First, I would like to greet everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! I am very honored to be invited by @pusen to join this community, and I am very much thrilled to share what the private schools in the Philippines have been doing to make sure that education system will continuously help support the dreams and aspirations of our students.
I'd like to mention that our school, Learning Links Academy, had been in the distance learning environment, with Zoom as our class discussion platform and Google Classroom as our material and resource storage, since 2018. Definitely, it became apparent that our school's forward thinking and planning may have been the direction that prepared us for what we consider a total pandemic, in all areas of society. In January of 2020, before the massive Covid-19 outbreak hit the Philippines, we were faced with a major calamity: the eruption of the Taal Volcano. Thousands of families were displaced, homes and livelihood were destroyed, and beyond the Volcano's bounds, thousands more were affected due to the severe clouds of ash that poured from the heavens. This also had an impact on education, as schools were converted into evacuation centers and relief operation centers. This was the first time that our school managed to implement our Zoom/Google Classroom platform to our entire school for 2 weeks: a temporary adjustment that became our main solution as Covid-19 started to plague our country.
It was evident that we had the foundation, but with only a handful of teachers quite knowledgeable on our online platform, a desperate call to do a crash course on Zoom and Google Classroom was the plan of action; It was then met with challenges, mostly centered on traditional teachers not wanting to let go of the old ways. Parents of our students, on the other hand, embraced this new platform and was met with little resistance. With that in mind, our School Directress had to take action and prioritized the Online platform, which made my [traditional] colleagues disheartened and was forced to resign. It also opened our school to give working opportunities to teachers, veteran and fresh graduate alike, who are also willing to embrace the changes in the educational platform. From that point, our school successfully did its maiden Online platform learning during the academic calendar of 2020 to 2021.
2021, in a nutshell, is a solid proof that education, given the chance, will find its way to reach out and do its purpose. Last year, we were able to do things beyond our traditional methods: We had international guest speakers giving lectures; We were able to attend different symposiums and talks across the globe; We were able to create a suitable academic structure that maximized out platform, using the Project Based Learning (PBL) Curriculum; and we were able to do a 5-day virtual educational camp, called a hackathon, along with student and teacher participants from 4 other countries: South Africa, Israel, Vietnam and India.
I wanted to make this essay an easy read, so, I guess I have to end it here. I do am looking forward to the second half of the 2021-2022 academic year, as my students prepare for their individual PBL (Junior High School) and Entrepreneurial Business plan (Senior High School) defenses.
Again, happy 2022 to everyone, and until my next article! Cheers!
