Author: synergeia

Voices of the Singapore Math Workshop

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“Teaching Math the Singapore Way: A Training for Teachers and Tutors”

On the state of Mathematics in the Philippines

By Queena N. Lee-Chua, PhD

Licensed psychologist, columnist, professor, and mathematician

February 5, 12, and 19, 2022

Synergeia Foundation

Slowly, we will make students learn Math better. They need to learn Math better because, when they grow up, they are the future of our nation. We have to do this for the sake of our country. That’s it.

I am handling many Math classes. I teach in Ateneo. I volunteer. I am also handling a Math class at Far Eastern University. And this is part of what I show my students. I think this is why Ningning invited me. This is why my son and I decided to do this to help the Philippines. You can Google everything that I say.

I will start with a bit of bad news. Unfortunately, our poor country remains at the bottom of the world in international Math, Science, and Reading. This is a wakeup call for all of us. We will have to get our act together. Tayo lang ang bansa na hindi magaling sa Math. We find it funny and, minsan, ipinagmamalaki pa natin. That’s a very bad attitude, kasi kung ganyan tayo, we will not progress. Kaya nga, yung ibang bansa, they are making a lot of progress.

We are trying with the help of NGOs, like Synergeia. Our LGUs are trying their best. But our culture is a culture that feels that learning is difficult. Gusto natin, ma-entertain tayo. Gusto natin, palaging madali. Gusto natin, instant gratification. Mahirap yan sa Mathematics. Sa Mathematics, ang kailangan, tiyaga. Kailangan ng effort, kailangan upuan natin. Kaya nga, three hours in three days. Hindi namin kayang bilisan ito. We need you to really understand.

I will show you the international surveys. This is PISA. PISA is the program for international science, an international assessment. In 2018, we participated in this one. Reading, Math, and Science. Countries are ranked in descending order.  The highest are several cities in China. Singapore is there (that’s why we are doing Singapore Math), Macao, Hong Kong, Estonia is doing very well, Canada, and Finland. Magaling din yan. Many of you know the Nordic countries, magagaling yan. United States, medyo nasa gitna. Japan, Australia, Taipei.

Nasaan tayo? Baba pa. Ito ang nakakaiyak noong nakita ko. Philippines: ang pinakamababa. Philippines in Mathematics—we are second from the bottom. Dominican Republic is lower than we are. In science, we are also second from the bottom. Dito kayo magugulat. Akala natin, mas magaling tayo sa Ingles, di ba? Pero in English, we are at the bottom. Math and Science–we are second from the bottom. Mas mataas pa ang Math and Science natin kaysa Ingles. Nakakagulat di ba? I am not surprised. In Ateneo, usually the ones who are doing well in Math are also doing well in English. So it is not true na kung inglesera ka or nasa arts ka, hindi ka magaling sa Math. Hindi yan tutoo.

Math is a language. English is also a language. Filipino is also a language. So how do we learn English? How do we learn Filipino? Natututo tayo kasi bata pa tayo, we talk to our parents in Pilipino. Kayo sa Northern Luzon, you also know Ilocano. We learn language by practice. So, sa Mathematics, ganoon din. We learn Mathematics by practice. Problema kasi sa atin, yung mga kababayan natin, takot tayo sa Math. At kung takot tayo sa Math, ayaw nating i-practice. Kung hindi natin i-practice, we will never become better. That is the key. Kung ayaw natin, ina-avoid natin. That shouldn’t be. Kaya kawawa tayo. Sa buong mundo, tayo ang pinakamababa. Can you imagine that? Mas mababa pa tayo sa Kosovo. May civil war diyan. Morocco. Lebanon. They are poorer than we are. Palagi nating sinasabi na kasi mahirap tayo. But poverty should not be a hindrance.

I am very inspired by what Synergeia does. I am very inspired by what you do. Nakita ko mga two-way radios na pinakita ni Fr. Ben. Yung sa GK Northern Luzon. He told me that many of these children, mga guro na walang Wi-Fi nakita ko sa video nila, nag-aaral sila ng Math and Science through two-way radio. Napaiyak ako sa galak. Sabi ko, ang galing! There are so many people who want to learn. Kasama kayo doon, dear teachers. Sabado ngayon. Mas madaling matulog. Sabi ko pagod na pagod ako. May klase ako hanggang kagabi. Pero mahal ko ang bansa natin. Ayokong makita ang Pilipinas na kulelat. Dapat naman may dignity tayo and hindi lang for international purposes. Mathematics and Science run the modern world. Zoom is made possible because of Math and Science.

Because our country is not good in Math and Science, we are also not economically good and we cannot think logically. We cannot think rationally. Yan ang importante sa math. Kaya we are also not solving the pandemic problem well. But we are trying our best. Malaki ang puso natin. Yun ang maganda sa Pinoy. We are very understanding. We are very compassionate. We help each other. Malaki ang puso natin and that is something I am very thankful for. Synergeia itself has a very big heart. What Ningning does. What Dr. Nene does. Fr. Ben told me about it. I have attended their sessions. What your LGU does. Ang galing. You are very good leaders. You are people who care.

But this is what you have to add and I have to say this because I have been teaching for more than 30 years. I started teaching at the age of 20 in Ateneo. Mga estudyante ko were one or two years younger than me. In 1987, when I graduated, deretso ako sa pagtuturo. So wala tayong problema sa puso. Marami ang gustong magturo. Yun ang maganda. Marami din ang ayaw. Wala ako pakialam sa ayaw magturo. Let’s not be distracted. I am quoting Fr. Ben. Let’s not be distracted by other people who don’t know what’s right. We want to focus on people who are working, helping.

I need to say this. A big heart is not enough. Okay na malaki ang puso natin. We should have big hearts. Wala tayong maa-acomplish if our minds are not as big as our hearts. If we want to help, but don’t know how to do it—wala! So many people say we want to help people in Math. I also help in “Teach for the Philippines.” I volunteered with “Teach for the Philippines” before the pandemic. I taught Singapore Math to Grade 6 public school students. Ang gagaling ng mga bata. Isang oras, lang pero marami kaming nagawa sa isang oras. So, tuwang tuwa ako. Sanay akong magturo sa mga mahihirap. Wala akong paki kung mahirap sila. Gusto nilang matuto. Poverty is not a reason for us not to do well.

Many of the countries doing better than us – Kazakhstan, Baku, North Macedonia—are poorer than we are, yet they are handling the pandemic better than we do. Why? Because they use their reasoning skills. They use rationality. Importante yan. Yung mathematics kasi, hindi natin puwedeng bolahin. Eh, Pinoy tayo, mahilig tayong mambola. Magsalita lang tayo, iiyak lang tayo, akala natin okay na. Or we pull strings—ok si ganito, kilala ko si ganito. But that is not the way life is. Hindi puwedeng ganyan sa pandemia. We have to know the science we have to know which vaccines work. We have to do mathematical modeling. And many of my colleagues in Ateneo are helping the government predict, like what will happen in this scenario. And that requires mathematics. Hindi puwede ang puso lang. Our head should be as big as our hearts.

I will end with this other international survey. The one who alerted me to this is Fr Ben Nebres. He has been working all his life to make our country better. TIMSS is a survey on international Math and Science. In 2019, we took a test for Grade 4 and another for Grade 8. Mga guro, yung test ng Grade 4, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division saka madaling fractions. Pero hindi din maganda ang mga resulta natin. Sino ang matataas? East Asian countries are top achievers in Mathematics by a substantial margin. Ang matataas uli: Singapore, No. 1. Hong Kong. Korea. Chinese Taipei. Japan. Russia. Ireland. England. Latvia, etc. Nasaan tayo? Hindi lang tayo second to the bottom. Nasa bottom tayo. Tayo lang ang bansa na hindi naka 300. Hindi kaya ng mga bata natin na mag add, subtract, multiply and divide. That’s what it means. They cannot really do problem solving. That’s for Mathematics. Now for Science. Eto yung mga matataas, pareho din. Tayo din ang pinakamababa.

We are a country that thinks being bad in Math is okay. Ipinagmamalaki pa natin. Takot ako sa Math! Hindi tayo nahihiya sa sarili natin. Kaya ganito ang nangyayari. Alam ko deretso akong magsalita kasi kailangan kong magsabi ng tutoo. Life is too short for me to lie to you. I am very happy to be here today because, slowly, we will make our students learn Math better. And they need to learn Math better because, when they grow up, they are the future of our nation. This is not for them to become honor students. This has nothing to do with it. We have to do this for the sake of our country. That’s it. That’s why we are here. It’s imperative. This is no longer a luxury. In the 21st century, all technology is based on Mathematics and Science. It is a need, a requirement. Hindi ito para sa matatalino lang. There’s no such thing as matatalino. No one is born matalino. Yung mga matatalino sa Math sila rin ang pinakamasipag, ang pinakamadisiplina. 


Let us ‘Adopt a Child,’ again

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Farhana Tahir, a mother from Marawi City, could not help but heave a sigh of frustration at how difficulty earning a living has become in this time of pandemic.  “Ang hirap ng hanapbuhay ngayon.  Sana ay bumalik na sa normal para lahat ay makapag-hanapbuhay na.”    

But if there is one thing that makes Farhana thankful, even in the bleakness of times, it is her child being a beneficiary of the “Adopt a Child” program of Synergeia Foundation.  

The “Adopt a Child” Program was originally conceived to bring the out-of-school children of Marawi City back to school by having donors shoulder the children’s daily transportation expense and school snacks.  With a minimal amount of only P600 a month, the program was able to help some 135 children when it was first implemented in 2019.  Synergeia spiced up the program with an arts and music workshop for the children and livelihood trainings for their mothers and fathers.   Foster parents got copies of the report cards of children they supported, and thank-you notes.  At Christmastime, they sent some gifts for the children to enjoy.

The onslaught of COVID-19 discontinued the program.  But it is making a comeback this school year, supporting at the moment 55 students, while Synergeia works to expand the community of donors for this program.  

During the “Kumustahan” we had with parents of children under the new “Adopt a Child” program last February 16, 2022 at the Amai Pakpak Central Elementary School, many parents welcomed the possibility of having face-to-face classes once again.   They agree that this will be good for the education of their children.  “Ang kagandahan ay matututukan ng mabuti ang pag-aaral ng mga bata dahil nga po, ilan sa amin ay hindi nakapagtapos ng pag-aaral.  Nahihirapan din po kami sa pagtuturo sa aming mga anak,”  said Mrs. Soraida M. Tampi.   The challenge of teaching at home is great for parents who were not schooled themselves. 

But with face-to-face classes, some parents worry about the cost of buying a new set of uniform or school supplies when the time comes.    Mrs. Olimpiy Dandamun candidly said, “Malaking adjustment po lalo na’t magdadalawang taon na po ang pandemic.  Ang mga uniform po ng mga anak namin ay maliit na sa kanila.  Medyo magiging magastos po dahil din sa mga kagamitan nila sa school tulad ng notebook, pencil at iba pang kailangan nila.” 

Parents of “Adopt a Child” scholars have formed a close bond with each other.  The “Kumustahan” became a venue for them to talk about the well-being of their children and other family members.  They talked about how to stay healthy and protected from COVID-19.  They shared ways by which they augmented their daily earnings such as through selling vegetables, banana cue and ube cue.   They also hoped that the other parents and children can also come back to the program. 

At the end of their “Kumustahan,” they expressed their joy and gratitude.  “Nagpapasalamat kami at nandiyan pa rin ang Synergeia at mga donors para tumulong sa aming mga anak.” 

 

KAS REGIONAL ROUND TABLE – MAYOR REX GATCHALIAN

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Hon. Rex Gatchalian

Mayor, Valenzuela City

Let me start off by saying that my presentation is all about education and education governance and local government units. As you all know, as I was introduced, I am the current city mayor of the city of Valenzuela, one of the 17 component cities of Metro Manila. The next slide will show you what I want to start with.

Let me start with this bold statement. Unfortunately, (this is not a sweeping statement but rather a statement of fact) in the Philippine education setting, the student is actually set up to fail. I know it is quite drastic for me to say that but let me substantiate that.

I said those things because I realize, after eight years serving as local chief executive of Valenzuela, I that all the characters that are surrounding the child in this setting tasked with working towards the success of the child, are actually working towards hindering a child from learning.

First of all, the parents. Parents are supposed to be the early or first contact of a child in learning. They are supposed to be the first teachers at home. Unfortunately, learning in the Philippines doesn’t happen at home because we have disengaged parents. I realized earlier on that their concept of being a parent is watching TV with their children rather than opening a book and learning to read with their child.

We have local school boards set up in our cities and municipalities but these local school boards are not representative. They are not consultative and more so because the mayor has the strongest voice. It is so mayor-centric. Only his voice gets heard. And we all know sometimes when the mayor starts talking, it becomes more about him rather than about the child.

Also, our local school boards tend to be myopic in its vision of solving the problems of a child. Their solutions are always infrastructure-heavy. Now let me put you in the paradigm of my setting. It is infrastructure-heavy because everybody thinks that, for the child to succeed, you need more classrooms. They think that most of the problems of a child is skin-deep. But it is inside. It is emotional, mental. It is not just about gravel-and-sand solutions. Also, in our education setting, every concern is not treated as holistic but as a piecemeal problem with a piecemeal solution.

Case in point: feeding and illiteracy. These are two things that studies have shown to be correlated. But, in most schools in the Philippines, we try to address hunger in school and illiteracy as two separate things. It can be a holistic approach but it is not that way. 

I would like to call it the dual personality of the education setting in the Philippines. It’s neither centralized nor decentralized. It’s centralized in the sense that it is too rigid but when you want to decentralize, it they invoke centralization. But when we want to invoke centralization, they invoke decentralization. Meaning, there are no clear-cut responsibilities. When you don’t know whether it is the role of the national government or the local government, things fall into the cracks. That’s the sad part. We haven’t really defined our education setup in the Philippines. This is a sweeping statement. I know some of you will say it’s unfair. But my first-hand experience is this: our national education system sometimes tends to have this culture of denial. Meaning, from top to bottom, everybody just tells you, from teachers all the way to the superintendents, “Look, Mayor, there is no problem. Everything’s nice. Everything’s good.” But mayors are not supposed to ask these things. So, whenever the major agency tasked with education is in denial, then obviously you won’t find solutions to the problem.

So what did Valenzuela City do? In a nutshell, Valenzuela City set out to challenge the status quo of the education setup. We realized that local governments can dismantle the status quo of schools with their own arsenal. In our case, in Valenzuela City, we ventured into places where, traditionally, mayors or the city are not supposed to venture. I would get answers, like, “Mayor, you’re not supposed to do that. Mayor, that’s not your job. Mayor, you can’t do that.” But we just realized that when you use your political capital or your political will to dismantle this mindset, the status quo, and deconstruct education from the ground up, it won’t be a hundred percent deconstruction but it should start from somewhere.

Next slide, I’ll show you our program. It’s actually our own program. It’s called the “Education 360 Investment Program.” It’s a program that is holistic, that treats everything as a systemic issue, and has the child in the middle. That’s why it is “360.” We envision it to be a circle with the child in the middle. Just briefly—I won’t bore you with the details—it’s a holistic approach because it starts talking about building facilities. But we ventured further into “Nanay Teacher.” Nanay in our language is “mother.” So it’s “Mother-Teacher.” It is empowering our parents to go beyond the vision of what a parent-teacher conference is and be engaged in the learning life of one’s children.

Our program also incorporates a teaching camp, even if it’s not devolved. Meaning, the teachers in the camp are re-strategized with the most modern teaching strategies. We also help in curriculum development. We launched our own anti-illiteracy program. We started working on our own feeding program. And we started incentivizing these programs and brought in inclusive learning as well as a well-rounded program for sports.

Moving forward, what I learned is you have to learn to defy gravity by challenging the status quo. It’s pretty much like saying LGUs must take the driver’s seat in crafting the program of education. You can’t just say it is the division office’s or the DepEd’s problem. It’s everybody’s problem. I’ll give you an anecdote. Earlier in my term, we wanted to do a reading camp because we found out that a lot of our kids in their right age or right grade level could not read. They were frustrated non-readers who just didn’t know how to read at third and at sixth grade. Instead of just fighting them and trying to touch the curriculum because it is not devolved, we created our summer reading camp. Of course, there was a pushback. The DepEd people were saying, “There’s no problem, Mayor. You don’t have to do this.” But I just kept on harping on the problem and that we had to do something. Another takeaway is we have to listen and to keep on listening because the right answers normally come from the stakeholders.

You have to think out the box and come up with innovative programs to work around the system. We also realized that we had to recalibrate. Making mistakes actually breed upgrades in governance.

The next slide will tell you about our challenges. Just when you knew it, COVID happened and it made matters worse. COVID turned government issues upside down, including education. Suddenly, all the playbooks that we knew were out of the window. So, moving forward, we created our own setup. We created our Valenzuela Live, which is our own distance learning platform. We basically created the “streaming school.” We were streaming standardized content for all our students to watch. This content is tailored to pattern after their modules. The sad part with the national setup is what they’re watching on national TV doesn’t match with what’s created locally in the modules, in the learning kits. So, here, they are synchronized. What they are streaming is standardized content for the entire division. We created our studios. We tailored the material to our own learners.

To sum up what I said, in our template for learning to challenge the status quo, the mayors must come up with a conscious effort to take the driver’s seat. You cannot keep on saying, “It is not my responsibility. It is not devolved, so I let the national government deal with it.” You have to sit down and tell the division offices that this is a partnership, a co-pilot issue wherein the national and local governments must come up with creative, innovative solutions to solve the problems especially brought about by COVID that turned the entire education system upside down.

Again, I have said it. Mayors must take an active role in dealing with education because you have the political capital. People recognize you. You are a face that they are comfortable with. You are face that they can relate with. You are a face that they trust and you have to use that trust to come up with materials or programs that will suit our local learners. But, in order to do that, you have to engage the entire community. I am not an educator but we managed to come up with our own education program because we engaged everybody—all the end users—especially now in the time of COVID, when the challenges are more pronounced. You need more players. You need the business sector. You need everybody in the picture.

Last, we will talk about one more takeaway. We need constant monitoring and assessment, especially in the age of COVID. Distance learning is new to the Philippines. Distance learning is new to Valenzuela. But we realized that, in this uncharted territory, we have to keep on testing. You have to make sure where you are, where you stand, so that you can calibrate or discontinue or upgrade programs as they come along.

Thank you for giving me this time to share the Valenzuela story.