Why do we have to be poor? Kids ask, wish for food, books, schooling

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:03:00 10/17/2010

Filed Under: Poverty, Education

MANILA, Philippines—In her jumbled English, 13-year-old Stella Mae Santos wrote her wish to the government: “I want to the poor people to have and dress and school requirements and money so that they have for buying foods.”

An unnamed artist captured a familiar scene of young pupils holding classes under a tree. A message scrawled on the drawing read: “Equal right to good education. Improve antique facilities.”

Junemar Gadian, a first-year Dumaguete City High School student, had a simple request: “I want a book so that I can read.”

In drawings and letters, students and out-of-school youths expressed their deepest wish to get an education, many of them sketching and writing down the barest of essentials: Peso bills in pencil, houses in crayola, clothes and fruits.

One student, Junrey Belando, wrote: “Why do we have to be poor? Why are we not like other well-off families?”

“We should take action against [poverty]. The collective effort of the government and its people will surely guarantee a poverty-free Philippines,” he said.

The students’ works were in a suitcase that Amnesty International turned over to the Department of Education (DepEd) on Friday to mark the observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Lagging

The international rights group wants a commitment and concrete plan of action from government on how it plans to meet the education targets under the Millennium Development Goals, a set of global antipoverty benchmarks that world leaders have committed to achieve by 2015.

The Philippines is among the nations known to be lagging behind in MDG compliance.

In a roundtable discussion with Education Undersecretary Alberto Muyot, Amnesty section director Aurora Parong said government should include stakeholders in drafting its course of action for MDG compliance and should direct its efforts into getting the poor and marginalized into the school system.

“The first message is to fulfill their international human rights obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the right to education. They should target the most vulnerable—the street children, the displaced, those in evacuation centers, those in the 10 poorest provinces,” Parong said.

She said government should adopt targeted measures to address education concerns specific to impoverished regions and sectors. She said these sectors should also be represented in consultations so that government action would correspond to their needs.

Overcoming poverty

Muyot, a former Amnesty International member himself, said he would convey the group’s concerns to government. He said measures were under way to ensure that the country makes it to the 2015 MDG deadline.

In a program held on the steps of DepEd’s main building, Amnesty International members read out a few of the letters from students and out-of-school youths, all of them expressing the hope that funding for public education would be increased to help them overcome poverty.

A cause for concern is the DepEd’s anticipated higher budget for next year—P207 billion from this year’s P175 billion—that Amnesty fears may not trickle down to the communities that are in most need of education funds.

“Despite bigger resources, Amnesty International is concerned that this might not translate into universal primary education when the poor and marginalized do not have access to elementary school buildings, qualified teachers and adequate books and materials needed for effective and quality education,” Parong said.

The MDG deadline coincides with the end of the five-year transition period that the DepEd has set for the implementation of K+12 (kindergarten plus 12), a key Aquino administration reform that aims to extend basic education by two years to place the country’s education system on a par with that of other countries around the world.

On Lesson Planning

Lesson Planning requires teacher expertise. It is a vital component of the skill which is a must for all teachers. The lesson plans created by the teacher will determine the kind of output that the learners will have and thus, a teacher must possess the meticulous and intensive studies of the various strategies and activities that will be employed during the lesson.

The things I stated above summarize my dreflection with regards to lesson planning experiences while I was on the course of Practice Teaching at Camanjac National School. Through the daily lesson plans duly corrected by my mentor, Mrs. Acabal, my skills in lesson planning are becoming more enriched each day. The learners’ outputs after each session has proven me that my styles and strategies to be employed must have been suited enough for my students’ needs, interests and capabilities.

I owe million thanks to my mentor for all her praises, advices and encouragements while I was in lesson planning each day. Credit is also accorded to my former teachers at the College of Education and as well as my teachers in the Social Sciences Department.

Thus, each day is another opportunity for me to improve more and more the way I deal with lesson planning. When given the chance to be really teaching the field into ACTUAL experiences, I believe the knowledge I acquired and the practices I had each day is more than enough for me to be more particular with the manner, matter, and methods I will use in lesson planning.

Personal Education Philiosophy

To instruct someone... is not a matter of getting him to commit results to mind. Rather, it is to teach him to participate in the process that makes possible the establishment of knowledge. We teach a subject not to produce little living libraries on that subject, but rather to get a student to think mathematically for himself, to consider matters as an historian does, to take part in the process of knowledge-getting. Knowing is a process not a product. (Bruner)

My personal philosophy of education has been changing since the first moment I stepped into an education course. However, I don't see this as something that is negative. In fact, I think that a teacher's personal philosophy of education should forever be evolving. Teachers should continually make efforts to inform themselves of new technology or innovations that help to facilitate learning in the classroom.

I believe that each student has the capacity to accomplish any goal that is set for them as long as they feel connected to what they are learning; without a link between the students and material, the interest is lost and the learning is harder and may take more time. According to Jean Piaget's theory of development and learning, a developing child builds cognitive structures, or schemes, that connect previous knowledge and/or experiences to new knowledge. This connection cultivates the student's understanding and responding to his or her environment. As a student makes progress, his or her cognitive structures increase in sophistication.

A teacher must also have positive expectations. This means believing in each student and believing that the student can learn and be successful. Students only learn as much as the teacher expects; teachers who set high expectations for their students will receive higher achievement from their students. It is amazing to see what students can accomplish when they know and sense that someone believes in them. It is my aspiration as an educator to help students meet their fullest potential by establishing an environment where my students feel safe, are comfortable taking risks with new learning, and presents them with opportunities to share their thoughts and ideas.

My philosophy of education aligns itself closely to that Jerome Bruner's Theory of Constructivism. In the Constructivist theory, the learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions; its focus is on knowledge construction, not recitation of knowledge. Knowledge is constructed through one's personal experiences, previous knowledge, and beliefs. For me as an educator, this means that I try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves. I give them the opportunity to have dialogue among their peers and with myself. My main task as a teacher is to present information to be learned that matches or closely matches the student's current level of learning. From what I have stated, my philosophy of education aligns itself to that of Progressivism. This philosophy greatly impacts the way in which I decide to design and develop a curriculum. My curriculum would focus on promoting progress and in improving the self and society. The emphasis would focus on the learning process; develop thinking skills, better interpersonal relationships, and meeting student interests. The students would be encouraged to be creative, express their own ideas, and appreciate the differences between themselves and others. My responsibility would be to guide and stimulate curiosity and interest in students and push them towards problem solving and scientific inquiry.

Reflection on my Philosophy of Education

One famous educator once wrote that a successful and efficient teacher is one who is anchored on truths and substantial philosophy. He must live with that philosophy and must be characterized with that philosophy. In short, a philosophy-anchored teacher is one of the essentials towards the teacher’s success. Why? It is because we can see that he has the sense of direction as to what to do, where to go and what to execute given the various problems or situations in the field of teaching.

With this, I find it an edge that I possess over the others that I have a philosophy in education which I follow. And again, I will reiterate that like the strategies of teaching, there is no single philosophy of education whioch can be considered best. Let us go back to the idea that knowledge of several philosophies is a must in order to adjust to the needs of the situation. Thus a combined eclectic approach in our daily dealings as a teacher can help a lot in order to answer the demands of this rapidly changing environment.

In the Analects, on Education, Confucius says, "Anyone learning without thought is lost; anyone thinking but not learning is in peril." I believe, as teachers-to-be, we must strive to prepare learners through academic readiness to make themselves more complete human beings. I believe that we have a responsibility to ensure for learners the most favorable environment we can for their integration of knowledge and scholarship and for the acquisition of necessary comprehension and synthesis skills. To accomplish this task we must provide for them ample and purposeful opportunities to develop and to test developing hypotheses and to encourage an advocacy of the notion that a part has coherent meaning only in the context of "the whole." If what we desire for learners is a sustained and productive response to order in flux, then we must stress the plurality of the foundations of knowledge and the diverse angles of refraction on ways of knowing.

Scholastic Life..waaaaaaaaaaaah!

oh! how wonderful!


you are so stressed with burdens of heavy loads..you've given all your best just to accommodate their enrollment..coordinate with the other volunteers whether they are doing the right thing- ensuring that they do not commit errors at the same time ensuring that all scholars will be accommodated. u r incharge of the order and sequence of those to be processed.. u sacrifice ur time and enrollment to help them,(without pay- coz u volunteer).


ikaw na nga itong naghirap matulungan lamang sila....ikaw na nga itong gumagawa ng mga paraan para lamang magampanan mo nang maayos ang iyong tungkulin..

but here comes the good scholars who can't undrstand u!.


pasalamat naman ako sa mga kasamahan ko sa NORSU Schoalrs' Federation na walang sawang sumusuporta sa akin at pakikipagtulungan din ng mga kaibigan kong student assistants sa NORSU CARE Center sa pamumuno ng Director at Schoarship Coordinator na si Dr. Noel E. Yasi..thanks of course sa patience na ibinigay ng Poong Maykapal!

but one thing that erased the burden is the simple one-liner statement--


-junrey, salamat ha kasi na-enroll na ako dahil sa tulong mo/n'yo...:)

waaahhhh..kaysarap at at the end of the day, marami naman pala kaming natutulungan:)