The Literacy of Listening in Manila

An Ear Towards Students

A national curriculum with national teaching modules for every unit.  The same pay scale for every teacher for every school.  It sounds so restrictive so canned so unresponsive, and yet, schools in Manila were anything but unresponsive to their communities.  The private school was outside of most state mandates, so it was not surprising to find a creative system there.  What was surprising was the power of the student in the private Catholic school.  I imagined the priests, administrators, nuns and teachers as having the power in a religious school.  I imagined strict discipline and frowns.  I imagined wrong.  St. Paul College was anything but restrictive.  The plaque on the back of every seat in the auditorium read:

Student leaders were in charge of work like taking attendance, setting up tutoring for students, planning field trips, and gathering make-up work in each class.  The student leaders were elected in each classroom and worked with the teacher to manage the class.  The student council was called the “Supreme Student Government” and they had real power.  Students and administrators worked together to create a gifts program built off student interests.  They higher community specialists to head up the gifts programs:  artists, engineers, Olympic level coaches,  and the like.  Students shared their program with student leaders in other schools and helped them create similar programs.  The students felt and acted quite empowered at this beautiful school.  We visited regular classrooms and lab classes.  We visited classes where the teacher was absent but the students sat at their desks and completed seat-work without prompting!   This school maximized resources and had the only semi modern computer lab of the three - with a Mac Lab for design and music composition.  Listening to students was an art at this heartwarming school and students responded with passionate engagement and respect.

Turning Towards the Community (My Favorite School Visit so Far)

We visited a poor and rich public school in Manila yesterday.  What beautiful children and hopeful teachers!  The poor school has a 99% proficiency on national tests.  I"m going to say that again - 99% proficiency AND a 1% dropout rate.  Yep, I typed that right - 1%.  More than amazing, they are inspiring.  There is no other way to say it than to say that the teachers are TIRED! but doing so much with so little.  Such creative hands-on lessons with so few resources.  I watched students deeply engaged in a physics lab using only tiny mirrors and copy paper protractors (not even on card stock!) and students engrossed in literature lessons reading the novels chapter by chapter from HAND WRITTEN chapters on poster sized paper taped to the walls.  See my Facebook page to hear this beautiful children sing! 

I was most impressed with their response to the community.  The Philippines are in the midst of adding two years of high school to their entire system across the board.  I can't imagine telling my at-risk students that we have changed the school system and they will not graduate this year but have two more years to attend!  I can only imagine the desperation and defeat in their eyes if I gave them that news.  This school petitioned the government and is able to give their students real vocational certifications after grade 10 so they can leave the school and get a job.  Then they added an open high school program where students can attend classes at various times of the day/night while working to move towards their actual degree, but they do not have to.  The other way they respond to the community is by the actual electives that they offer.  The skills prepare students to enhance local industry immediately.  The businesses don't have to train students for their jobs.  The students are prepared to work in actual industries that exist.  

They offered garment making and housekeeping, appliance repair and cooking for resorts along with a dozen other practical work based programs.   These students took some rigorous core classes two or three times a week but studied their vocation every day!  By the end of the 10th grade year they could take a national skills assessment in their direct field and be certified to work a "real" job.  The electives were so central to the community needs around them.  I think of all the entry level jobs in the industries around my high school and see several opportunities to train students past that entry level position, so they could leave high school with skills that our local businesses actually need.  It would save the industry money as well as be beneficial to students to work this direction.

Hearing the Future

"We can find good teachers.  Dear students, be our scientists and engineers.  The nation needs you to be scientists," urged the beautiful young superintendent when one of my US colleagues asked the students at this public science high school why none of them wanted to be teachers.  When you saunter through a state of the art brand new high rise high school with 8 or more floors and hallways that resemble huge balconies guided by articulate adult-like teenagers, it's hard to believe that you are in a developing nation.  Looking out the windows instead of off the balconies, you remember that you are.  

In the midst of this kind hearted, rigorously alive and loving community is the acute awareness that most of these people live every day with scarcity - food scarcity, health scarcity, safety scarcity, water scarcity.  Yet the nation is not imprisoned by poverty but rather emerging from it like a caterpillar resting in a cocoon eminently aware of it's changes - the beautiful wings and velvety body that had replaced the slick skin yet not quite breaking free of the humble wrappings that ensnare it.  A colleague and I addressed a room full of 8th grade students.  Their teacher was still in the lounge.  They were waiting for class to begin.  I introduced myself enthusiastically as a history teacher.  They audibly groaned.  David introduced himself as a math teacher and they literally pumped their arms enthusiastically and couldn't control their "Yes!"  We were taking aback.  David turned on his video. "If you don't mind, could you please do that again?  I 'm going to introduce myself and you respond the same you just responded?" and they did.

This school has remarkably more resources than it's counterpart vocational school.  The building, a stipend for students who attend, smaller class sizes, but, as our host Alex stated over and over, our greatest resource is our students.  They have the luxury of having students apply and being able to send students away who do not perform at the 85% level.  (He noted this was good for the students as well because if they leave the school and go to another, they will be the valedictorian there.  Yet, it still does not have the resources of our poorest school.  The drafting class does not have drafting tables to think CAD programs.  Emasculate just constructed book shelves wait in a tiny library to be filled - just like this nation waits for her children to accomplish both her and their dreams.  Put your ear to the ground, you will hear them coming.  Observe the cocoon; it is moving; a wing is breaking free.