On March 18 and 19, 2023 a capacity building centered on Literacy and Critical Thinking for Children was facilitated for 45 teachers from the Department of Education Tacloban and Leyte Division at His Capsule Hostel, Tacloban City.
‘’Indeed, this is an amazing experience. We get to enjoy another learning session outside our schools. This enables us to reflect and think about what we have been doing with the everyday challenges that we go through - our deadlines, paperwork, and of course our learners. This is our opportunity to learn, unlearn and re-learn,'' said Ms. Jennnith V. Sabela-Gabisay, Senior Education Program Specialist for Social Mobilization and Networking of DepEd Tacloban Division.
The capacity building was part of FundLife Leadership Academy; Reach 2 Teach (FLA; R2T) project–a response to strengthen the capacity of teachers and youth mentors to provide quality learning and support to learners who struggle with the current educational set-up and demand.
During the training, various challenges which affect the provision of quality were discussed by teachers and accessible learning for children. They've identified heavy workloads, unrealistic deadlines, increasing paperwork, and spending their own money to transform their classrooms into conducive spaces for learning.
Mrs. Charina Amparo Garrido, Founder of Learning Pathways, a small home-school cooperative in Tacloban, and the activity speaker discussed Philosophy for Children (P4C), a movement that aims to teach reasoning and critical thinking skills to children. The teachers then responded with their thoughts on the movement and shared their best practices in classroom management and teaching.
‘’One key action that teachers can do is the profiling of learners. This method, although it takes time and effort, will help because the data that we will gather from this process will help us understand the situation of our learners. We would be able to design and plan our lessons better,'’ said Mr. Almaden from Tanauan School of Craftsmanship and Home Industries.
Some shared that they give extra time to gather non-readers and facilitate reading sessions with them. Others allocate time to visit the houses of those learners who do not perform well in class while there are also teachers who have initiated programs in their school to support learners, especially those whose families could not afford to provide enough food and transportation allowance.
''As teachers, there are a lot of problems and challenges that we've encountered and we have yet to encounter but we pledged. We made a promise that we will teach everyone who wants to learn.'' said Mr. Modesto, one of the teacher participants.
The two-day activity did not only provide an opportunity for teachers to self-reflect about how they've been supporting children to learn but also sparked learnings and strategies for them to try to use in their own classes.