02, Less Is More – SCUs Or Not, Students Will Learn More If They Were Taught Less!

This is a teacher speaking – one with an open mind and open notes of knowledge gathered from googling. I’m saying after observing education via secondhand news, from Argentina to England to the Philippines, in schools or in homes, in private schools or SCUs: Students are taughtfacts – which is unmindful teaching!

Facebook sharing: In the Philippines, Mila Concepcion (not her real name) is saying, “I have declined to teach in 3 universities where I (taught) before the pandemic, because I am not sure I will be as effective as in the traditional face-to-face-interaction in class.” Ms Concepcion typifies teachers who think teaching is imparting knowledge 100%. Ms Concepcion, hindi ka nag-iisa. You are not alone; there are millions and millions of you.

Here’s news for everyone! “Educators Around World Seek To Take Axe To Exam-Based Learning[1],” says Bethan Staton (23 January 2021, Financial Times). Her lead sentence is:

“Covid era prompts push to ditch one-size-fits-all approach in favor of skills and independent thinking.”

Goodbye standardized exams! Ms Bethan says, Bill Lucas, Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at UK’s Winchester University, “believes traditional assessments unfairly (standardize) children of different abilities, fail to capture essential skills and put young people off through (their) rote-learning, one-size-fits-all approach.”

The teacher gives the exact same exam to students in a class, and the next class, and the next. Historically, the school has been a factory of learners since classes began! (That may be Roman Catholic in origin, as during “the Early Middle Ages, the monasteries of the Roman Catholic Church were the centers of education and literacy[2].”)

“Survey after survey says creativity, critical-thinking and communications are what we need. Exams don’t assess those things,” Mr Lucas said.

I will now call those The 3 Cs of Teaching. Whatever you are thinking, from Agriculture to Virology, you have to be intelligent and/or inventive. Creative, Agriculture – To fight pests naturally, plant beautiful flowers that attract those pesky insects instead of feasting on your crop! Critical, Law: There are how many ways of looking at this case? Communicative, Math – Ms Bethan says, in Newfoundland, “one (math) assessment, for example, involved younger children putting knowledge into practice with a recipe.” Everyone enjoyed, everyone learned!

Here’s more. Ms Bethan says:

The project-based curriculum of Animas High School in Colorado offers another alternative. Instead of end-of-year tests, students publish “digital portfolio” websites that showcase their work, goals and interests. Older pupils choose a topic and explore it through a 15-20 page research project, a talk and an initiative in the local community.

There is no end to enjoyable learning if there is freedom in both teaching and learning!

Ms Bethan says:

In the US, some schools and districts have adopted “graduate profiles” setting out competencies or skills such as compassion, determination or creativity. Shelby County, in Kentucky, expects students to be responsible collaborators, life-long learners and critical thinkers, which are necessary requirements in a “knowledge-based economy that emphasizes ideas and innovations.”

All educators must be re-educated!@517

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[1]https://www.ft.com/content/9d64e479-182c-4dbd-96fe-0c26272a5875?fbclid=IwAR3Q7AhrciTYLL558piE9p2NeK0GBerkhMXaPFWFvKWUzjTwVpsK_cT7igk

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education

Advancing Sustainable, Appropriate, Knowledge-Aligned, Pinoy Agriculture

Here’s re-inventing the Tagalog expression “Asa aka pa!” from the negative, “Don’t bother, don’t hope!” to the positive, “Hope for more!” As acronym, ASA KA PA!: “Advancing Sustainable, Appropriate, Knowledge-Aligned, Pinoy Agriculture!”

While this blog is not to disparage other religious beliefs, I must confess from the start that I am a Roman Catholic. I just created this blog today, ASA KA PA! and I just found out that on this date, the 24^th of February, St Francis “received his vocation” in Portiuncula, Italy – in other words, it dawned on him that his life’s role was as a preacher. (image of St Francis[2] from On This Day) And yes, I was born on another important St Francis date: September 17, which today is celebrated by Catholics as “The Feast of the Stigmata of St Francis of Assisi.” Stigmata: St Francis was the first person recorded “who bore the marks of the crucified Christ (on) his hands, his feet, and (on) his side[1]” (Sacred Heart Catholic Church). 

As a digital preacher for the development of PH Agriculture, the name of my new blog, “ASA KA PA!” has 3 meanings: (1) “More hope for you!” (2) “Hope for more!” and:

Advancing Sustainable, Appropriate,
Knowledge-Aligned,
Pinoy Agriculture!

That is because I am an Agriculturist, a graduate of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, a full-pledged University in itself in the UP System. I graduated in 1965, passed the very first Teacher’s Exam the year before, Professional Level. I have been engaged in what I myself invented: Communication for Development, ComDev, since 1975, when I started working for the Forest Research Institute (FORI), based at UP Los Baños. My FORI years, 1975 to 1981, are descriptive of my ComDev desires for my country – I founded and became the Editor In Chief of 3 FORI publications: the monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly color magazine Habitat. Those 3 publications made FORI well known in the Philippines and abroad.

At FORI, I was only beginning to show what I could do as a communicator for development. In those years, the Typewriter was King – except that I did experience the use of the IBM Selectric typewriter with its interchangeable keys: nice touch! I have always typed my own articles. I also learned photography by asking questions with the FORI photographer, who was under me.

On Innocents Day, 28 December 1985, I saw the need for me to learn word and image processing. I never looked back. I learned more digital skills over the years from 1997 (I’m guessing) when we had the Internet installed at home.

Today, I blog my own, and have something like 41 GB of collected photographs in my hard disk, 99% of them shot with my own hands. My latest camera is a Lumix FZ100 digital zoom, with AI capabilities: Just point and shoot! (See image above.)

Now then, I am re-dedicating my life to the development of Philippine agriculture via communication for development with a new slogan: “ASA KA PA!”@517

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[1]https://sacredheartfla.org/about-us/being-franciscan/fraciscan-feast-days/the-feast-of-the-stigmata-of-st-francis-of-assisi/

[2]https://www.onthisday.com/events/february/24

08, The More The Merrier – Leni Robredo Says We Millions Must Contribute. What? Love!

Servant Leader: Leni Robredo, is a 134-page volume published by San Anselmo Press, Manila, December 2020. I have my copy, thanks! I say neither author, Ed Garcia, nor Editor, Danton Remoto, foresaw it, but here is my review in 5 words:

Ah, a book of love!

Ed Garcia’s name is on the cover, signifying authorship; actually, he wrote many of the chapters, yet he composed the book including 13 other writers: Aida Robredo, Bam Aquino, Chit Roces-Santos, Dean Mel Sta Maria, Doods M Santos, Fr Albert I Alejo SJ, Gay Ace Domingo, Gemino H Abad, Hazel Lavitoria, Jim Pascual Agustin, Leni Robredo, Philip Dy, and Tricia Robredo.

Browsing, I find that the most telling – pun intended – is Chapter X, titled “Leni Speaks,” specifically pages 92-93, which contain her entire online address to the graduates of 2020 delivered via Radyo Katipunan 87.9 FM, 08 May 2020. She speaks for herself best. It’s a total of 1055 words, author and title included. It’s Taglish. (For my free English translation, email frankahilario@gmail.com.)

The title of that message is Love expressed in 3 words and in Tagalog (Filipino):
Palabas At Pasulong.
(Outward & Forward, my translation)
It is a message of Love.
Not simply for graduates, but for all of us Filipinos, including farmers.

The 5^th paragraph of that speech spills it all out – and all in English:

This is where your real work as graduates begins. With imagining the future. You are asked to answer questions like: How do we make sure technology brings people closer, instead of driving us further apart because of the digital divide? If we can never go back to the old way of doing things, how do we make sure that the new world will be shaped more fairly, more equitably, in a way that bridges social gaps and dismantles the injustices of the past? How do we relate with one another in a post-Covid world?

I note specially: “How do we make sure that the new world will be shaped more fairly, more equitably, in a way that bridges social gaps and dismantles the injustices of the past?”

I understand Leni’s “Palabas At Pasulong” like this: We must get out of ourselves (Palabas) and into society and help it move forward (Pasulong). And that can happen only in an atmosphere of LOVE – inside and outside.

Outward and Forward. This, my dear graduates, is how I propose we approach the future. I do not know if you know or have read the works of novelist Arundhati Roy: We all are passing through the same portal going to the new world, that is what we are experiencing right now. He emphasizes and I quote: “We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

Fight! And your only weapon is? Love.@517

David Osborne’s “Brainstorming” Gives Way To Frank A Hilario’s “Brainscaping”

David Osborne invented brainstorming (Lila MacLellan, “The Man Who Gave Us Brainstorming Meetings Did His Best Thinking Alone[1],” 06 August 2019, Quartz At Work). Come to think of it, I do my best brainstorming thinking alone myself!

Not to rob the credit from Mr Osborne, I Frank A Hilario am right now announcing to the creative world that I have just reinvented Brainstorminginto Brainscaping, meaning you create your own intellectual landscapes when trying to come up with something else, or some things new, out of the chaos of materials you have gathered or thought of. Hence this new blog of mine:

Brainscapes (https://braincapes.blogspot.com).
(the landscape image[2] above is from Dryicons.com)

In thinking brainscape, think landscape. Landscape is: “all the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal” – Oxford Dictionary; “everything you can see when you look across an area of land, including hills, rivers, buildings, trees, and plants” – Collins Dictionary.

Now then, as a creative mind, your brainscape includes anything and everything you can think of in relation to what you are working on right now.

Brainstorming is very aptly named from 2 words: brain and storm. It’s always stormy weather. Whether you are alone brainstorming or with a group, the storm of thoughts come and they usually fight it out, or simply fade out, until a “bright idea” comes in and that’s it.

Brainscaping is calm; there is no storm at all. You first blankly look at the landscape of the idea or groups of ideas (look at the image again). We can say brainscaping is mapping out the territory with a shared feature, or related features.

Yes, I’m introducing brainscaping as a new way of thinking out new ideas, concepts, relations whatever. In brainstorming, you come out with a distinct if not superior idea or concept; in brainscaping, you come out first with distinct features that are tidied up with a single idea; or you come out first with a single idea that you can use to identify the features in the mental landscape that are connected by that singular idea.

The fact is I did not start with the concept of brainscaping first – I started with the idea of “The More The Merrier (TM²),” hence the title of the first essay in this blog: “01, The More The Merrier – 156 Lipa City Families Succeed With Community ‘Stables And Greens’ Gardens.” (Thus, this essay is not numbered TM² because it's not TM.) TM² is my newly discovered formula for writing a series of success stories of plurality of farmers, that is, successful groups – not successful individuals, which is the usual story in aggie magazines and newspapers. If you ask me, group success is social; singular success is anti-social.

Now, why am I writing this explanatory essay when I should have began this new series with it, with a title something like this: “01, The More The Merrier – Working With Ideas, How Plurality Leads To Singularity”? Yes, but that’s exactly how brainscaping works: It leads you forward, and backward: that's the part that's landscape.@517

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[1]https://qz.com/work/1675944/brainstormings-inventor-did-his-creative-thinking-alone/#:~:text=The%20thing%20is%2C%20brainstorming%20is,New%20York%20ad%20agency%20BBDO).

[2]https://dryicons.com/free-icons/landscape