Janina Writes Here: On Learning, Perceived Stupidity, and How I Want My Future Kids to Learn Math (if I ever have them)

Like any poor, unsuspecting soul, I am destined to fall in love… most probably with a guy that is wonderfully good in Math (and probably flawless Grammar and a damn good conversational skills). In fact, about a year ago, I was in a relationship with such an individual. Why those specific qualities? Because years from now, if I do decide to get married and have kids, I would find it a relief to just cry out, “Mahal, the kids are asking about quadratic equations again!” And the then-love of my life will come and rescue me from the confusion brought about by numbers and letters and rules and logic, for which I shall reward him with passionate kisses. Sounds like a fairy-tale ending to me.

We had an almost-love affair, Math and I. I liked Math when I was in primary school, but the people around us never really helped the relationship. The trauma of that almost-love affair has left me afraid of numbers. Typical sad, tragic, love story. I distinctly remember when I started to fear Math. I was doing homework and my parents were hovering above me like vulture waiting for a tiny animal to succumb to death. I wrote the numbers of my addition problems on my notebook, big and bold and uninhibited by the green lines which made little squares on the paper.

Story of my life: Understanding Math questions was miracle enough for me.

My mother hit my hand with a ruler, told me to write inside the little boxes, pointed out that my 4’s looked like 9’s, that my 7’s looked like 1’s. I tried again and again to do as she said, but it frustrated me to no end that I knew how to add the (damn) numbers, but my tutors were badgering me with what I thought were inconsequential things. It ended with me crying my eyes out and never finishing the homework.

I felt stupid.

Inclusive Education and Feeling “Bobo”

“I am stupid.” This was what I was made to feel in high school. Being among the top students sometimes made you feel that way – yes, even when you were in the group of best students because you’re supposed to be one yourself.

When I attended the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation’s Kapihan Session on Inclusive Education and Cultural Development along with other Greatness of Spirit (GOS) Ambassadors and we were asked what “inclusive education” meant to us, this was the first thing I thought of: that if you were perceived to be stupid, many teachers would just give up and let you be. Even your parents would just sigh and admit to their child’s incapacity to learn. Your peers weren’t far from imitating these reactions.

Because of the lack of resources, many teachers just give up on the "bobo" student and focus their efforts on giving the best opportunities to the "smarter" ones. This is pretty obvious in many public schools.

Being called “bobo” made me afraid to approach teachers whose job was to help me learn. Being called “bobo” and the perception that I was “bobo” made me afraid to approach my smarter classmates because they may laugh at me. In other words, being called and perceived as “bobo” made me more “bobo” because I couldn’t learn and I was afraid to find help to learn. How I survived high school, how I survived the DOST program, I still can’t completely explain. Maybe it was a miracle. Maybe it was because, despite what people say behind my back and to my face, I realized I wasn’t stupid – only lazy and lacking the proper motivation.

Inclusive Education, to me, is giving equal opportunity to learn to everyone, regardless of financial status, physical abilities and mental aptitude. In the high school that I went to, almost all the opportunities to excel were given to us, the top 2 sections. This is probably because of the lack or resources. God forbid that it’s because the system has given up on the ones who are more difficult to teach.

Educators should not give up on “slow” students, because really, these students are not slow – they only need a different way of learning, a bit more TLC than the “smarter” ones need, and sometimes, a teacher who would delve deeper into whatever it is that is hindering the learning process.

I know this because I am now a teacher – albeit I don’t teach Math. I teach English, which is huge source of frustration to my students because it could either make or break their dreams.

How Learning Can Be Different

Ramon Magsaysay Awardees Doctors Christopher and Ma. Victoria Bernidos talking passionately about the Dynamic Learning Program.

During the Kapihan Session at the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, I was lucky enough to have been able to join the discussions with two Ramon Maysaysay Awardees, Dr. Christopher Bernido and Dr. Ma. Victoria Carpio-Bernido. This power-couple received their doctorate degrees in Physics in the State University of New York and came home on top of their game as heads of the National Institute of Physics at the University of the Philippines. They left UP to move to Jagna, a poor municipality in Bohol, to manage a school that had seen better days. Instead of giving up, the Bernidos came up with a student-centered approach to education that changed the Bell Curve of student performance, allowing the majority of students to excel, even in difficult subjects such as math and science. They call it the Dynamic Learning Program.

The result? An increase in the passing rate in the UPCAT, better known as one of the bloodiest entrance examination in the history of entrance examinations.

The result A dramatic shift in the bell diagram of student performance: Those who excelled increased in numbers. And more importantly, those who would traditionally be called bobo realized that, yes, they can learn just as much as the next person. Wow. I wish I could have realized that when I was younger.

Dear DLP: Where have you been all my life (or at least when I was struggling with freaking Trigonometry)?!

Apparently in Jagna Bohol.

It's a Teacher's Job: How "bobo" can be "better"

As a teacher, I've had three realizations:

1. Never call a student "bobo" and discourage others from doing so - including fellow teachers, the students' parents, and their peers. They may just have different learning needs and the conventional stuff don't work for them. Some students are just lazy, and not necessarily stupid. Case in point: me.

2. As teachers, we must either (1) have the belief that every person has the potential for growth and learning (and it is our job as educators to help them harness it) or (2) leave our natural tendency to insult people's intellect once we don our teaching persona. I'm working on the former.

3. If you just want to impress people, don't be a teacher. The classroom may be your kingdom, but like the best of leaders of a democratic nation, your job is to ensure that you are people-centered, not self-centered. That means the students should be the ones doing most of the action.

The challenge for me, and for all teachers for that matter, is putting these realizations into practice, and hopefully to prove that there are no stupid students, only ineffective methods of teaching.