Educator wife recently shared the woes that they encountered in a school where she is currently the academic consultant, in connection to the face-to-face (F2F) transition.
Upon asking the faculty for encountered difficulties in the first two weeks, some provided the following feedback:
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- There are grade 6 pupils who could not resolve a simple 2×3.
- Highschool students who cannot even construct a simple English sentence.
- Grades 1 and 2 pupils who cannot recognize the authority of teachers and other school administrators and those who don’t understand the presence of other students in one room, among others.
The logistics of going back to school is only the surface and we’re barely scratching it. The real issue now is how to make up for the lost time and making the kids ready for the hustle.
Did the modular approach fail spectacularly?
Does this corroborate the findings that we really have an issue with reading comprehension especially in English? And because reading comprehension is poor, are our kids doomed to fail in the mode of independent learning? These need to be looked into and answered by the experts in the education department.
In the point of view of a parent like myself, perhaps one reason students are not fully equipped with the required skills after 2 years of modular learning is because they skipped some of the lessons in their modules as instructed by their teachers. This happened to my Grade VI kid.
The original pre-pandemic curriculum, educator wife explained, was reduced to the MELC (most essential learning competencies) where the previous modules were based upon. And it was further reduced by some teachers when they instructed via Facebook chat groups to answer specific items only instead of all.
Modules were designed as a step by step instruction just like in Math where the foundation of understanding higher mathematical concepts lies on the mastery of elementary math. Failure to grasp the small stuff will inevitably result in failure to grasp the whole lesson.
Also in some instances, viral posts showed parents and guardians answering the modules themselves for the kids. Enough said.
Crash program
What will happen to the kid who cannot multiply 2×3 when he moves up to grade 7? Are we waiting for the advent of less capable graduates 4 to 5 years from now?
F2F including all the logistics and anxiety is only the beginning. The bigger issue is getting our kids back on track to the pace and skills required of them which our kids are lagging behind by a mile compared to pre-pandemic era.
How are we going to bridge the already huge gap and how to do it ASAP greatly depends on the education department based on their expert studies and recommendation.
Diagnostic exams are being administered so I heard but when educator wife asked what’s next after that, teachers can hardly answer. So it is either there is a vacuum in terms of instructions from DepEd central down to the schools on how to address this, there is a plan underway, or there is nothing at all in the pipeline.
We need it, boy we need the crash program and fast!
Support our teachers
Teachers and administrators are facing a formidable force as they both have to do diagnostics to know where they should specifically begin and to address the problem until the school and the students overcome the colossal challenges. If we want them to succeed in getting our kids back in shape, they should be fully equipped and their arsenal of much needed resources should be overflowing.
This should call for solidarity of the education department and the schools to create the crash program and the bridge; and for higher efficiency ensure proper information dissemination, one single interpretation of policies and guidelines at that!
Support our kids
To cope, our kids will undergo the same nerve-wracking effort that will demand all the support that they can get from the community.
The support coming from parents will help the kids weather the storm.
The teachers and school administrators will have to implement guidelines and procedures, line by line religiously to aid the kids to get back on track to cover the skills that they should’ve acquired long ago.
Because my children and yours are worth a fighting chance.