The Will to Learn

 

                                            (photo: sunstar.com.ph)

Padajon! This was overheard as someone encouraged a student to endure the challenges encountered with the new learning modality. You see, a lot of the learners are given modules and worksheets which require them to read. Yet, reading is a least favorite among the learners. People who are even using social media sites skip those posts with lengthy words. They skip such blogs and proceed to a more visual and entertaining content.

People consume a lot of entertainment these days. The media platforms provide such to the point that hilarious posts and vlogs are the viral ones compared to the more serious and academic posts.

Phil (2017) posits: I think some people just aren't "built" to enjoy the written word as much as readers do. How long does it take you to read an average book? Let's say 10 hours. In that time someone else could watch 5 or 6 movies or hockey games or a whole season of Game of Thrones or play Call of Duty or just go talk with friends for 10 hours and they would get more pleasure than if they read the same book as you did. There's nothing wrong with them; we're all just different.

This is consistent to the theory of Multiple Intelligences of Howard Gardner. In his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, he suggested that all people have different kinds of "intelligences." In order to capture the full range of abilities and talents that people possess, Gardner theorizes that people do not have just an intellectual capacity, but have many kinds of intelligence, including musical, interpersonal, spatial-visual, and linguistic intelligences.

Differing intelligences require varied preferences. Probably, most of the learners now are not inclined to have linguistic intelligence.

According to Heick (2019), students are increasingly seeking briefer, more visual, social, and dynamic media. Because not only are these media forms effortlessly entertaining, they rarely require meaningful investment of themselves. And it is this kind of connection that makes reading–or any other media consumption for that matter–feel alive and vibrant and whole. When readers are younger, there is a natural ‘give’ between the reader and the text, their imaginations still raw and green and alive. But as readers grow older, there is less give–and more need for texts to be contextualized differently.

(But), data from Learner Enrollment and Survey Form (LESF) showed that 8.8 million parents preferred modular, over the 3.9 million who voted for blended learning, which is a combination of different modalities: module, television and radio or radio with online. Parents who opted for online only numbered 3.8 million (Ciriaco, 2020).

Since modular learning is the preferred modality, it is now time to adapt. It is expected that difficulties and challenges will be encountered since this is a novel delivery of lessons. Intelligent WILL must be embraced by both the parents and the learners.

Modern psychologists, according to Graeme (2011) often use the word volition in preference to “Will”. Volition is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving, and is one of the primary human psychological functions (the others being affection [affect or feeling], motivation [goals and expectations] and cognition [thinking]).

The author continued that volitional processes can be applied consciously, and they can be automatized as habits over time. Most modern conceptions of volition address it as a process of action control that becomes automatized.

Within Gary Kielhofner’s “Model of Human Occupation” volition is one of the three sub-systems that act on human behavior. Within this model volition considers a person’s values, interests and beliefs about self-efficacy and personal capacity.

In this case, the cliché “If there’s a will, there’s a way” can be applied.

If modular learning is the most feasible way to continue learning, parents and learners must WILL themselves to gain a lot from it and allow the processes to hone their capacities NOT to curtail their mental development. Later, if this will become part of the norm, we will see the silver linings on the seemingly dark clouds.

Padajon!

 

 

Module Legends

                                      (image: read.cash)

Kaarang ini na modules! This is just one of the lines we overhear from TV and on the social media sites as the opening of classes took place on October 5 of this year.

Over 24 million elementary and high school students start their classes Monday after four months of delay due to the continuing threat of COVID-19 that has so far infected more than 322,000 people in the country. But unlike in previous years, campuses remain closed, following President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to suspend face-to-face classes until a vaccine against the new coronavirus becomes available. Instead, students will be learning from their homes through a mix of modular learning, online learning, and television and radio broadcasts (philstar.com).

Meanwhile, Members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) held a sunrise protest at Mendiola in Manila on Monday, the first day of classes for school year 2020-2021, according to Super Radyo dzBB reporter Isa Avendaño-Umali. ACT Philippines secretary general Raymond Basilio said basic needs for blended learning such as printed modules were still not yet in place a day before classes were to start (gmanetwork.com).

Despite the protests of ACT and some parents, DepEd successfully opened School Year 2020-2021. Claiming victory over the coronavirus pandemic that forced students and teachers to shift to distance learning, Department of Education Secretary Leonor Briones formally declared Monday the start of the new academic year.

“Today, we celebrate a great victory. We declare our victory over COVID-19, the destroyer of our lives, the destroyer of our economy and our way of life and society. But we will not allow COVID-19 to destroy our children's education and their future,” Briones said (Cabico, 2020).

As the day progressed, pictures of teachers on top of school buildings looking for internet signal were shown; one was featured swimming a river to allegedly deliver modules to the other side and many situations which could oftentimes degrade the teaching profession. Of course, we understand human interest stories but when these stories are induced for gimmickry that is already another story.

With the importance of managerial skills which school heads are expected to acquire, seeing teachers on top of the roof looking for internet signals is a question of management. Why is it that the school head was not able to link with the stakeholders for internet connectivity? Seeing a teacher swimming in his uniform with the unwrapped modules on his hands, a viewer can question the integrity of the story and the storyteller itself. The one who filmed it was riding a boat while the teacher swam?

Education is a serious matter. Educators must have a progressive mindset with the intentions to serve not to be served. The professional educator, in accepting his or her position of public trust, measures success not only by the progress of each student toward realization of his or her personal potential, but also as a citizen of the greater community of the republic.

On the other side, there are parents who are complaining about the modular delivery modality. The question to come up in this writers mind is: Can they propose a better modality which allows the learners to learn? If we stop educating the young as what others are proposing, how will we deal with learning gaps?

Generally speaking, learning gap refers to the relative performance of individual students—i.e., the disparity between what a student has actually learned and what he or she is expected to learn at a particular age or year level. One of the more consequential features of learning gaps is their tendency, if left unaddressed, to build up over time and become more severe, which can increase the chances that a student will struggle academically (fsdeu.com.au).

Why do learning gaps form? In general, learning gaps are compounding, which can be troublesome for students beginning to fall behind. But, it's not always easy to identify. As learning is based on building blocks, students are always challenged to expand on topics over time and apply them to new concepts as they progress. Learning that is achieved at one grade level serves as the foundation on which the understanding of more complex ideas and concepts is built.

According to tutordoctor.com, this learning structure grows throughout a student's academic career, with new skills developing from the skills the student has already mastered. Not every student learns at the same pace, though – which is why what starts out as a small learning gap can eventually become a more serious problem.

Also, the modular delivery modality will allow the learners to value reading. Since they do not have anything to do but peruse the materials. This will eventually turn their minds to be critical-thinkers. Allowing the mind to dwell into an analytical state through reading hones mental capacities and skills.

Reading improves vocabulary, organizational skills, and the ability to read, comprehend, and analyze text. ... Moreover, literature can help students develop the critical-thinking skills many employers think are lacking in today's college graduates before they even get to college (Maxcer, 2015).

Whatever our perceptions are, we still have this collective belief that education is very important whatever delivery it may be given.