New normal education in our school

WITH the outbreak of the Novel Corona Virus 2019 that struck the whole world which led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide, it also pose a big challenge to public health and security and greatly affected the economy of the world and had changed the education dramatically. Our day to day life is even affected of the pandemic from border closures, restrictions for travels, health protocols and trade restrictions changed the normal ways of life that we used before.

The Department of Education is pose in a big challenge to continue learning despite the pandemic, it also been into different options to open school with at least 50% percent of pupils to cater nor to close schools and continue learning at home to reduce contact among the pupils, teachers and personnel and save lives . This resulted to different innovations and ideas in the Department of Education on how to deliver and improve the quality of education that shifted from the normal classroom interaction (face to face) to modular, TV and Radio based and blended learning instruction in elementary, junior and senior highschool, and college level. Teaching is moving on an untested and unprecedented scale just to continue education as the new normal begins.

Nine months ago we started the journey of the new normal education though uncertain to sail on the new normal setting of education that brought us many emotions of fear, doubt and uncertainty yet we are brave enough to take the risk. We prepared for the opening of the classes, in the beginning we found it hard yet as it continues we gain momentum and adjusted on the new setting until we are nearly come to the end of the journey, two months to go for the ending of the 2020-2021 Academic Year which gave and taught us a lesson on how to improve the learning modality for the next school year if the pandemic continues.

Prior to the opening of classes enrollment was done through Learner’s Enrollment Survey Form or LESF parents will get the form in the designated areas and will fill-in the data of the learner and once done they are going to drop the form in the box there is also an options on what mode of learning they prefer to have however, the school head and the teachers will decide which best mode of learning will be used considering the location of the place and the access of the majority of the learners to media in their home.

School heads and teachers prepared the schools for the opening of the classes like putting markings on the floor in compliance to 1 meter social distancing, putting signs and posters, putting footbath and alcohols and making sure the sufficiency of the water for handwashing. Parents will be the one to get the modules of the learners in school adhering to safety measures and health protocols. Schools hold orientation for the parents to capacitate them as facilitator of learning at home in the idea of not missing education. Parents is believed to be the first teacher of learners that provide major inputs of the child’s learning and being viewed this time as prime driver of learning to successfully help their children learn at home however, this seems unlikely to generalize the vast majority of the learners to learn effectively at home, just like in my school which is situated in the upland area in which farming is the basic way of earning and living among the people. We cannot deny the fact that some of the populations of the parents were not able to get education and cannot even know how to read and write especially those living outside the barangay. I am handling Grade 5 and I am very grateful during the home visitation period which was approved by the IATF that my pupils are able to read however they lack of understanding of the concepts in the modules, what my pupils need is explanation and scaffolding and in the absence of the teacher the parent should took the place. Some of the pupils are not able to finish and answer their modules perhaps the parents are busy earning for a living and even the parents lack the understanding of the concepts and sometimes the pupils are the one working at home doing household chores in the absence of the parents. It was also found out that day prior the retrieval of modules parents are the one cramming answering the modules which was not answered by their children. During the orientation on feed backing parents aired the difficulty in answering the modules.

Thus, the school planned on how to address the current problems in the new learning delivery modality thus mobile teaching and Gabay Guru (our school innovation) as reinforcement and scaffolding was initiated. Thus, we are given the opportunity to meet personally our pupils adhering to strict health protocols. Since we are in upland area and most of our learners don’t have access on media and even phones we come up with the idea to have a certain place in a barangay that will cater few learner’s to discuss the topics on the modules. We go from barangay to barangay, sitio and puroks. This help them the opportunity to gain deeper understanding of the topic and ease their difficulty in answering the modules. This also gives them the opportunity to address the areas of their concerns.

We also launch another innovation in school which is the Gabay Guro Project-A School-Wide Monitoring Program Among Slow and Frustration Level Learner’s to Improve the Performance under the New Normal Education-Modular Learning Delivery Modality this is an approach in improving the performance of learners who are identified as slow and in frustration levels of every grade advisers. These learners are given interventions and attention to cater the areas of difficulties identified in answering their modules and closely monitoring their level and improvement of reading abilities and skills in the Gabay Guro Center under the New Normal Education with the help of the teaching staff of the school. Each teacher had the scheduled date to cater their pupils which falls on frustration and if possible we want to address the problem on reading because we are afraid to pass by the next school year to another grade level of learners’ who cannot even read. With, the willingness of the parents’ to work together in order to improve the performance of their children in the current school year. After several months of the implementation of our school innovation here are the notable accomplishments that we have observed and identified: 1. Learners’ are given the opportunity to engage with the teachers. 2. Learners’ are able to improve their skills in reading letters and word recognition. 3. The learners’ are given enough attention in addressing their areas of concerns. 4. The Monitoring and Evaluation Team will track the progress of the implementation of the project.

5. The barangay officials submitted also their selves to help on the project of the school that would like also to improve the performance of the learners and its contribution to the community.

The current school year give as a new setting which is not easy especially among elementary learner’s. There are a lot of concerns to work for and areas to improve though the competencies was lessen through the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELC’s) the alarming high cases of COVID positive is another factor that hinders the delay of the retrieval and distribution of modules in which the Local Government Unit issued a memorandum for school closure and school personnel to work at home. Aside from these, both the learners and parents have several challenges on the new setting of education. Most of the learner’s cannot study independently and most of them cannot follow instruction as main reason that modules are left unanswered and eventually returned blank. It also a problem for the teachers to download the modules due to the fluctuation of connection sometimes. The lack of printers when we open the school year and some of the printers shutdown.

Nothing is perfect if administered first, we should have to accept that we have flaws to work onward there are areas that should be given attention. This serves as a lesson to continue working for the improvement of the learners, the teachers the government as a whole. Our unwavering support, dedication, determination and passion will bring the light of hope and success as we continue to take the challenges of the new normal education. (Contributed article)