Teaching right
Lim: Teaching right
By Melanie T. Lim
I often feel that a lot of our children’s time in school is wasted learning things that really have no practical application in everyday life.
Let’s take science, for example. It seems ironical that our children can be so well versed about the solar system, the laws of physics and the different systems going on inside the human body yet when they walk into a supermarket, they can hardly identify the vegetables lying on the supermarket shelves.
Certainly, I would not want my child to be ignorant about the solar system, the laws of physics or the human body but I cannot help thinking that there are more important things our kids should be learning that is not being incorporated into the educational system.
Dr. Josette T. Biyo, Grand Winner of the 2002 Intel Excellence in Teaching Award, struck a chord in me when she related some of her early teaching experiences.
One day, as she was about to start her class in high school science, she opened the science book in front of her and then looked up and saw the hungry faces staring back at her. She closed the book and moved her classroom outside. She started their lesson by identifying all the leaves in the school backyard.
Dr. Biyo realized she had to devise a means to get her students to become interested in class. Eighty percent of them came from very poor families—she had to make it worth their while. Later, she taught her students how to make soap, shampoo and other products they could use at home from the plants found in their school backyard. If her students didn’t see the application of what they were learning, what motivation would they have to go back to school?
Why can’t we take a page from Dr. Biyo’s teaching methodologies? We may teach in a different school and to a different lot—a much more privileged one in many cases but the problem remains the same—how do we get the students’ interested?
How do we engage the attention of kids who have been pampered all their lives? How do we motivate kids to do more when all their lives they’ve never had to lift a finger to get what they want? In the plethora of competing attractions and distractions, how do we get our kids to choose to pay attention to us? I say, let’s teach them about real life.
I’m not saying that our kids are not learning anything useful in school. But, do our children really need to memorize the kinds of rhymes, feet and stanza forms in poetry? Is it not more than enough that they can write poetry from the passion of their young hearts?
If kids do not pay attention, it’s probably because we’re not teaching them anything useful or applicable to their lives. Kids are smart, they always ask, “Why do I have to learn this?” And as their teacher, it is our duty to make them see the light.
I always tell my niece, if you are the only one who passed your test in the entire class, there is nothing wrong with the rest of the class but there is something very wrong with your teacher. It is not always the student who fails. Sometimes, it is the system that fails the student.
(sunstarcebucolumnist@yahoo.com)
By Melanie T. Lim
I often feel that a lot of our children’s time in school is wasted learning things that really have no practical application in everyday life.
Let’s take science, for example. It seems ironical that our children can be so well versed about the solar system, the laws of physics and the different systems going on inside the human body yet when they walk into a supermarket, they can hardly identify the vegetables lying on the supermarket shelves.
Certainly, I would not want my child to be ignorant about the solar system, the laws of physics or the human body but I cannot help thinking that there are more important things our kids should be learning that is not being incorporated into the educational system.
Dr. Josette T. Biyo, Grand Winner of the 2002 Intel Excellence in Teaching Award, struck a chord in me when she related some of her early teaching experiences.
One day, as she was about to start her class in high school science, she opened the science book in front of her and then looked up and saw the hungry faces staring back at her. She closed the book and moved her classroom outside. She started their lesson by identifying all the leaves in the school backyard.
Dr. Biyo realized she had to devise a means to get her students to become interested in class. Eighty percent of them came from very poor families—she had to make it worth their while. Later, she taught her students how to make soap, shampoo and other products they could use at home from the plants found in their school backyard. If her students didn’t see the application of what they were learning, what motivation would they have to go back to school?
Why can’t we take a page from Dr. Biyo’s teaching methodologies? We may teach in a different school and to a different lot—a much more privileged one in many cases but the problem remains the same—how do we get the students’ interested?
How do we engage the attention of kids who have been pampered all their lives? How do we motivate kids to do more when all their lives they’ve never had to lift a finger to get what they want? In the plethora of competing attractions and distractions, how do we get our kids to choose to pay attention to us? I say, let’s teach them about real life.
I’m not saying that our kids are not learning anything useful in school. But, do our children really need to memorize the kinds of rhymes, feet and stanza forms in poetry? Is it not more than enough that they can write poetry from the passion of their young hearts?
If kids do not pay attention, it’s probably because we’re not teaching them anything useful or applicable to their lives. Kids are smart, they always ask, “Why do I have to learn this?” And as their teacher, it is our duty to make them see the light.
I always tell my niece, if you are the only one who passed your test in the entire class, there is nothing wrong with the rest of the class but there is something very wrong with your teacher. It is not always the student who fails. Sometimes, it is the system that fails the student.
(sunstarcebucolumnist@yahoo.com)
posted by eager2wander at 9:19 AM
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