Let me greet everyone Merry Christmas!

Leslie Kaplan and William Owings wrote in American Education (©2011) that a country’s wellbeing depend on the education of all students for full participation in a democracy and in its economy. Education is serious business and requires undivided attention and dedication of the Secretary of the Department of Education and her team to expedite corrective interventions that rectify the gross deficiencies of the public-school system that continues to produce a nation of fifth graders. And these deficiencies are not limited to the mundane issues of higher teacher pay and building more classrooms that simple-minded people believe are the only problems in education.

John Goodlad talks about four moral imperatives for schools and teachers:

1. to prepare students to live in a democracy
2. to provide students with essential knowledge and skills 3. to develop effective relations with students
3. to practice good stewardship.

First, a public school is the only national institution specifically assigned to prepare students to live responsibly in a democratic republic. Public schools, as agents of social well-being, is where children develop the information, skills, and habits of mind that makes them informed citizens who can effectively participate in our representative government and can constructively fulfill their obligation as voters, law-abiders, and taxpayers. Students acquire knowledge and reasoning skills that allow them to become self-supporting and productive contributors to our society. The massive spread of fake news, smart shaming and anti-intellectualism, the propagation of opportunity hoarding political dynasties, ironic passion for personal hygiene but utter disregard of the environment, and budol scams are awful consequences of Dep Ed’s failure to meet its lofty mission.

Secondly, schools help students learn about the earth as a series of physical and biological systems and develop communication skills through verbal and numerical fluency. They help students learn the historical, political, social and economic and cultural realities in which they live in. Schools provide students with instructions on how to gather, assess, and judge information and to express informed opinions. They also ensure that no belief, attitude, or practice keeps student from getting the necessary knowledge. The K-12 curriculum added two years to the 10-year basic education cycle to allow decongestion and to abide with the MTBMLE concept language policy. Sadly, Dep Ed botched the implementation of RA 10533 and RA 11106 as confirmed by the recent PISA 2022 results.

Thirdly, schools build effective teacher-student connections. Although teaching is a professional activity, it is also an acutely personal one. Teaching entails much more than just the mechanics of delivering content but to ensure a welcoming and nurturing environment for learning. If students feel frightened, humiliated or discounted by their teacher, they won’t learn. While important interpersonal and professional boundaries exist, good teachers combine teacher’s generalizable principles and subject -specific instruction with a genuine sensitivity to their student’s uniqueness and humanness as learners. PISA 2018 and 2022 country reports tell us that school leaders were unsuccessful in preventing bullying in school which is a major factor affecting academic performance of students.

Lastly, schools and teachers must practice good stewardship that go beyond the classroom. As good stewards, teachers have an ethical obligation to protect the reputation of the teaching profession as a whole and ensure that their school is committed to student’s advancement and to society ‘s wellbeing. Teachers must be constructive and helpful colleagues who share the mutual goal of making the school an increasingly effective and satisfying place for everyone to learn and work. Stewardship also means keeping the community informed about the school’s accomplishments and activities and enlisting local support to make school even better. It means practicing responsible citizenship, thinking critically, and acting deliberately in a pluralistic world and educating students to do the same. The initiative, creativity and innovation of young teachers to make use of the child’s first language in school pursuant to RA 10533 and RA 11106 are tragically curtailed by school leaders and Dep Ed hierarchy obsessed with the English language that only preserve the advantage of the rich.

Public opinion surveys by mercenary polling firms present an erroneous picture of the state of education of our nation, but these four moral imperatives of schools serve as an accurate yardstick to assess objectively the failings of previous and the current leadership of the Dep Ed. If the Secretary of Education genuinely loves this nation of fifth graders, then she should step aside to allow someone else who discerns how to accomplish, with dispatch, these moral imperatives. That would be a wonderful Christmas present to the Filipino people.