schooled children are likely to get by in the real world once they graduate, with the social connections of their parents, but what about those who study in public institutions and use these poorly conceptualized learning materials?
What can we do though? There have been throngs of competent teachers, dissatisfied with the unfair salaries they receive here, who leave the country and try their luck abroad, educating foreign students. Or worse, they have become house attendants or nannies who take care of other people’s children.
Many in my generation work in private companies, or have become lawyers and doctors, or work abroad in various professions and professions. Among the X’ennials and millennials, many of them are in the field of business process outsourcing, both as supervisors and as call center agents (if recent graduates).
Many of us work in jobs that pay more than teaching, so who do we expect to educate children today? Or create teaching materials for public and private school pupils? The Avengers?
I don’t mean to belittle our current group of teachers. For sure, many of them would not remain in the profession if they did not have a certain devotion, love also for their schools and for the children they teach. I’ve read the stories, I’ve watched the news on TV … public school teachers, for example, don’t have nearly enough time to create their daily lesson plans, teach and answer questions from what? 50-60 students and content with their flashing Internet connection. I doubt their salaries have risen despite teaching online courses, which is exhausting, believe me. Say what you want about WFH’s efficiency and while attending webinars and online reporters it might seem “easier” for reporters like me who have comorbidities – in my case, asthma – the computer can just suck the life and energy. by one person. Even if you use 100 blue light filters on the screen. (There must be a study to explain why this is so.)
The only way we can stop the erosion of the quality of the country’s education system is for more people intellectually inclined to become teachers. Or at least it helps to create or modify these SLMs. (Volunteers, anyone?) We also need to support higher salaries for our country’s teachers and budget to finance their higher studies so that they too can improve their skills and competences.
These are not impossible goals. But we have to do it now if we are to have a better future as a nation. Imagine having a president in Malacañang who can’t even pronounce “fuchsia”? Or, for heaven’s sake, the hamlets ?!
Source link
