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Monday, November 17, 2003
Come hike with me
By Jenara Regis Newman
SO JUDY Galindo Aboitiz occasionally asks students of the Cebu Learning Center (CLC) where she is administrator in charge of pre-school and after school activities. (The other administrators are Germaine Legaspi for curriculum and Susan Tiu for financial).
Sometimes, she would ask the kids to go sailing or kayaking, activities which are “a very nice alternative to going to malls or watching TV.”
Judy, born in the United States, grew up partly in South America, specifically Peru and Colombia, and came to Cebu 13 years ago when she married Montxu Aboitiz. A business administration graduate, she studied in St. Theresa’s College for her teaching units and is now taking graduate studies at the Cebu Normal University.
It was, she said, when she was looking for what she wanted in a school that she got involved with CLC. She had been with an art program, assisting an art teacher. When the teacher left, she told Judy to do it on her own. So when her children came to school in CLC, she offered to teach after-school art activity.
Then she became the arts and crafts teacher and now she is also in charge of after school activities.
She likes CLC because of its non-traditional approach to learning. “It’s a very open kind of system and yes, it is Decs accredited. All subjects are integrated. We teach logical and analytical skills and so the kids can handle problems wherever they are. We don’t stress memorization.”
The school, opened in 1999, is doing so well it has outgrown its present premises and so is moving to a bigger place next year.
Judy showed me around the school, which has a lot of students’ works on the walls. A display of Philippine history with the kids’ handiwork – miniature nipa huts, sculptured replicas of artifacts and such – was in a corner, and on a table were ceramic mosaics in various stages of completion.
At the kindergarten room, there’s a mini sari-sari store where children learn to transact, to count, and the kitchen is also right there because if the snack served is to be made, then it is made right there.
It is a multi-grade system where one class can have several grades together, but no class can have more than 15 students. Here the children are being developed to become “compassionate and creative young people who are able to think globally.” The leaflet on the school continues, “Our non-traditional curriculum places vocational, recreational and artistic activities at par with academic ones.”
It does seem to be a fun and different and good school. But why is an Aboitiz working here? Judy says it’s the kind of school she wants for her children. “I enjoy working because it’s ideal for me because I can be with my children (age 8 and 4). It is important to keep busy and do something worthwhile and working with children gives one a sense of accomplishment. To have touched their lives is a very special privilege. I think I learn as much from them as they from me.”
(November 17, 2003 issue)
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