Educating for skills

Having had a chance to teach in four education levels: elementary, secondary, college, and graduate school, I have come to appreciate the critical importance of a skills focus, over and above knowledge orientation, which, in my day, seemed to be the end-all and be-all of schooling. Orientation and values, it seems to me, are largely a responsibility of the home, although the school can play an important role, particularly for students whose homes are dysfunctional or deficient in these matters. Responsible media including the Internet can also make a significant contribution.

I have no firm position as yet on the plan to extend basic education to 12 years from the present 10 years, as I need to learn more about it. However, I am quite enthusiastic about the decision to allow use of the local language (e.g., Cebuano, Waray, Ilokano, Ilonggo, Tagalog, Pampanggo, Pangasinan, Maguindanao, which the linguists consider languages and not dialects) in the earlier years. And to gradually phase in English as the second language that it truly is. This is because I firmly believe, based on experience, that when the student or pupil is relating with a teacher who is authentic, the interaction between student and teacher and among students is more constructive and productive. This, it seems to me, also enables the student to have a feeling of trust in the teacher, and enables a sense of confidence that it is all right to be oneself. In such a congenial atmosphere, learning should be facilitated. English can be learned quite skillfully, and at the same time be consciously and mutually accepted as a second language. On the average, we Filipinos have demonstrated skills in as many as three or more languages (the language at home, plus Tagalog or Pilipino, and English). Our OFWs readily pick up other languages in their place of work.

The traditional knowledge-oriented approach to education was very teacher-centered. The extreme knowledge orientation also made it easier to compute grades, since the ability to play back matters found in textbooks, or heard in lectures was easier to monitor, and to measure. This demanded more of rote memory, and less of critical analysis. For this reason, very often, we find college graduates who are unable to generate and evaluate alternatives, make decisions or take initiatives. We have been producing a nation of order takers; especially when the system, as it is in multinational firms, has a Western linguistic and cultural framework. There is a dichotomy between the indigenous culture of one’s upbringing, and the Westernized culture of the workplace. This often results in cognitive dissonance or what we can euphemistically refer to as “miscommunication.” The dissonance is often resolved in favor of the easier to handle; and this can often be dysfunctional, or at least inefficient. There are many who are able to operate effectively enough in various cultures; but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Because of the widespread availability of the Internet, access to all kinds of knowledge has been eased. And because developments in technology have been accelerated, obsolescence of information takes place sooner than we can expect. Textbooks are generally written long after much of the information contained therein becomes passé.

Approaches to education must be learner-centered. The methodologies should not be seen as teaching, but rather learning. Therefore, what we need to do as educators is to enable our students to obtain knowledge by helping them acquire research and reading skills, and along with these, critical thinking and discriminating skills (how to sift the chaff from the grains), and basics like how to count and how to listen, and how to express themselves orally, in writing, visually, in color, in musical sounds, and such other ways as technology now allows.

There are encouraging trends. Management schools are increasingly case-method oriented. Even medical schools are moving toward problem-solution focus. These methods challenge the students to access their own knowledge sources and references and to apply their analytical skills so that these become almost second nature to them. And we know that when students are challenged, they are able to discover what they can do, and thus gain more and more confidence. Confidence increases effectiveness in learning, relating, and doing.

It is therefore important to prepare students for these challenges during their younger, basic education years. First, they learn to relate, to listen and express themselves to one another, to read and write, to count and compute, to access information on their own, to assess the relevance and value of the information that they acquire, and to use their skills to make decisions on the basis of their knowledge.

This way, perhaps, we will produce high school graduates who are ready for first-rate technological training, or for high-caliber college education. Japan, Korea, Germany, China — these technologically advanced and progressing nations have all learned basically in their own languages. They are learning English as a second language in order to communicate, trade, and compete in the community of nations. Those who want to work in call centers can have advanced training in order to hone their skills in the second language. This is as it should be for our people. National development is first of all, people development. After all, our greatest resource is our people.

It will not be easy for most of the teachers to make the transition to a skills focus, from their largely knowledge-oriented focus. This requires new skills on the part of the teachers. Instead of knowledgeable authority figures, they must become skillful facilitators in the new learning methodologies. It will call for radical changes. I wonder if the educational system is preparing adequately for these revolutionary changes. It will be have to be a brave new world.

For this reason, unless there is a radical departure from the old system of knowledge focus, then two more years of basic education could mean just more of the same, and might not make a difference. –Teresa S. Abesamis, Businessworld