DAVAO CITY – Teachers here are expressing worry that they will only be a few pages ahead of their students because of the new teaching approach under the K to 12 curriculum.
Danilo Mondoyo of Alliance of Concerned Teachers Davao taught Physics for 26 years. But this coming school year, he will also be teaching Earth Science, Biology, and Chemistry.
“Ako isip magtutudlo, dili andam ani nga program (As a teacher I am not ready for this program),” Mondoyo said during the press conference of Suspend K to 12 Alliance here.
Mondoyo said the Spiral Approach is an additional burden to teachers.
“In reality, motudlo ka sa imong mga bata, next day imoha nang ibalik, dili na na kahinumdum. Daghang factors maka-affect sa attention sa bata (In reality when you teach your students, by the next day that you review them the lesson, they cannot remember it. There are a lot of factors affecting the attention of the children),” Mondoyo said.
“It’s very hard for us so we are not really ready,” he said.
The previous Disciplinal Approach in Science offers Integrated Science to Grade 7 students, Biology to Grade 8, Chemistry to Grade 9 and Physics for Grade 10. For Mathematics, Grade 7 takes Elementary Algebra, Intermediate Algebra for Grade 8, Geometry for Grade 9, and Trigonometry, Statistics and Probability for Grade 10 students.
With the new approach, the concepts of all subjects will be introduced from Grade 3 until he or she reaches Grade 10.
In the website of Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP), it said the Spiral Progression Approach allows students to “continually return to basic ideas as new subjects and concepts are added” over the course of a curriculum.
The approach is inspired by Jerome Bruner’s model of spiral curriculum.
Dr. Brenda Corpuz’ presentation of the Spiral Approach in Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU) website says it will provide mastery of concepts to students as “one keeps moving upward but keeps returning to the fundamentals.”
But, Bobot Ayque of ACT National Capital Region said the students cannot acquire mastery through the Spiral Approach since teachers are not prepared to teach all the subjects.
“The teacher’s learning is almost the same as the learning of the student. Yung teacher nag-aaral pa ng Earth Science and at the same time, ituturo niya sa bata. Supposed to be a teacher should be not only 2-page, 3-page ahead but a book ahead (The teacher is still learning Earth Science and at the same time he or she will teach it to students),” Ayque said.
Mondoyo added that the lack of facilities and classrooms affects the children’s learning.
“Duna pay daghang problema sa dating kurikulum, dunay kakulangan sa classrooms, dunay kakulangan sa mga magtutudlo (There are still a lot of problems in the old curriculum, there is lack of classroom, lack of teachers),” Mondoyo said adding the additional buildings and teachers this year are still part of the backlog during the previous years.
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Administrators doubt too
George Wong, principal of Davao City National High School said there is no reason not to implement K to 12. However, he said that he doubts if all schools in the country is ready to adopt the program.
“If you go deeper with the preparation, I doubt if by next year all schools nationwide are ready to adopt the K to 12 program of Grades 11 and 12,” Wong told Davao Today in an interview on Wednesday.
Wong said their school still lacks facilities and equipment. “Bangko pa lang daan we need 4,000 (For chairs only we need 4,000),” he said.
Davao City National High School, which has more than 9,000 enrollees, was identified by the Department of Education as a stand alone Senior High School.
The other stand alone SHS are Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School and Sta. Ana National High School.
Read related story: DepEd says Davao region 97% K-12 ready, but …
Wong said as a stand alone SHS, they will have a specific school site for “25 classrooms” which will be handled by another principal.
“So, we are still looking into what are the steps to undertake. Because as far as I know, the Grades 7 to 10 are ready, but we are still identifying who will handle the subjects for Grades 11 and 12,” Wong said.
Wong said the site of their stand alone SHS is still unclear “but there are verbal proposals that they will use a vacant space along Bolton (Street).”
Wong also said they would be needing new teachers for the SHS.
“Dito pa lang sa regular kulang na nga (We lack teachers for the regular Grades),” Wong said adding that their teacher-student ratio is one teacher to 50 students.
The standard, he said, should “not be lesser than 45, not more than 56.”
“But the ideal class size would be 25,” he said.
Wong said they are expecting an influx of student who will transfer from private school to public school as tuition and other fees in private institutions increase.
The Commission on Higher Education recently allowed 313 schools to raise tuition and other fees for the coming school year, 33 of which are from Davao Region.
Wong said he thinks the implementation of the program is “untimely”. “But since we are in the [administration], we will adopt what is best for the children,” he said.
Ayque said they will be filing a petition for the issuance of Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) before the Supreme Court this week. (davaotoday.com)
