BAGUIO CITY – “Learning cannot be locked down even for teachers,” is today’s credo for Aralin Panlipunan (AP) teachers within the community of Aralin Panlipunan Teach Share (APTS), an independent organization of AP teachers who launched a free 30-part webinar series for member teachers throughout the nation tackling on the significant and essential contexts of history from the pre-colonial Philippines to today’s current setting.
Froidelyn Docallas, an AP teacher of Bakakeng Elementary School and the founder of APTS said that they advocate a harmonious community of AP teachers. According to her, the 30-part webinar series hopes to boost the proficiency of their fellow AP teachers in crafting their respective modules towards the topics anchored on the Department of Education’s (DepEd) Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELC).
Said free 30-part webinar series by APTS, in itself, is an expression of the age-old Filipino values of ‘bayanihan’ where teachers, in their own volition acting as resource speakers, share their learnings, research works and expertise to fellow teachers in need.
In their webinar series which started last July, participants are greeted with smiles coming from AP teachers throughout the nation. All of the webinars lectures are interactive where lecturers interact with their fellow teachers candidly and exchanges of views is free-flowing and the wisdom being imparted are overflowing.
History subject, in the current basic educational structure, has long been opined, apart from one of the most boring subjects for students, as a subject boxed within the limits of memory recall. Typical mode of instruction tend to mold students to mere memorization of the dates and names. Significant socioeconomic and sociopolitical context of history are being left out.
Recognizing the situation, lecturers framed their lectures in a way ensures discourse between them and their fellow teachers. Clash of views ensued but were all responded to constructively. Lecturers imparted to their fellow teacher not only their usual topics inside their universities, but their also their personal works, thesis [whether masters or doctorate], office’s research works, advocacies, and life lessons on history. They likewise offered their fellow teachers their works as reference materials for their modules and guided them to other materials which the latter can use. One lecturer even offered his signed published book as a prize for the AP teachers who wrote the best reflection essay.
In between the webinar series, AP teachers interact with each other through their social media group where they exchange reference materials with their fellows. Most of the AP teachers, in keeping up with the limitations brought by the pandemic, have created their own educational YouTube channels with insights from the 30-part webinar incorporated therein.
These videos from their YouTube channels, aside from being easily accessible to students, are being shared between and among the AP teachers.
According to Docallas, APTS was just a small group of AP teachers that started last year. Now, as of this writing, APTS has 18,300 members from the different corners of the Philippines.
Teachers may be geographically separated by islands and the advent COVID–19 pandemic, but does not mean they cannot be connected with each other. Through the cyber realms of Zoom, conventional teachers are now at par with their fellow young-blood educators, adopting to the new normal mode of virtual learning and teaching.
AP teachers are not just educators. They will play the role of historians, economists and political scientists. These teachers hold the enormous weight of teaching social studies particularly on history. How the youth and students, the future administrators and leaders of the land, view their future will always depend on how they see and discern the lessons of history.
The 30-part webinar series was capped by a lecture from Prof. Genardo Lanuza of University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman on August 23, 2020 with the topic: “Teaching Strategies; How to develop critical thinking in Social Sciences: The emancipatory interest of social sciences”.
The rest of the lecturers, each with their respective topics, who imparted their wisdom were the following: Prof. Roderick Javar of UP Los Banos, Prof. Francis Gealogo of Ateneo De Manila University, Jeremy Gerald Clemente, McFarlane Sloan Ramos, Prof. Kevin Paul Martija of University of Makati, Prof. Arvin D. Campomanes of UP Manila, Prof. Jan Carlo Punongbayan of UP Diliman, Susan Macabuag of Bantayog ng mga Bayani, Prof. Roland Simbulan of UP Manila, Prof. Arthur Boquiren of UP Baguio, Former DSWD Secretary, Prof Judy Taguiwalo of UP Diliman, Erika Jean Ente of NAPC, Prof. Ferdinand Veridiano of Philippine Science High School – CAR, Jose Enrique Africa of IBON Foundation, and Prof. Bernadette Neri of UP Diliman.
By Rocky Ngalob
