SAFE LEARNING COMMUNITY

RONA D. REYES

Educating the child is not the sole responsibility of the school. Putting all of the burden on the shoulder of the teacher entails negligence on the part of their partners. Yes, partners!

School is the training ground of pupils. They go to classroom to study and to acquire knowledge, learn skills and master competencies.They practice their pre acquired thoughts in the school and discover if the learning is already enough before they use it outside of their classroom. You read it right! The new learnings are applied outside the classroom.

The real battle is outside the classroom. Teachers cannot monitor their pupils 24 hours a day. They need to have someone who will look after these kids when they are out of range of their teachers. This is where the community can help us.

All of the people near the school are part of the community. The adults have the social obligation to make sure that these learners are living in a safe environment where they can freely experiment and test their learnings. The first attempt to apply the learning is their experiment. The family or any other older person must serve as their guide in doing so. The young minds are more curious than the older ones. They tend to do most of the things that pop up in their mind out of their curiosity. It is dangerous if there is no one who will guide them patiently in their learning journey outside the school. To be safe, assistance of the older ones is a paramount necessity. It is more conducive to learn in a safe learning community.

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The author is Teacher III at Jalung Elementary School