Unprecedented obstacles

Catherine V. Torres

With SY 2020-21 just around the corner, teachers are faced with unprecedented obstacles. With no cure for Covid-19 in the immediate foreseeable future, teachers are tasked with educating students utilizing techniques that is new to both student and teacher.

Students will primarily be learning inside their respective homes utilizing what is most convenient to them amid this pandemic. May it be distance learning, blended learning, or home schooling.

Being a developing country, these alternative learning scenarios, hold a new set of problems. In normal circumstances, it is a tall order for students to cope up with the financial burden of going to school. In some cases, just coming to school in the prescribed uniform is already a challenge.

In a perfect world, it is already a predicament for Filipino public school students to produce the basic tools for education like pens, paper, and books. And there is the problem of getting students motivated enough to actually keep up with school work.

Our teachers’ passion, dedication, and creativity are invaluable in these troubled times. Here is where the teachers’ ability to inspire students to do school work plays a vital role. With so many distractions around, teachers should be able to take hold of the students’ attention, otherwise the effectivity of learning from home will be minimal to none.

On paper, alternative learning via home schooling seems to be a good plan. But in reality, it is plagued with problems, for some, lesser than others but maybe greater for most.

This will be a great but not an insurmountable challenge for our educational system. The success over these challenges not on lies on the shoulders of our teachers but also of our students and parents. It is paramount for us to work hand in hand for the future of our students. Securing their future. Securing our country’s future.

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The author is Teacher III at Duquit High School