BY JULLIE Y. DAZA
To five-year-old Marco I ask, “And when will you read me a story?” He’s in kindergarten but, because his mother took advantage of the long lockdown to drill him on sight-reading, he can easily read grade-four-level words.
To my question his reply comes with a swak: “When COVID is done.”
Next question, “What subject do you think you can do without?”
Answer: “Meditation. I fall asleep.”
Marco has two sisters, ages 14 and 9. Among his cousins are a girl, 18, and a boy, 14. I ask Marco’s sisters and cousins, “Do you think kids can do with a simplified curriculum in the time of coronavirus?” Their answer, a resounding and unanimous “Yes!”
Education used to be classified as public or private. Now it’s either tech-driven or techdeprived. Without going into the problems of blended learning, without considering the slow Internet speed and weak or no signal, and taking into account the headaches facing teachers, parents, and learners, it would be helpful if we did not saddle our young with too many subjects. The objective of early learning is not those big words, Success In Life, but knowing how to be safe; that’s it, that’s all. The rest can come later, even through self-discovery. Some of the most learned, interesting men I have met and worked with didn’t finish high school, but they were great, charming conversationalists.
Marco’s 18-year-old cousin, a UP coed, proposes a beginner’s curriculum of math, science, English. Three disciplines that should round off basic education for children in the grades. Going to school should mean tickling the curious bone, not a chance to let hoary adults control kids just because they have the power. Surviving the pandemic in a world turned upside-down by an invisible killer is tortuous enough for teachers and parents in their daily lives outside of teaching and supervising – why pull the children into the pressure cooker with them? Let them play, let them read, count, invent and discover with their books but give them time to be le to their own devices, too. Let them be children first and foremost.
Millions of schoolchildren will be going “back” to “school” in a few days. The “new normal” is not normal. I wish them a more happiness-oriented DepEd.
