They were a study in contrast. One spoke with a soothing and calm voice of a bard and a poet. The other one was fiery and spirited. But they had two things in common. Both were trained by the Jesuits on how to be a man for others. Both trod along the same path on how to “deconstruct” education.
Fr. Jett Villarin, SJ saw beyond our fears and sadness. He saw the pandemic as time for creation. He used a French word “triage” to bring out the need to separate the learned from the learning person and the builder from the destroyer.
Although the two did not compare notes, the Mayor of Valenzuela City, Rex Gatchalian spoke similarly of how a top down system has made going to school a “chore” rather than a “joy.” He used a pyramid to illustrate how our education system has become---a top heavy structure with the learners at the bottom. It is “too big to and too far to understand the learner; to slow to respond to the changing needs of the learners.” He did not have kinder words to describe the local structures. The Local School Boards have become “short-sighted, sluggish, myopic and one-dimensional.” Along the same rhythm, Fr. Jett described the results: “Fear stops learning. Insecurity avoids learning and pride spoils learning.”
But not to depair. Both looked at the opportunities that come with the pandemic. Now is the time for students to have a life-long yearning and facility to discover and to learn. It is time to produce “not learned but learning people and a learning society where grandparents, parents and children are students together.” Opening the world of discovery to learners means a change in our ways—from prescribing to listening and from imposing to empowering. Both Fr. Jett and Mayor Rex highlight a shift from the top-down to the bottom-up approach---“choosing localized approaches over centralized and uniform strategies in education; method, process, pedagogy over content; the ‘how’ of learning over the ‘what of learning, especially in basic education. ”
Ever the systems person, Mayor Rex dreams of a more decentralized system where school divisions, Local School Boards, and School Governing Councils are empowered. In his ideal world, the Education Department is responsible for crafting a national framework and setting standards and guidelines. He bats for giving Local School Divisions a greater space in developing the education programs. In partnership with the Local School Boards, they should be allowed to take the driver’s seat in rolling out programs that are suited to the needs of learners. He hastens to add that Parent teachers Associations should be transformed from a fund raising association to a community of parents who are engaged in the learning process. He advocates for the organization of strong School Governing Councils to provide an avenue for all sectors in the community to collaborate on planning and implementing programs that are responsive to the needs of learners.
I had second thoughts about using the word Bolshevik to describe our two reformists. But I had no better word to describe how they highlighted the need to jolt the current education system upside down. Our current system reeks of a culture where central government officials are considered “harbingers of wisdom”--- a way of thinking that was imposed to us by the Americans during the Commonwealth period. Their local constituents was described by Mayor Rex with “good intentions but too scared to be heard.” He hastens that to add that it is time to put the learners at the center and to “build from the ground up.”
Fr. Jett ends with the second triage---“It is the time for builders and not destroyers. We need to separate those who like to threaten and demolish from those who are always laboring with courage and to create good things that will last.”
We can only say Amen. There is no better time to transform ourselves from being learned to being learners and to separate the builders from those who destroy. We can only think of those who make all things beautiful. They need our support and appreciation. We must provide them with all the opportunities to flourish. And for those who consider themselves as learned by refusing to listen, we should look at them as chaff and unworthy of our respect.