EDUCATION: THEN AND NOW
DAISY M. PALLASIGUI
Education as the old saying goes, is dynamic and never ending. That is why we as teachers keeps on exploring new ways to teach our learners with the different knowledge and skills that they must acquire.
But dynamic as it is, the world has observed the evolution of our educational system. In the 2018 marks the full implementation of the K to 12 curriculum by virtue of Republic Act 10533. Nowadays, we now begin to hear the words 21st Century Skills, 21st Century learners, 21st Century teachers, and others.
But is there any difference between the traditional way of education and the new program we have in DepEd? To compare and contrast education then and now, I interviewed two individuals who experienced different era of educational system.
People who are 30 years old and above are products of traditional way of teaching. This is the era were teachers were regarded with high respect and live with high moral standard and taught using only chalk and blackboard.” “Those were the times when pupils learn because of discipline and good behaviour in and out of the classroom. There were no strict policies that hinder the teacher in imposing discipline to his pupils. All pupils then feared the anger of a teacher not because of corporal punishment but because they see education as the only way out of poverty. Teacher’s job then was to teach inside the classroom. No more, no less. I can still remember when I was in elementary, only during holidays and typhoons were our “no classes” days.”
Now, during this 21st century genre of education, we see things differently – in a negative way perhaps.Though, technology has somehow made our lives and learning process easy, it also brought distractions to our learners. The internet has helped our learners explore the world in one click but it has also brought them closer to violence, pornography, and bad influences. Children now are westernized. They have become disrespectful and violent because of the child protection policy which is a threat to every teacher who just wish to manage his classroom well. Love for learning the competencies is most of the time defeated by the eagerness to play videogames.
Today, bulk of clerical works are big burden to teachers. Imagine managing huge class size with unruly learners and at the same time preparing bulk of reports. With all of these, we can just imagine what kind of learners we have now. This is where a good teacher takes place. Teachers must be flexible and willing to embrace the changes in the education system so that teaching learning process will be more effective and efficient.
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The author is Teacher II at San Juan Elementary School Guagua West