Learning Should Not Distance Classes By Psyche
Pursuant to Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s order, the Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Leonor Briones announced in a surprise online briefing that the reopening of classes is moved to October 5. She added that she hopes this will be the final delay the schools will have to face; however, many stakeholders are yelling otherwise, screaming for an academic freeze — and for good reason, for the current system DepEd has is psychologically unfair to everyone except the privileged, on top of the existing economic gap between classes and logistical issues that mar the current system.
With so many issues bringing the current education system down, DepEd should realize that there is no way they are going to fix all these issues by their new date. The system is too flawed from its core, from population demographics, geography, and even the core skill of the populace. There are too many variables to consider that makes reopening of the classes more complex and logistically harder than it already is. This is all on top of the disadvantages of online classes and self-learning — two main things in which DepEd currently relies on for distance learning.
An article from Education Week, a news website dedicated to education, for instance, points out that online classes are just not the same as interpersonal classes, and in fact considerably worse than interpersonal classes in terms of effectivity. A study from the American Institutes for Research and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found that students who have failed in Algebra I in the second semester were found to have been performing less well, their scores and success rates lower than in the interpersonal setting. Furthermore, students were found to have more difficulty understanding lessons through online classes than when they were in the classroom.
While the same report states that having online classes is certainly better than no classes, the demographic and economic background of the Philippines is just not the same as the United States’, for not everyone has been blessed with good intellect or decent income. The poverty incidence rate in the Philippines by the end of 2019 has been at 20.8% and is expected to be higher with the COVID-19 pandemic, and as the study indicates, only those with good intellect will benefit from online classes, and those that already struggle will struggle even further. Thus, online classes will only provide an uneven playing field for everyone, widening the economic gap between the rich and the poor as well as emphasizing the intellectual gap between each student.
A second alternative to the online class medium is the so-called modular learning, and this too has its own flaws. Even though there is less pressure and stress in the part of the students, modular learning, like online classes, puts further emphasis on the intellectual gap between each student as it relies on self-learning. For one, there is no regulation on how one should learn using modules given by the DepEd, and depending on the student, he/she may either start learning or not at all, depending on his/her self-discipline — meaning those who are motivated to learn will start to learn, but it is also very likely that students will not be in the right mindset for learning due to the woes of the pandemic. Furthermore, there is a notable absence of the lack of feedback from the trainers, and it also lacks flexibility too.
This is not even mentioning if students will be able to learn the modular lessons at all. As previously mentioned, not everyone is blessed with good intellectual capacity, and those that lag in academic progress will only lag further. In fact, this method of self-learning will only be problematic as we scored the lowest in reading comprehension in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). By relying on reading alone for learning, the average student will likely lag in academic progress. Relying on the guardians for learning is not a particularly good idea, either — like students, parents or guardians have different educational backgrounds, and not every parent knows algebra or calculus, so not every parent will be able to teach all subjects.
The final method — learning through television or radio — is also not a particularly good idea either for the same reason as why online classes is not viable. Not every household has access to a television or radio, thus putting the economically-disadvantaged behind education. Furthermore, like modular learning, it also utilizes self-learning — something not everyone is good at — albeit it does not rely on reading but rather the listening skill of the students. So, as with modular learning, it does not guarantee effectivity in education as students are still faced with the disadvantages of self-learning.
Faced with all these disadvantages, it is realistic to expect that the DepEd will not be able to fix these issues in the six-week delay for these issues are rooted in the population itself. Not every stakeholder is blessed with a good intellectual capacity — and if they are, they would likely use it on other, more important things, such as actually surviving the pandemic. So, unless they have prepared a mental health program for students to get them up and running for education amid the health crisis or has somehow prepared an alternative learning program for the students that are not as blessed in intellectual skill such as book-reading programs, the best option is an academic freeze — not for the purposes of delaying education, but to provide ample time for all students to catch up as DepEd addresses these demographic variables that hinder distance learning education.
While the intentions of the DepEd to continue education amid the pandemic is indeed noble, pushing through distance learning with those mediums will only put the economically and psychologically-disadvantaged behind education, thus rendering the very point of education useless, which is to provide wisdom to every person. Every person is aware about their rights to education despite their skill and capacity, and DepEd should reflect that on its proposed learning methods.
