LAST WEEK I wrote a series of page 1 feature stories on the 2010 Ramon Magsaysay (RM) awardees, the Filipino awardees among them. But space was never enough for more that need to be said about them. And so I write again about husband and wife Christopher Bernido and Ma. Victoria Carpio-Bernido who introduced an innovative way of teaching the sciences, physics particularly, in the remote town of Jagna in Bohol.
The RM Award Foundation honored the Bernidos for “their purposeful commitment to both science and nation, ensuring innovative, low-cost and effective basic education even under Philippine conditions of great scarcity and daunting poverty.”
Chris and Marivic, both with doctoral degrees in physics, left their teaching jobs at the University of the Philippines in 1999 to run a small school, the Central Visayan Institute Foundation (CVIF), in Bohol.
It was not easy in the beginning. Marivic quotes Saints Bernard of Clairvaux and John of the Cross to explain how she grappled with difficulties in the beginning and entered the “dark night of the soul.” But as the psalmist says, joy comes in the morning.
After 11 years of running CVIF, the Bernidos can now look back and say with authority that poverty and scarcity are not barriers to quality education. They say that schools usually point to three major problems, namely, lack of qualified teachers, lack of textbooks and lack of science lab equipment. The usual remedy? More scholarships and training workshops for teachers, buy more textbooks and buy more equipment. Plus grants and loans from domestic and foreign donors.
How I wish more teachers could get copies of the lecture the Bernidos delivered two days after the awards were given. The lecture is titled “Poverty and Scarcity are No Barriers to Quality Education.” Here are excerpts.
The Bernidos’ solution to the teacher problem: “Rethink the role of the teacher in the learning process, and institute a program that would not be strongly dependent on teacher qualification, ability and personality, but at the same time should foster the professional development of the teacher. This we implemented through the parallel classes scheme and activity-based features of the CVIF Dynamic Learning Program (DLP).
“From the CVIF DLP experience, we also derived the strategy for the ‘Learning Physics as One Nation’ (LPON) project. The project answers the question: Can high school students learn essential Physics topics effectively even if their classroom teacher has little or no Physics training? An assessment of the project after the pilot year of implementation indicates a positive response to this question.
“At present the LPON materials have been made available to over 200 private schools in all regions of the Philippines. These include a specially designed Physics Essentials Portfolio of 239 learning activities to be independently accomplished by students during one school year, and associated 18 DVD volumes of video lectures by national educators. The materials are designed such that a command team can monitor student progress, and address questions from the field through e-mail, mobile phone text messages, Skype and fast courier services. The LPON prototype bypasses the need for qualified teachers and yet effectively prepares the students for college-level physics.
Solution to the textbook problem: “For public schools, pick a select team of experts that could conceptualize and design concise Learning Activities to be accomplished by students in class. As in the CVIF DLP, only one copy per class is needed since the students will copy by hand the material from the board or from the screen.”
Solution to the science lab problem: “Being theoretical physicists, we believe that, at the high school level, there is no need for expensive lab equipment to be able to learn scientific processes and methods of analysis. For example, the simple pendulum could be used to demonstrate the scientific method of experimentation, analysis and inference-making. Our solution: Strategically select cheap and simple experimental set-ups that demonstrate fundamental principles of science.”
The Bernidos add that, interestingly, the National Research Council of the United States released in 2006 the comprehensive “America’s Lab Report” that questioned, among other things, the benefits derived from the usual science lab education that has been implemented since the turn of the 20th century.
Have their solutions worked? For their school, the CVIF, the Bernidos say that they have seen a marked increase in proficiency levels of their students, especially in Science, Math and Reading and Comprehension. This is seen from their performance in college admission tests and the national Career Assessment Examination.
“Continuing to raise the bar,” the Bernidos add, “we have started to benchmark with international Scholastic Aptitude Test score ranges. We have stepped into the lower bounds of SAT scores in Mathematics for admission in good American universities. However, improvement is still needed in other areas.”
CVIF is not just about physics. The Bernidos imbue their close to 500 students with love for theater, music and literature. There is time for Bach and the lives of saints and heroes.
“Indeed poverty and scarcity have bestowed a wealth of insights that we continue to benefit from,” the Bernidos say, even as they approach with excitement a field that holds promises for education—neurosciences. “With deeper understanding of how the brain really works, we are expecting a profound transformation of educational systems and institutions within the early part of the present century.”#
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