Saint Louis College City of San Fernando (La Union) SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDIES Master of Arts in Education Educ 226 – Current Issues and Problems of Education Second Term, School Year 2021-2022 Names: Siegfred O. Poyaoan Professor: Dr. Danilo D. Romero Reading 1.1: Analysis and Reflection on Education in the New Normal One Thing Is Certain: Learning Goes On! It’s been a couple of years since the COVID-19 emerged in the world and there’s no guarantee of total safety and complete solution to the mutating problems of the nation. We have been forced to adjust and adapt to the unprecedented event that no one has ever expected to happen. Moreover, the pandemic has heightened the uncertainty around the globe, it has continued to pose challenges in all aspects affecting the condition of our country. What can we do? That is to accept change and to embrace the new “normal” kind of life, a new understanding of one’s existence, and new perspectives and realizations of basic human actions for us to change our paradigms. As a teacher who continues to bring hope and empower the young generation, I have witnessed how the kind of learning and education we have before shifted into the one enhanced mainly by digitization, the “new normal.” The issues on education in the Philippines have worsened. If before, we plan on how we enhance the teaching-learning process, now, we struggle on how to make learning possible among learners. Given that the Philippine education system has already its unresolved issues, the pandemic added to the burdens that hinder the progress that our nation is striving for. Even so, our spirit remains indomitable that is why when the crisis struck unexpectedly, education experts and the government flexibly played their roles on how we’ll deal with the conundrums of the crisis. Now, to have a clearer and bigger picture of the condition we currently face in our education system, it is logical to present the facts of our experiences and conditions. When talking about new normal, it can give us lots of perceptions but definitely, it is context-specific. It is new normal from the perspective of the individual – “how am I going to learn or how am I going to educate my students?” but at the same time, a new normal in terms of “how do I make all learners access what they are entitled to and deserved to have which is quality education?” How are these possible? These things have to be put in question I believe. Eventually, our government had successfully made an amazing job when it did not permit an ‘academic freeze’ for all public and private schools for it had foreseen the regrettable effects it may have. Now that we carried on with the classes in schools, necessary procedures should be done. All plans should be anchored to the questions: Is the school year going to be the same? Are the curriculum goals going to change? Is the learning delivery and instruction process going to be modified? How are we going to assess learning to measure the efficiency of schools? Well, when we address these significant issues, adequate resources should be taken into account because the feasibility of this present learning condition can be also be measured through preparedness not only with the plans but also with the tools needed. Teaching has always been my dream when I was young and when I finally become one, I thought I already realized my purpose, which is to educate, inspire, and build more dreams but eventually, I learned that once you have committed your heart to this profession, your influence truly never stops but you also have to take risks to make learning possible and Saint Louis College City of San Fernando (La Union) SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDIES Master of Arts in Education Educ 226 – Current Issues and Problems of Education Second Term, School Year 2021-2022 to deliver the best education that our children hope for. I taught for a couple of years in LORMA Basic Education Schools and it’s in the first half of my teaching career, in March when COVID-19 started to slowly knock down opportunities for the children, teachers, and other people. I have had the premonition that everything will start from temporary no classes up to no physical classroom setup, no face-to-face classes. It was a melancholic and unprecedented event, no one has control over it but one must adhere to the plans and decisions of the higher authorities. When there are no classes, we had a meeting on how we are going to mend the challenges we’ll encounter throughout the execution of plans on academic continuity. First, we decided on the best Learning Management Systems that we can utilize so our students can still learn at their own pace through attachments of learning resources and assessment tools – we used Edmodo and Schoology. But all these took us some time until we get to navigate all the features of the mentioned platforms. By the time the students were given a short break, we teachers continued to upgrade our skills by joining webinars and accomplishing online workshops (ABIVA and RexBookstore). But now, we have many online platforms that can easily be manipulated and have features that are a more secure way of keeping data. We have Google which almost has everything we needed in an ideal online class setup. Second, quarterly exams were not administered because of the scenario that took place in the education. We utilized the textbooks of the students then we monitored submissions on messenger and the LMSs mentioned above. The release of the report card was still made possible only that the grades of the students for the last quarter were computed by getting a percentage of their grades in the first three quarters. Third, to respond to the issues of education, we adapted to online education and modular learning as alternative learning. We ended the school year (2019-2020) with uncertainties in mind and melancholic feelings for the learners because cannot ascertain if they learned or are still even interested to study. The school, where they should be learning meaningfully has changed maybe their established view about the roles of the school and the teachers. Eventually, we might have had shortcomings at the beginning ever since the pandemic began but we came prepared in the next school year. We underwent pieces of training and workshops where we learned to navigate different learning tools and platforms. We decided to use ZOOM for our virtual class meetings and we took into advantage the varied uses of Google. We were able to set up our virtual classroom through Google Classroom and the Google application tools like docs, forms, sheets, jam board, etc have been utilized to provide flexibility, efficiency, and effectiveness of learning. We also adhered to modular learning to consider the students who didn’t have the means and resources for the online modality of learning. Many learning options arose but LORMA decided to offer FLEXOn Learning, more of a blended learning modality, where students can learn synchronously or asynchronously to make sure that no child is left behind. As the new school year started in a new normal context, students were guided on the use of the different learning tools we have. We know for sure that even we, teachers, started on the basic processes, the very true too scenario to this was when we began to learn how to turn on our microphone and camera during meetings, how to join meetings via codes and links, etc. The school year ended successfully with a feeling of joy and assurance that quality education never fails to serve the learners. Lastly, an educator aims to advance ones’ knowledge, skills, pedagogies, techniques, and the like to be responsive and adaptable Saint Louis College City of San Fernando (La Union) SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDIES Master of Arts in Education Educ 226 – Current Issues and Problems of Education Second Term, School Year 2021-2022 to the changing condition of our education system and the world must continue. We need to embark on a new perspective in the new normal. We should pursue higher learning, we need to practice a habit of participating in webinars with education-related topics, and engage in intellectual conversations chiefly when the curriculum is involved. We build a stronger homeschool partnership and external partnerships so one can support one another and apparently, we can provide better education to our future builders, the children, and the youth. The “new normal” is context-specific. We decide on how we respond to both opportunities and challenges of any crises that may emerge. We can never bring back the old times but what we can do as parents, teachers, administrators, and education experts is to move forward with clear knowledge, upgraded skills, and FLEXIBLE behaviors as we gear toward any dilemmas in the system. We must leave behind the old practices that may hinder the attainment of curriculum goals. Lessen the need for testing on grades so we can arrive to honor rolls and rankings. There are already enough anxieties that we experience and what we should do is to focus on education, we make it relevant to the lives of students not on being particular with the assessment tools. Second, lessen the control. Allow the students to discover and this is much applicable in an online setup because we can challenge students to do independent but critical learning through own paced web questing or participatory classrooms with other students in different countries who study in the same platform. We do not tell children what to do or where to go most of the time in our present condition. Let us allow learners to become masters of their learning, they are stewards of their learning. Now, if we carry on with all the innovative processes and procedures, we can mold lifelong learners who know their direction. New normal is not a problem nor a threat but more of a call for normalizing sustainable innovation and upgrading the knowledge and skills of educators in the education system. We may not be 100% prepared but through our brilliance, resilience, and unity, no matter what, learning goes on.
