By Marcus Swanepoel

Marcus and his wife, Amina Evangelista Swanepoel, are in the
early stages of founding a new reproductive health NGO in the rural
Philippines, Roots of Health. This is one in an occasional series of blogs
about their experiences.

“Who can tell me the answer….
Marcus?” I hear the voice of my second grade teacher calling on me to answer a
question to which I have no answer. The feeling of humiliation that I’d feel
still haunts me today. In class I would always sink into my seat when my
teacher uttered those dreaded words. At that point of my life, school was
stressful for me, and I didn’t like going. My negative experiences regarding
school however, pale in comparison to those of the children at Pulang Lupa [in
the Philippines].

Many of the kids are not lucky
enough to attend school because either their families cannot afford it or the
children are needed at home or in the fields to help eke out a living. Not that
school is expensive. In fact, public education is free. But the books, supplies
and uniforms that are needed to attend classes are not. Many students miss
semesters and years of school at a time due to their family’s lack of money.
This means that if they do return to school, they are often older than their
classmates, which makes their situations even more difficult and challenging.

Most of the mothers in Pulang Lupa
only have a grade two or grade three education and many of their husbands
completed even less schooling. However, despite the lack of formal education,
the residents of Pulang Lupa are very smart in many ways. It takes skill and
determination to survive on so little education and resources. On many
occasions I have wondered if I would be mentally and physically tough enough to
survive in Pulang Lupa if I lived there.

After the first few education
sessions we conducted with women in Pulang Lupa, we realized we needed
something for the kids to do. Not only were they a constant distraction to the
moms, but they were all around — we didn’t need to let them know we were
coming and sign them up — they were ready and waiting for something to do.
Just as we had with Nutritional Support Sessions, we sensed a meaningful
opportunity to engage the children.

With this in mind we hired our first
part-time teacher, Jane Espiritu to start entertaining and educating the
children. While Ami and Lyn-Lyn taught the mothers about pregnancies and
contraception, Jane taught the children healthy habits, songs and basic math.
As with the mothers, the children received a healthy snack and a drink after
the lessons. As time progressed, so did the number of Jane’s students. Soon,
the age gap between the kids and the sheer number of them forced us to
re-evaluate how we were running the child education sessions.

Due to the increase in students we
saw the need to hire another teacher, Evetha Fem Gaton. Evetha was already
working for us during every Nutritional Support Program session we held and
both children and adults were enthralled by her storytelling abilities. Even
with two teachers the age range was not ideal, so we’ve started hiring
different individuals to act as a third teacher to help Evetha and Jane out on
a day to day basis as they are available. We recently sat down and planned out
the structure of the sessions, which now look quite different with three adults
in the mix.

During the first part of the session
all the kids are together and sing songs and participate in large group
activities. The groups then split according to age. Jane takes the little ones,
Evetha takes the older kids, and when part timers are available, they take the
intermediate aged group. (When no one is available to help out, the large group
is split into two.) The teachers then focus on math, English, reading and life
skills with the students in their groups.

It will take time to fully develop
the attention span needed for academic thinking but for now the children are
enjoying the mixture of games, activities, stories, counting and writing.
Evetha is currently working on a curriculum that has specific activities,
content and goals for each age group. As the new school year approaches we hope
to boost the academic performances of those children enrolled in school and to
compensate for those unable to. Either way, the sessions are priceless to the
children of Pulang Lupa and you only have to see their excitement, enthusiasm,
attentive faces and inquiring eyes to realize this bittersweet fact.

Marcus Swanepoel is Media and
Programs Manager of Roots of Health. This essay is reposted from their blog at https://www.rootsofhealth.org/blog/2010/06/evolution-of-education.htm.