Bring back the child in you

Brand & Business: Canva for education helps filipino teachers prepare for distance learning MANILA, PHILIPPINES—WITH the new school year commencing digitally, Design platform Canva Philippines is empowering Filipino educators to equip themselves with the digital tools needed to offer their students a seamless and innovative learning environment.

Canva for Education is a free product offering for educational institutions catering to K-12. It offers thousands of templates and a library of “premium” royaltyfree images, as well as features

MONTHS before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, I enrolled myself in a mentorship class on creativity with THE Emily Abrera. I had not planned on enrolling, actually. I just saw a sponsored post on Facebook for a mentorship class by my former boss James Lafferty, who used to head Procter & Gamble and British American Tobacco in the Philippines, so I got curious and clicked on it. Scrolling through the ad, I saw that Emily will be holding her own class as well. I didn’t even think. I just dove right in and signed up for the class.

As part of the application process, I had to answer three basic questions: why I wanted to join the class, what value I can bring to the table, and what question about creativity I would like to ask her. Based on my answers, Emily will decide whether or not I will get a slot in her class. I really thought those questions were pretty simple—so why did it take me a while to figure out how to answer them?

I suppose I never really thought about why I wanted to join the class in the first place. I just knew that I couldn’t pass up the chance to meet one of my career role models. While the concept of being mentored on creativity seemed pretty vague to me, the mere fact that THE Emily Abrera was going to do it was enough for me to go all-in. Little did I know that joining that class would become one of my life’s brighter spots in the months to come.

transported back in time

AS a pre-work for the first of three Zoom sessions (we had to forgo the face-to-face class due to the lockdown imposition), participants had to introduce themselves by way of a short story. The story prompt read: “Think back to your childhood. Can you remember an instance when you did something creative? Or experienced a feeling of having come to a new understanding or a new insight about people or events around you? How old were you? What did it feel like? Did you share the idea or project with others? What was their reaction?”

For the first time in months, I found myself really, REALLY wanting to write. It took me a couple of hours to complete the writing assignment though. I never thought looking back on my childhood could be that difficult! But once the floodgates were opened, there was no stopping the memories.

Because of that assignment, I got glimpses of my life as an eightyear-old in my mind’s eye, doing intended to facilitate simultaneous collaboration between students and teachers in the classroom or remotely.

Canva Philippines has also partnered with the Office of the Vice President (OVP) as it rolled out Bayanihan e-skwela, an online educational platform empowering teachers and parents as children shifted to distance learning. Canva curated templates for some episodes, created posters, and provided the OVP access to the Canva library. In its effort to expand its reach, Canva Philippines also partnered with the Knowledge Channel Foundation and trained teachers in selected schools across the South Cotabato region on how to best use the platform for all their virtual classroom needs.

Yani Hornilla-donato, Canva Philippines’s Country Manager, explained empowering Filipino imaginative play and even setting up small “businesses” in my childhood house in Manila. I recalled my grade school and high school self, falling in love with the written word, devouring books like there’s no tomorrow. That simple act of coming up with a short story to introduce myself renewed my love for writing, and made me commit to write something not workrelated at least once or twice each month. That short story gave me the shot in the arm that I needed to get my creative juices flowing again. And it all started with a trip down memory lane, to when life was simpler.

So that was our first lesson: to use our childhood experiences, particularly our early brushes with creativity, to generate and grow new ideas. Dig deep, and spare nothing.

According to Emily, “we are all born with the ability to create. Unfortunately, it gets schooled out of us by traditional educational institutions. Our childhood experiences of creativity affect many of us for a lifetime.”

‘eureka!’ moments from climbing a tree

AFTER getting our creative juices flowing by rekindling our childhood curiosity, we were asked to recall our first time, as children, to climb a tree. While not all of us

educators was core to the organization’s goal for 2020. “Our mission is to bring Canva for Education to every K-12 teacher and student in the country, becoming their creativity and productivity partner of choice during this unprecedented time. We will continue to reach out to schools and teachers across the country as we roll out Canva for Education, providing as much support as we possibly can to make their experience easy.”

Sarah Mae Columnas, a teacher from Mansasa National High School in Bohol explained even though the current environment still provides a level of uncertainty, Canva for Education supports, enables and empowers teachers to be more creative and innovative, whether they’re in the classroom, or teaching remotely.

“Being equipped with the right tools to teach 21st century

Creativity in the early years was its own reason for being. You need to look further back in your life to uncover gems from there.” –Emily Abrera

had actually climbed trees (I myself had never climbed a tree as a child), we all had different takes on what our own “climbing moments” felt and meant to us.

Some shared stories about scaling walls, climbing mountains, and even rappelling on tall buildings and on the side of a cruise ship. My own story was about trying to climb windows when I was a toddler. Those participants who did climb trees still had different, and interesting, experiences to share. So what was the point of the exercise?

Emily said climbing a tree provides “an altogether different perspective; a release from the pull of gravity; a sense of self, accomplishment, and confidence; a feeling (of being) closer to nature; a refuge from the mundane.” It again boils down to childhood curiosity and looking at things from a different perspective.

Coming from the tree-climbing recollection exercise, she presented some points to remember when learners is the responsibility of every teacher across the country, as this is our sworn obligation to uphold our nation’s goals and create a better future for our next generations,” said Columnas.

One of the biggest changes educators face today is the need to migrate everything they use in their classroom to a digital setting. In addition to that, teachers also acknowledge the challenge of adding variety to their teaching repertoire and curriculum, to ensure their lessons remain just as engaging as a physical setting.

Michelle Brabante, School Director of Minido Preschool in Marinduque said she uses Canva for Education to create video lessons for her students, by using the platform’s talking presentations feature. “The students really respond well to our talking presentations; it makes them happy, they feel more connected to us

trying to generate new ideas:

n Shift your frame of reference

n Immerse yourself in the unfamiliar

n Ask why until you get the basic insight

n Brainstorm

n Spend more time observing and listening

n Put devices away

n Read, reflect, discuss

n Institutionalize insighting in your company

Why creativity matters

CREATIVITY becomes even more important during times of crisis. When old-school, tried-and-tested solutions just don’t cut it anymore, we need to churn out creative and innovative means to solve problems. After all, “without creativity, there would be few scientific breakthroughs”—and we need a lot of those breakthroughs right about now.

On top of being useful and necessary, the pleasure and satisfaction that a creative endeavor as educators and they’re certainly more engaged with the content we go through.”

In an effort to further empower teachers, Canva for Education has developed a range of Classroom Kits with templates, illustrations, and photos collection that will inspire Filipino teachers to bring more life and energy to their learning materials as classes resume remotely.

Canva for Education also includes an all-new collaboration space, a review workflow, access to content from Google Drive, Dropbox, Folders, version history and SSO with Clever and Google.

“Canva for Education has helped our team enormously in terms of collaboration. We like working together, and we love that Canva for Education allows us to do our tasks as a team,” added Brabante.

Ryan Alvin Torrejos, teacher from German European School brings to both creator and recipient also cannot be denied.

“Creativity is rewarding. Creative people are self-motivated, always engaged and productive. Creative people are generally happy. Creativity itself is a good business, and a rewarding activity for any kind of business,” Emily said.

Can creativity be taught, though? Yes, it can, she said— “but it requires practice in order for one to become adept at creative thinking.”

The next time you find yourself in a creative rut, look back on your childhood and the first time you climbed a tree. Who knows what great ideas you will be able to come up with.

PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier organization for PR professionals around the world. Abigail L. Ho-torres is AVP and Head of Advocacy and Marketing of Maynilad Water Services Inc. She spent more than a decade as a business journalist before making the leap to the corporate world.

We are devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations. Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.

Manila explained how Canva for Education has helped him now and will continue to be an invaluable tool for the future. “I know I will still be using Canva for Education for many years to come, even when students are allowed back into their physical classrooms.”

Recognizing the dedication of the educators in the Philippines, Canva Philippines in partnership with the Department of Education, has also held webinars for Filipino teachers to share with them the gift of Canva for Education. Canva also launched a Facebook Community for Filipino Teachers that serves as a space for professional support and training for teachers to learn and adapt to the modalities of virtual teaching.

K-12 teachers in the Philippines may visit this link to signup for a free Canva for Education account.