How Intelligent Is Your Teacher? If As Smart As Mr Vladimir Queta, You Have A Problem!

Again: “How intelligent is your teacher?” I’m referring to the one trying to teach you something, whether s/he has a license to teach or not – I don’t know about Vladimer Queta, Chair of the Alliance Of Concerned Teachers (ACT), who above is quoted as saying in a lecture sponsored by ACT & Ateneo De Manila:

“The teaching of Mother Tongue as a subject is foundational in developing literacy skills as learners can learn to read and write the easiest with the language that they use and most understand” (Unnamed, “22nd Jaime V Ongpin Memorial Lecture Spotlights Challenges, Difficulties In Philippine Basic Education” (21 Nov 2023, Ateneo De Manila, ateneo.edu).

Immediately, we have a multiple of problems there:

“What if the teacher does not know the mother tongue?”
“What if there are several mother tongues among the learners?”
“What if the teacher did not learn how to teach in the mother tongue?”

Mr Queta is saying, “The teaching of Mother Tongue as a subject is foundational in developing literacy skills.”

I teacher am saying, “Such purpose in the teaching of the Mother Tongue is nowhere found in any educational theory in the world! Teaching is not that simple!

Where are the review/s or somment/s on Mr Queta’s lecture? That’s the lookout of The Editor In Chief of that website of Ateneo De Manila!

I say:

With those 54 words, Mr Queta is changing the very essence of education in the Philippines – “Teach the local language first!” As a teacher, I disagree. If Mr Quetua is right, then we should start educating our students at home, not at school!

Lengkon Sera says, “Unesco says (18 Feb 2022, Unesco, unesco.org):

“Unesco has been leading the way and advocating for multilingual education based on the mother tongue from the earliest years of schooling. Research shows that education in the mother tongue is a key factor for inclusion and quality learning, and it also improves learning outcomes and academic performance.”

Where are the research results of teaching the mother tongue as a factor for quality learning? Googling, I cannot find any!

As a teacher, I would instead recommend the teaching of Multiple Intelligences (MI), the educational philosophy of Harvard professor Howard Gardner. With MI, all the students would love to learn! (If you don’t know MI. you have much to learn especially if you are a teacher!)

MI says there are 10 in-born intelligences of every human being:

1. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
2. Creative Intelligence  (added by FAH)
3. Existential Intelligence
4. Interpersonal Intelligence
5. Intrapersonal Intelligence
6. Mathematical-Logical Intelligence
7. Musical Intelligence
8. Naturalist Intelligence
9. Spatial Intelligence
10. Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence.

It’s up for the teacher, whoever s/he is or wherever, to nurture the innate intelligence of a learner. Whatever Mr Queta says, the cultivation of cultural identity is not an objective of the school at whatever level, Grade School to Grad School. Let the schools instead cultivate the hidden talent(s) of each learner! Anytime, anyhow, somewhere, somehow.

Multiple Intelligences is for me, for us all!@517