Education in the New Normal

Grace M. Santos

The world was shocked and caught unprepared as the COVID-19 virus spread in just a matter of few months being discovered. Suddenly, all the things that the people normally do, changed in the blink of an eye. The pandemic caused many business entities shut down and made many lose their jobs; people were forced to stay at home for their own safety.

Education had been also greatly affected by the pandemic, it had disrupted the traditional school setup. Normal classroom discussions were prohibited in order to avoid further widespread of the virus. This sudden change of setup had caused a big challenge on the part of the education sector and even the government. Some even proposed to have academic freeze, to avoid risking the lives of the learners, however, the government, especially the Department of Education, is determined to continue formal education despite the threat of the virus, the Deped believes that learning should not be put on hold just because of the virus. The government needed to think alternative ways on how quality education can still be provided amidst the pandemic situation. It needed to be innovative, in order to address the demand of the challenge, hence, new learning modalities were introduced to provide quality education among Filipino school children.

Under the new normal education, teachers were urged to unlearn their knowledge of the traditional education setting and encouraged to embrace the education setup, as part of the preparation teachers were trained with the skills that would help them cope up on the new normal education settings. They learned to go out of their comfort zone and tried new concepts, ideas and skills to be fit as a teacher of the new normal.

With the different modalities offered by the Department of Education, it would be ensured that no school children would be left behind, there would be challenges along the way, but the continuous support of every stakeholder, all these challenges would be surpassed.

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The author is Teacher III at Paguiruan Elementary School