I have been to Sadanga National High School, Poblacion, Sadanga last Friday, December 9, 2011, as guest speaker on the culminating activities of the celebration of Education Week.   The theme:  “Nurturing the Whole Child, Celebrating Milestones and Accentuating Achievements,” is just but fitting to the whole week activity.  It was indeed a milestone for the school because it is the first time that the school celebrated Education Week-putting emphasis on the technical-vocational and entrepreneurial skills of the students.  The school held an exhibit showcasing the products of the students in the categories- Agriculture, Information and Communications Technology, Woodworks and Food Processing.  I was in awe at how the students could articulate on their business plans- one wanted a to set up a gasoline station along the main road from Sadanga to Kalinga.  Another wanted to set up a canteen with nothing to serve but foods from organically grown produce.  The students in Information Technology got to present their electronically created posters and their word processing skills.  Boys joined the dish gardening competition and won the first prize.  I got to taste the fruit pie and candied beans from the food processing department and it could rival the pastries we have in any other place.

The activity was a dream project of the principal, Mrs. Arleen G. Poyongan and put into fruition with the whole faculty members and students working together.  Mr. Avelino K. Tangkawan took charge of the ICT exhibits and presentations- indeed it was a good connection.  The ICT group took care of the labels of the produce from the food processing department.   The projects of the students who were more inclined in woodworks were also part of the exhibit.  The products were functional, practical –things you would not believe- a student could do.

Along the way home, I look back to the days when vocational skills were frowned upon by many.  Now that the K-12 is in the offing, it seems that those in favor are harping about the inclusion of vocational training in the planned addition of two more years in high school.  Nothing wrong with that, it’s high time we give tech vocation the attention it deserves.  But then, this is just like transferring to the high school level two years of tech-vocational education which, already is being provided for the the hundreds of TESDA supervised private tech-vocational institutions.

(Photo:  post secondary freshmen students of Xijen College participate in a team building workshop- senior high school students supposed to be if the students are in the K-12 program) Now on the looming K-12 or planned twelve years of education for the Filipino child, I prefer to look at it this way.  A very strong foundation in the early years of education is an important consideration.  Many researches, studies have been done by so called education experts, yet nothing seems to fit.  I am a product of a public school and I entered Grade 1 as a six year old.  We only had the very basic subjects, reading, writing and arithmetic, science, social studies, scouting came in next in the following years.  If my memory serves me right, our teachers did not use the local dialect to teach.  Of course there was a sprinkling of it.  Thus, reading Pepe and Pilar was more than enough to teach us the English language in Grade 1.

There was theme writing everyday and the more it honed our writing skills.  It was not all about having to teach in the local dialect for us to be able to comprehend but it was more about the teacher’s skill in teaching, in lesson delivery.  My teacher in Grade One, Ms.  Josephine Joven Dirige used a lot of visual aids, creative teaching techniques and lots of praises coupled with discipline.  In time, school was really fun for me.  Then we have emphasis on building good character.  Character building was part of all the subjects and it did not have to be taken as a separate subject.  Honesty, discipline, respect for elders and everything that a child should carry on as a characteristic of a better person were taken in either in the classroom or outside of the classroom.  I learned so much from my classmates too, children of Bontoc Ili who made it a point to rush home after classes-to meet their parents, carry their heavy load as they come from a day’s work at the fields.  Third is comprehension.  In high school, I hated subjects where exams were always measured on your ability to memorize.  I had poor memory and I did not like examinations that had a lot of fill in the blanks.  But then I would thrive in a subject where exams required essays.   Those are just a few of my thoughts on the K-12.  I guess it is not adding more years but a matter of overhauling the entire system.  Simplifying the curriculum and ensuring that we have the best teachers that we can possibly have.  To have K-12 just because our engineers and other professionals are not recognized in other countries because of their lack of school residency (most of the countries of the world have 12 years of basic education; Singapore has 11) is another indication that we have given up hope that the best place for the Filipino professional to work is in the Philippines.  We have to take a long hard look and not rush to implement K-12.