With ‘an understanding heart’

Neni Sta. Romana Cruz’s article, “Teach the student, not the curriculum” (Opinion, 6/7/14), hit me like a ton of bricks because it puts in perspective what humanistic education is all about. Brought up in a traditional learning environment, I know firsthand what it is like to be in a classroom where the teacher is the absolute authority and the students are passive receivers of knowledge.

Looking back on my formative years, I shudder at the recollection of teachers acting as though they were implacable tyrants who would punish those under their charge at the slightest signs of mischief or juvenile indiscretion, arrogating unto themselves the absolute authority of a judge, executioner and demigod rolled into one. How pathetic! To be fair to them, however, I perfectly understand where they were coming from. They were simply acting out beliefs and values deeply ingrained in them by mentors who had been themselves products of the norms prevalent at the time.

Thankfully, history has a way of shedding light on the ills that have plagued our educational system for much too long now. The paradigm shift in education which now focuses on the students’ needs, abilities, interests and learning styles with the teacher serving largely as a facilitator of learning has truly revolutionized our approach to the teaching-learning process. With teachers looking at the interests and unique needs of individual students as a guide to meaningful instruction and making learning and class environment more interactive, participatory and fun, we have truly humanized our

approach to raising our children, in the hope that we can help them make sense of their lives and the world around them.

Perhaps Carl Jung says it all, and I quote: “An understanding heart is everything in a teacher and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with

appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling.  The curriculum is so much necessary raw material. But warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and the soul of a child.”

—PETE DE LOS SANTOS,

retired educator,

[email protected]