Andrea@90

My wife, my son and I flew out to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago to join my sister Melissa and my brother Jim, my nephews Lee, Ezra, Ira, and Richie and my niece Carolyn in celebrating my mother Andrea’s 90th birthday.

All mothers are special, and like all mothers, Andrea has a few things going for her that kind of sets her apart from mere mortals like us. Andrea is a teacher. She has a master’s degree in public school administration and a doctorate in education. As luck would have it, however, her entire 30-year career was spent with the Department of Education, first with the Bureau of Public Schools and later with the Bureau of Higher Education.

Because of her, my sisters and I could already read and write – in English – even before we were in Grade 1. We all have a genuine love for reading because when school was out for the summer, my mother would let us wander through the bookshelves of the Department of Public Schools library on Arroceros Street where she worked, and browse to our hearts’ content. Truth be told, my mother’s love for teaching imbued in us a love for learning.

Andrea began formal schooling in 1929 when she turned seven, under the public school system that the Americans had set up. The governing body for all Philippine schools back then was the Department of Public Instruction. My mother belonged to the last high school graduating class before World War II broke out.

Any time the opportunity arises, my mother and I have animated exchanges on the state of Philippine education, then and now. She finds it particularly appalling that teachers today no longer enjoy the esteem that communities bestowed upon them during her time. But then again, becoming a teacher then was a prime career choice that brought singular honor to the family. My mother told me that she was already allowed to teach grade school children after she finished Grade 7.

Which brought us to another topic: the basic education cycle. I told my mother that we’ve successfully campaigned for a shift to the K-to-12 Basic Education cycle from the present 10-year one. She didn’t find that surprising. Apparently, she went through 11 years of basic education before she went to National Teachers College for her bachelor’s degree in education after the war. From the way she described it, their grade school curriculum was nowhere near as congested as it is now. However, after Grade 7, those wishing to go on to high school needed to take an entrance exam, which she said was quite stringent. “Not everybody could go on to high school, much less college,” my mother said.

Andrea recalls that the transition to a more densely crammed learning regimen started to evolve during the martial law years. Through a succession of presidential decrees, Ferdinand Marcos created the Department of Education and Culture, which then became the Ministry of Education and Culture, and finally the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. I told my mother that my research tells me that the packed curriculum was consistent with the stated development goals of the so-called New Society. She confirmed that the various directives issued by the education minister to them said as much.

Andrea maintains that packing too many things to absorb is never a good thing for the learner. “How can the child learn when he or she has very little time to master the concepts being taught? How can they excel in school work when they don’t even have time to sharpen their reading and arithmetic fundamentals?” Andrea said. Take the multiplication table, for example. You should already know it by rote so you don’t have to stop and compute, she said. That way, you can concentrate on learning math concepts without being bogged down by simple arithmetic.

The same holds true for reading. My mother never tires of telling me that one will only get better at reading if one practices a lot, and it is never too late to learn to read well. I remember that when we were children, my mother used to read to us, taking the time to stop and explain any “big words.” A little later, she would ask us to read aloud, gently urging us on when we had trouble pronouncing long words.

A point that my mother and I couldn’t quite agree on was what language to use for the medium of instruction. I told her that the Eggie Apostol Foundation advocates Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education. She, on the other hand, was taught in English right from Grade 1. I told her that global evidence shows that using the mother tongue as the medium of instruction during the early years greatly improves learning. She has a very pragmatic view: Use whatever works.

With that, she turned on the iPad that her grandson Richie had given her, tapped the Facetime icon, and started chatting with her great- granddaughter Leahzel. My mother’s right: Even at 90, it’s never too late to learn new things.

Butch Hernandez (butchhernandez@gmail.com) is the executive director of the Eggie Apostol Foundation.