Is Today’s Curriculum Too Hard On Our Kids?

I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it twice. I’ve heard it from someone else and I’ve heard it from myself. Pre-school and elementary students’ lessons nowadays are too advanced.

If we based it on the lessons we had, less than 30 years ago… of course today’s curriculum is far too advanced. I didn’t solve word problems in pre-school math and I learned to write cursive only by the end of my first grade. Last week, I was teaching my first grade daughter about Roman Numerals. 1-3 were easy but 14, 40, 19 and 90, and others, were way too confusing for her. My problem is, I can’t seem to explain Arabic-Roman numeral conversion without having to explain the process of adding and subtracting double digits. Then I remembered, they were not yet taught how to add and subtract double Arabic digits yet. So why do teachers expect them to write 298 in Roman Numeral? On top of Math, she had to memorize 2 English poems and 1 tula for a graded recitation. Talk about child stress!

My daughter is doing well in her other subjects, she actually topped her pre-school class last graduation. But I still think that her grade school lessons are too fast-paced, if not difficult. Some people, like the owner of the learning center where she studies thinks so too but then she said, “It’s already the standard. If we don’t follow it, we’ll get left behind.” Quite true.

According to reports, the Philippines is left behind, perhaps, too far behind, by its Asian neighbors in Math and Science. I heard someone justify the advanced lessons as a response to this situation. But I think there should more to it than just teaching difficult math problems or English lessons. Methodologies should also be developed so that no matter how advanced, like asking grade 1 students to solve algebra-like problems, understanding it won’t be too hard on the kid.

Maybe I’m just venting out my math-o-phobia. Or maybe I’m just not aware that there are drills or activities to make studying Math a piece of cake. Or maybe it’s me who’s pressured because I want to her keep her academic standing. Maybe I’m pressured because I’m beginning to think she now needs a tutor because I haven’t help her much in studying due to various reasons.

Wherever this pressure is coming from, I hope I get over it. For crying out loud, she’s only in grade 1!

Blogged Thoughts During My Last Pregnancy

This is my very first blog about my mommyhood. It was written in my friendster blogs on October 10, 2006. Seven days before I gave birth to my bunso, Enzo.

Am on my 36th week of pregnancy and judging by my fundal height, I should be giving birth anytime now. Been walking in the beach and in the malls but I don’t feel about to give birth yet. I hope I won’t give birth on a weekday because everyone’s in the office and the hubby has to attend to an out of town meeting. I am an independent woman, but still, nothing beats having everyone important around you in a life and death situation.

Blogging and Mommyhood, Blogging ‘Bout Mommyhood

Like the mamie that I am, I have given birth and will start nurturing a second blog. I don’t know if my blogs will match the number of my children (there are 3 of them) but for now I am quite satisfied with having two.

I will devote this blog to my thoughts, experiences and stories about motherhood, all its joys, pains and struggles. It will be about my own, my mom’s, my friend’s. It will also be about the mothers whom I’ve met and who may never have the chance to write their triumphs and sorrows.

I didn’t think hard about this blog’s title. It sort of popped out in my laptop screen as I type in the keyboard. So very like my childbirth experience… intense labor pain, a gush of water and a baby popping out.

Join me in my expressions of Filipina motherhood and let that motherhood appeal start oozing…

Musings of a Frat Mom

“S#@!”, I exclaimed when I first read in the papers that another graduating student was dead because of alleged hazing rites in UP. I would find out later that he was not only graduating in October. He was also a student leader and a hope for a better future for his family who lives in Tiaong, Quezon. I watched the news yesterday while I feed my 10-month old son. I saw Mrs. Mendez grieve the loss of her boy, Cris, the boy whom she must have fed in the same way that I now feed my own: sitting on her lap, opening his mouth to every spoonful of food that is offered to him. So innocent, so trusting. Mrs. Mendez was so bereaved that she fainted as her son’s casket was entombed. The scene reminded me of jokes about funerals but this time, I didn’t laugh. I couldn’t laugh. The mother’s unbearable pain reached me through the TV. My heart burned as I felt her anguish, her sorrow.
———————-
I too have gone through a physical initiation once, a long time ago. Today, I am torn between explaining the reasons for such ritual and condemning outright its cruelty. Fraternity/ Sorority members know why it has to be done. We were indoctrinated to believe that this is the way. In my youth, I would defend it against anyone who dares question. I would even arrogantly say, “It’s because you’ve never been there, that’s why you can’t and will never understand.” Now, I look back and reflect. In my mind and my heart, I no longer want it to be that way.
———————
Perhaps it’s the experience of motherhood. That unique experience of nurturing life instead of hurting it. It makes me review the relevance of physical initiations. Perhaps it’s because of one incident two years ago that gave me a peek of what might happen if my own children decide to join fraternities and sororities.
———————
My daughter was in kindergarten (in her former school) then. I woke up one morning and saw a bruise in her thigh. She was 4 years old then and I asked her what happened. She answered, “Wala po.” But she tried to keep the bruise from me. I silently urged her to tell me saying I won’t get mad at her. She eventually said, “My teacher pinched me.” I was shocked! I was mad! I was hurt! Hurt for my child. Hurt for myself. I went to the assistant principal to complain. She accommodated me but tried to ask my daughter if the bruise (which she saw) was there because of her own doing.

“Bakit ka may pasa anak? Nabangga ka ba sa table?”

The gall! But my daughter did not falter. She looked straight into the assistant principal’s eyes and shook her head.

“Kinurot po ako.”

“Nino?”

“Ni teacher ___.”

A day after, I wrote a two-page letter to officially lodge my complain to the school. When the teacher heard about this, she called for a PTA meeting to complain against the complainant. She didn’t say if she knows it was me. Later incidences would prove she suspected me as the whistleblower. Nothing dramatic came out of that meeting because I opted to remain silent. Why? Because most of those who were present already declared that the complainant should have talk to the teacher first before going to the assistant principal. I felt really bad but at least, the PTA President, asked us to continue checking on our children to look for bruises or cuts. I presume he believes that teachers pinching students do happen.

It dawned upon me afterwards that I almost raised hell when I saw my daughter’s bruised leg. If a pinch can stir such emotions in me, what will my reaction be when my child comes home beaten black and purple? What will my reactions be when they come home lifeless? I shuddered at the thought. Watching Mrs. Mendez faint, I guess I will be like her, a thousand times over.
———————-
I hope that Cris Mendez’s death makes a difference in the culture of violence that has tainted UP. I hope it makes a difference in all other universities and places where fraternities and sororities are extolled but perverted. I hope it wakes up these brotherhoods and sisterhoods to rethink and stop the violence. At one point, I thought, why should this have to happen at this time when UP is celebrating it’s Centennial? Then again, I thought it’s coincidental, perhaps cosmic that it did happen today. A reminder that alongside UP’s legacy of scholars and free thought lie a string of senseless violence. A fact that should not be ignored. A cancer that should be cured.