HOMEWORK has forever been changed by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). A reality every Filipino youth accepts from Grade 1 to undergraduate and even graduate levels, homework will shift from composing at least half of a student’s output to representing almost a 100 percent when the schoolyear opens next month.
And homework will involve more parents this year.
The continuing rise of new Covid-19 cases rules out face-to-face classes for now. For the safety of students, teachers and their families, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced on Sunday, July 5, 2020, that it will implement a Basic Education-Learning Continuity Plan (LCP) for school year (SY) 2020-2021.
To make education “inclusive” so that no learner is left out, DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones assured the public that all learners, including those with special needs, are considered in their preparation of Self-learning Modules (SLMs).
In answer to apprehensions and criticisms that the SLMs will require students to go online, the DepEd said that other “alternative learning delivery modalities,” such as modular, television-based, radio-based and blended instruction will be tapped to suit students’ different abilities and resources.
Briones and other DepEd officials should be aggressively using the trimedia and the digital media to educate and persuade parents and other guardians about the SLMs and how these will be used to learn at home by students, teachers and parents.
With schoolwork becoming primarily homework, parents and guardians are crucial to ensure that the pandemic does not derail a young person’s learning. However, not all parents are able, willing or free to guide and monitor their children’s shift to study-at-home mode.
Community quarantine has affected many families’ economic situations, with many families experiencing a greater pressure to find work or supplement income. Thus, a DepEd official’s suggestion for parents to hire tutors to assist their children is insensitive and unrealistic.
Tutors’ services may be afforded by the middle class. The thousands of pesos in fees required to engage a tutor or tutors, depending on the subjects needing enrichment or follow-up by a learning expert, is a luxury for many Filipino families struggling with the deprivations created by the pandemic and community lockdown.
Thus, the DepEd should consider in the preparation of the SLMs how to maximize the primary partnership between teachers and parents in pursuing the “new normal” to ensure that education is inclusive and leaves behind no learner.
The announcement that the SLMs are being printed this month for distribution across the nation raises the question if the DepEd materials are appropriate, given every region’s context. The medium used in the SLMs is crucial since language, particularly the mother tongues, is a sensitive aspect, either contributing to or hindering learning.
The specialized language of academese used by the DepEd also excludes many parents, even those having exceptional facility with English. The DepEd’s heavy reliance on jargon in explaining its plans must be simplified into terms and concerns that are relevant to families residing not just in cities but in the margins created by geography and economics: nearshore, uplands, forests and areas beyond the reach of the worldwide web.
Preparing students for learning at home demands that parents, guardians and other community stakeholders join the dialogue and engage with teachers, academic professionals and other experts. The academic jargon and distinctions between modular and blended learning makes learning seem impenetrable and disorienting when the essence, approaches and opportunities behind these concepts make homework relevant, creative and liberating for youths and their parents.
Unless the DepEd changes its talk about the LCP and SLMs to the public, neither students nor parents will look forward to homework.