A break from your regularly featured programming..

I was invited to be a resource person by Sonshine Radio DZAR 1026 AM on the topic “How to choose the right television shows for children” on Tuesday, June 23 at 10-11 am. I was invited as a Family Life and Child Development Specialist, I guess. But I also wanted to invite the parents and teachers reading this blog because I’m sure it will give you more information on how to raise your children or students together with that big magic box in their homes. Hope you take a listen

Active Learning

I was browsing through Alfie Kohn’s article about Progressive Education and revisited the concept of Active Learning vs. Memorization. Read this conversation that he cited in his article. Check out the highlighted last paragraph.

“A friend of mine, who is a teacher-educator, had a daughter in fifth grade at the time of this story. She came home, he wrote me, with a worksheet on simple machines—ball bearings, inclined planes, pulleys, that sort of thing. As he came home from work, she said, “Dad, test me, test me!”

“Well,” my friend said, “Why don’t you just tell me what you’ve been learning about?”

“OK, but first ask me what these things are!”

“OK, if you insist. What is a ball bearing?”

“OK, easy dad! A ball bearing is blah blah blah.” A verbatim repetition of the definition she had learned from the teacher.

My friend said, “But Rachel, what is a ball bearing?”

“I told you, Dad. A ball bearing is a blah blah blah blah.”

To make a long story short, he continues, “I turned over the ottoman, which is on wheels, and showed her the ball bearings, and her eyes got wide.

“‘Cooool! That’s what a ball bearing is? How does it work? Can we take apart the ottoman? Oh, I get it. Why didn’t Mrs. Lambert just tell us this is what it was? Can you buy these at the store? Where do they sell these things anyway? Hey, wanna help me make something that rotates? Hey, cool, watch what happens if I hold one of these things and try to spin this thing. What would happen to this thing if the balls were really big? Would the wheels go faster?’”

A progressive school is not about memorizing the definition of ball bearings, or the date at which an event happened in history, or the difference between a simile and a metaphor. That’s not to say that these topics aren’t covered. It’s to say that questions that kids have drive the education.“

Reader’s Gift: Dewey’s take on Progressive Education

I was reading the thesis of a friend and a regular reader of this blog, Teacher Tanya, and she reminded me of the essence of progressive education by stating John Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed. Dewey is the Father of Progressive Education. He states the following points:

1. “True education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself.”

The socio-emotional domain of a child is equally important with his or her cognitive domain. True education therefore is not just intellectual but also how the child reacts to everything and everyone around him or her.

2. “The child’s own instinct and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education.”

A progressive curriculum is a child-centered curriculum.

3. “[I] believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not preparation for future living.”

Amen to this! A lot of schools use a marketing ploy of “Advanced Classes” or “Preparation Classes” to “prepare” their students for success in Big Schools. I just passed by a giant billboard saying “100% Admission Rate to ‘School XYZ’ (obviously invented)!” The purpose of school is the process of the NOW. I admit that there is a social pressure to prepare our students for higher education. However, as Dewey said, the pressure of societal norms (or ab-norms!) is not education. It is the process in which a student learns.

4. “[T]he school life should grow gradually out of the home life…it is the business of the school to deepen and extend the child’s sense of values bound up in his home life.”

The reason why Progressive Pioneers in the Philippines usually come from the Department of Family Life and Child Development in UP is because the Progressive Philosophy is based on understaning the child in his or her home and community setting. Repeatedly, I have declared that 100 % of our behavioral problems from students stem from an issue brewing at home.

5. I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of a proper social life.

True! The prime responsibility of a progressive teacher is to develop the WHOLE CHILD – social, emotional, creative, cognitive, physical and expressive.

Q and A: Will my child survive in a traditional school after studying in a progressive school?

This is a classic question. We usually hear this question from parents who are opting for a progressive preschool and are planning to bring their child to a “big” school for elementary.

There’s a rumor going around that children from progressive schools do not thrive in traditional schools.

Let me reiterate that this INDEED is a rumor and not a fact. First off, I’ve had students who passed Big School Entrance Tests and I’ve had students who didn’t. Unfortunately, it’s easier to blame the preschool when the latter happens.

When a child is not thriving in a traditional school, it’s very easy to blame the progressive preschool where the child came from. The list is endless: there were no worksheets, the children were too “free”, the classes were not divided into subjects, the teacher was too “nice” (as opposed to being more strict)… BUT PARENTS, weren’t these the same things you looked for in a preschool?! It’s just not developmentally appropriate to instill the opposite of all of these in a preschool class.

I observed the class of my daughter who graduated from a progressive elementary school. Background story: she was originally from UP-CDC when she was 5. UP-CDC is the epitome of progressive learning. Then she went to a private girl school (traditional) along the Katipunan Area where I also graduated. She got great grades and was even in the honor roll every year. But something in her eyes and demeanor told me that she wasn’t happy being in school. She felt anxious every Sunday with the idea that she had to go back to school the following day. Taking the advise of a good friend, I went to check out The Learning Tree which was just 5 minutes from my house. My daughter will be an incoming 4th grader. My husband was hesitant (as all husbands are when you say the name of a school that’s not “known”) but I perservered (as all wives do). My daughter then transferred to TLT for grade 4. The change was evident.

She looked forward to school. Enjoyed the company of her classmates (they were only 25 in class). She was eager to learn new things and her self-esteem reached higher heights.

Then came graduating year, Grade 6. We opted to look for a private high school since we thought our daughter needed this kind of education to prepare for college in four years. We enrolled her in a private girl school in the Pasig Area. She wasn’t happy at all. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good school. My daughter just didn’t thrive. I then decided to homeschool her until she graduated. I’m happy to report that she will be studying in the Ateneo de Manila University this June

It’s easy to say that she did not thrive in the private girl school in Pasig BECAUSE she came from a progressive school like The Learning Tree. I DISAGREE. She did not thrive in that school because she did not fit in that school. A lot of my daughter’s classmates from TLT went to big traditional schools and they thrived in them. I decided to homeschool her because she wanted to take up other things like guitar and Japanese. She was able to be more proficient in both with the time that homeschool provided for other life skills. So the decision to transfer her from a traditional school to being homeschooled, was a decision that was made entirely on how I know my daughter.

I’ve had students who came from us, a progressive school, who are thriving in big traditional schools. I also have students who came from big traditional schools and who are now thriving in our school. It is not the fault of the school they came from, most of the time. It just wasn’t a good fit.

The goal of progressive education is to educate in the present. I cringe when I see schools market themselves with taglines like “If you study here, your child will be sure to enter Big Traditional School A!” like it was the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to give developmental, interactive and experiential education. It is through this that the child will be fully prepared to face any and all experiences he will face in the future.

Scouting for a School Series (SSS): NOT Choosing a School for the Wrong Reasons

These past few weeks taught me a few hard lessons. I realized that not only should a parent choose a school for the wrong reasons, a parent should also NOT dismiss a school for the wrong reasons. This was the conversation I had with a friend of mine:

Mommy Friend: Tina, where can I send my son next school year?

Teacher Tina: Why not bring him to XYZ School (obviously fictitious)?

Mommy Friend: Oh, I don’t like it there..

Teacher Tina: Why?

Mommy Friend: I spoke to another friend and she doesn’t like it there.

Teacher Tina: Why not?

Mommy Friend: She spoke to another friend who didn’t like it….

Whoa! Wait wait wait. Let me stop the conversation at this point because the poor school is being misjudged by hearsay. In the 9 years that I’ve been a school administrator, only a few years back did I realize that I can’t please every parent. It’s just not possible. Schools may do their best in everything and still won’t be able to please everybody. But 1 thing I can say is that we can please MOST of the parents. So, hypothetically, what if my friend’s friend’s friend spoke to that 1 irate parent of XYZ School? The school suddenly gets tainted with a bad reputation.

Studies show that a person would tell a good experience to less people than if the person experienced something bad. It’s human nature (to gripe, unfortunately).

Also, if you’re an unsatisfied parent, I suggest you inform the school of your issues. Most school administrators are very open to constructive criticism and if our goal is to improve not only the school but the education system, then your insight is crucial. When a parent posts a comment on this site about issues regarding their schools, I usually ask what their issues are. All of your issues are important and most of them are still “savable” — meaning, if told in the proper forum, may improve your child’s school life and improve the school as well. If you discuss issues only among yourselves, parents, then that’s not going to help.. it’s just simply, gossip.

So to continue with the conversation..

Teacher Tina: Why don’t you visit it first? I know the director and I know they have a genuine progressive curriculum.

Mommy Friend: You might be right. I’ll try passing by tomorrow.

The End.

Scouting for a School Series (SSS): Choosing a School for the Wrong Reasons

When I look at the votes in our poll recently, I noticed that a lot of our readers are parents. Well, parents, this may be a difficult pill to swallow.. but a healthy pill, nonetheless. This may help you in choosing a school for your child or help you in the school where you are currently in.

Alfie Kohn, a speaker advocating progressive education, talks about non-progressive parents existing in progressive schools. I want to give this guy a standing ovation with this paragraph alone..

“The problem with almost any of these criteria for sending kids to a school is that you end up with parents who are impressed by the wrong things. I was in a classroom recently at a progressive school where, during a parents’ potluck breakfast, the Moms and Dads were glowing over the fact that their kids could spell “Australopithecus” or knew some obscure fact that the parents themselves didn’t know. “Isn’t that a wonderful education?” Of course, that’s not necessarily very impressive at all. But if we haven’t made a good match and helped to educate parents, as well as allowing them to educate us about what’s good for kids, you end up with parents who are worried about the very best features and who start to exert pressure, especially as the kids get older, for a more traditional kind of education because they didn’t come to the school for the right reasons in the first place.”

Parents, you may be asking what the right reasons are.. well, that’s what the blog is for.. to help you find out.. However, I do know this for sure. Don’t seek a progressive school having traditional expectations. It doesn’t add up.

My advise to school teachers and administrators is to prioritize your parent orientation. Encourage your parents to attend. In our school, we started to have intimate parent interviews prior to enrollment to ask the reason they chose the school and their expectations from it. It helps in preventing traditional expectations in the future. We learned this from experience

Reader’s Gift: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

One of our readers, Mommy Nikka, sent me this video of Ken Robinson, a creativity expert advocating REAL learning in schools… Listen to what he says..

Thanks, Mommy Nikka, for this great blessing I pray that every school teacher and administrator sees this.

Routines of the Progressive Preschool Class: Circle Time

After Free Play, the teacher calls everyone in a progressive preschool class to sit together, usually in front of the blackboard for Circle Time or Meeting Time. An important part of the routine is the transition from Free Play to Circle Time. Because the students have been playing with the learning materials in Free Play, there’s a need to clean up before Circle Time. The teacher usually sings a clean up song to encourage the children to clean up. Transitions are essential to cue the children that the next routine is about to begin. One of my favorite transitions in my class was unrolling the meeting mat. I made a plastic mat with shapes on it and I would ceremoniously unroll it for meeting time. The children will hurrily clean up just to help me unroll the mat and sit on their choice of shape. For older kids, I would put their names on the shapes.

Circle Time is the routine wherein the teacher leads the children to sing different songs. It’s the time to say Good Morning or Good Afternoon to everyone, check the weather, know the day and date and find out what activity is lined up for the day. Don’t underestimate the power of Circle Time. Younger kids learn letters and numbers from this routine. A typical message on the board looks like this:

1. Today is  __onday.

2. February __, 2009

3. It is a  ___ day.

4. There are __ boys

and      __ girls

5. We will paint today.

Let’s see how the children learn from the message:

1. Today is __ onday.

The teacher will sing the Monday song (which is the same song everyday but the days change according to what day it is). Then she says “It’s Monday today. MMMMonday. What letter has the MMM sound?” Studies show that the MMM sound is one of the first sounds children learn because of familiar words like Mama or Mommy. The teacher just needs to teach them that the sound is the letter M. Next step is to encourage the children to write the letter M on the board. The teacher guides the children who are just starting to write and say encouraging statements like “It goes up, down, up, down”.  For this sentence alone, the children learned:

• songs (music)
• days of the week (language)
• letter M (alphabet / language)
• how to write the letter M (fine motor)

The children learned all these with much fun and little anxiety!

2. February ___, 2009

The teacher has an empty teacher-made calendar beside her. For younger kids, number are prepared and the children stick each number on the empty calendar depending on what date it is. The teacher counts with the children until they learn what the next number is. Then the teacher asks a child to write the number on the board. Creative songs can be sung for the children to remember numbers like “We write 1 and we write 0 (3x) that’s how we write number 10″. Progressive school teachers are very creative song writers!

Lessons learned?

• songs
• numbers (identification, counting)
• months of the year
• how to write the numbers (fine motor)

3. It is a __ day.

The teacher asks a student to peek through the window and see what the weather is. She then sings a weather song like Barney’s “Mr. Sun” if it is a sunny day. She asks a student to either draw the sun on the blank space on the board or write the word sunny. I spell out “sunny” by singing it in the tune of the Bingo song “There was a day when it was hot and sunny was the weather, S-U-N-N-Y (3x), and sunny was the weather” while the children clap out each letter.

What did the child learn?

• songs
• observation (looking out the window to see if the sun is out)
• drawing or writing (fine motor)
• spelling sunny, cloudy or rainy

4. There are ___ boys and ___ girls.

The teacher asks the boys to stand up and sings a counting song. After finding out the number of boys are present, she asks a student to write that number beside the word Boys. She does the same with the girls. She then asks the students to add the boys and girls by counting everyone in the class to find out how many children are present.

What do they learn from this sentence?

• songs
• numbers (one to one correspondence, identification)
• words Boys and Girls
• gender identification
• adding numbers
• observation (who isn’t here today?)

5. We are painting today.

Routines are laid out for the child to be able to predict what’s going to happen next. Why? Because it what makes them more secure with their surroundings.

Parents usually jump to the conclusion that simple activities like these have little educational value. But check out how many concepts the children learned. Circle Time is also Storytelling Time, Sharing Time and Showing Time. Imagine how much they learn by joining the circle!

Scouting for a School Series (SSS): Who is the Teacher?

One of the most vivid parent inquiry I handled was when the parent asked to meet the teacher who will be handling her son’s class in the coming school year. It was a rare but important request. The staff in our school find my interview process in hiring teachers so unorthodox. More than looking at their True Copy of Grades (TCG), I ask more personal questions to discover their passion for teaching. I always say, even if a teacher got high grades in education courses, it doesn’t mean he or she will be a good teacher. Teaching is a passion. Sadly, school teachers are not paid well in almost all countries. So for them to decide to teach, is a heroic effort in itself.

The first and foremost requirement of a good teacher is loving his or her students. In a progressive school, a teacher is usually a Family Life and Child Development specialist. This means he or she understands the children in the context of their families. And like family members, progressive school teachers have an innate feeling of love for their students. They will highlight their strengths and help them with their weaknesses.

Following is an excerpt from my thesis regarding the role and qualifications of a teacher..

The most important variable that the success of a preschool program depends on is the role of the teacher (Weikart, 1969; Bennett, 1977). No rules, no laws, no courses of study, can be successful except as the teacher makes them so (Washburne, 1952).

The DECS Order 107 defines a preschool teacher as “a person who is directly involved in handling preschool children.” He or she should also have a Bachelor of Science degree specializing in Family Life and Child Development or Early Childhood education or Kindergarten; or a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education with 18 units in Preschool education and 54 hours of practicum in preschool classes; or a Bachelor of Art/Science degree kin discipline allied to education, arts, nursing, and anthropology with 18 units of preschool education. The teacher can finish the 18 units of preschool education in four years as long as he or she has already taken 6 units upon appointment. Exemplary teaching experience will suffice for the required 18 units.

The teacher’s qualifications also affect parental satisfaction. Ruiz (2000) studied parental preference in the selection of a preschool for their children. The respondents were 63 parents with children aged four to five years and who are currently enrolled in two preschools. The findings indicate that the most influential factor in preschool selection is staff competence.

And this is an excerpt regarding teachers in progressive schools..

Progressive schools need teachers that are well trained, dedicated and absorbed in their work (Washburne, 1952; Gardner, 1991). Considering the uniqueness of each child means creating individual behavioral goals, specific teacher-made
materials and individualized assessment tools. Teachers utilize their knowledge of child development and learning to identify the learning experiences that are appropriate for a class or an individual child (Bredekamp, 1997). But above all, the progressive teacher must have a warm, sympathetic interest in children and youth, and respect for their different, individual personalities (Washburne, 1952).

Dewey (1897) states that, traditionally, too much stimulus comes from the teacher. In progressive schools, the teacher does not impose but rather stimulates and assists the child in properly responding to the environment.  Teacher qualification, therefore, is crucial to the success of the preschool program. However, the success is congruent to the compatibility of the beliefs of the preschool and its teachers. Teachers should apply to preschools whose philosophy is attuned with their own personal beliefs otherwise it will result to friction and dissatisfaction for both parties (Taylor, 1989).

What are the things you need to ask about the teaching staff of a school you are visiting?

1. What course did the teachers graduate from? Progressive preschool teachers usually come from the Family Life and Child Development department of the UP College of Home Economics — the pioneer institution for progressive education. Teacher who graduate from UP-FLCD are trained in the UP Child Development Center and taught by the great professors of the department (..a shout out to my former professors, the heroes of their generation and mine..). The good news is that FLCD graduates are already teaching college students in DLSU, Ateneo and Miriam College to spread the progressive advocacy.
2. Can I meet the teacher of my child’s class? This is a rare request but is one of my favorites If the school is open to it, add ten points for transparency. Progressive preschools value good parent-teacher communication. Spend a few minutes with the teacher and just have a casual chat.
3. Most schools hire during the summer season, so you may not be able to ask question no. 2. In this case, ask to meet the director or the directress. Introduce yourself and ask your pertinent questions.

Scouting for a School Series (SSS): The Learning Environment

We have discussed the school’s learning environment, but let’s discuss it in the parent’s persepective in looking for a school for their children. I have seen schools with very expensive surroundings but with a very weak curriculum. Don’t judge a school with its chairs, tables, expensive toys and playgrounds. Even if a school has these things, if their curriculum is weak and they do not have a clear philosophy, then they are just a glorified daycare center. I have also seen schools with very humble learning materials but have very strong curricula, definite philosophies, and great teachers. These resources outweigh the physical all the time.

The important thing you should watch out for is cleanliness and maintenance for the furniture and classrooms. Are the chairs and tables well-maintained? Are the walls of the rooms clean? Is there a variety of learning materials — puzzles, blocks, toy animals? Is the reading area well-stocked with books? I highlight this because there are many schools that say they are literature-based but have very few books in the reading area because of cost-cutting! Their philosophy should be congruent to the learning environment.

The classrooms should also be big enough for the class size. The children should have space to move around the different learning areas.

Our school is a green school. Meaning we don’t use chemicals to clean, disinfect and clean pests. This sometimes is a matter of contention with parents because they want the bathrooms to be bleached. But who wants to smell bleach?! We use natural cleaners like vinegar and baking soda and we use Bioneem, a natural repellant, for killing mosquitos and cockroaches. Who wants to smell chemical pesticides?! We also use water-based paint for the walls. The issue with going green, however, is that the school may not be OCD clean… but clean and healthy nonetheless.

For more information, go to our posts about Learning Environment.