The Department of Education has issued a memorandum that the 205 school days in the academic year shall be devoted exclusively to class work.
Attending seminars, planting trees, holding beauty pageants, mounting athletic contests or staging a parade of nations on UN Day should not eat into the time alotted for classroom instructions. [Malaya Online]
Alright. I can understand why teachers’ seminars should not eat into class hours. I more than understand why the feast day of any saint should not deprive students a day’s worth of education. I even agree that the UN parade of nations is a dumb activity especially if coupled with a Miss United Nations contest where the candidate with the most number of (bought) tickets wins. But planting trees (unless the pupils/students are made to perform labor so that the school will not have to pay gardeners and landscapers), athletic contests, school organizations… they are part of education.
I think that the DepEd should reconsider what is apparantly a memorandum issued in panic in response to public pressure. See, to view education as the mere ability to read, write and perform the basic mathematical operations is really, really short-sighted and narrow-minded. Education, to be effective, must have a holistic approach. Hence, art, athletics and skills like cooking and sewing deserve their slot just like computer lessons, algebra and and chemistry, for instance. Education cannot mean raising robots able to perform automatically. It also means encouraging those who express themselves well in poetry and painting.
Most importantly, learning should not be limited inside the classroom. An illustration. A biology class is learning about insects. Butterflies, to be more precise. The teacher can lecture all day and make the gradeschoolers write down pages and pages of notes. Is that more effective than bringing them to a place where they can see live butterflies, caterpillars and cocoons?, observe how they sip the flowers’ nectar and how they exhibit their instinct for self-preservation?
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