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NO MOUNTAIN HIGH I have glimpsed a little light, and I believe I should show it to my countrymen. -Dr. Jose Rizal JAGNA. A port town 63 kilometers from Tagbilaran. Land area 12,000 hectares. Population 31,000. Classified as a fourth class municipality. An unlikely place to find a mountain climber. But that's where Christopher and Marivic Bernido are. Educators--now unintentionally moving educators around the country to climb with them. SERENDIPITY?
Christopher and Marivic both graduated from the University of the Philippines National Institute of Physics (NIP). Sent abroad for further studies, they returned to the country, equipped with Ph.D's in Theoretical Physics and went back to U.P. to be part of the faculty. But Chris had a dream of putting up a research center for Theoretical Physics in the country. He decided to pursue his dream in his family hometown, Jagna. Meanwhile, the family-ran school in Jagna – Central Visayan Institute (CVI)-- set up in 1929 by Chris' grandfather, was not doing well. His 77 year-old mother, who was running the school then, felt that she needed help. Their high school graduates were not going on to college because college was too expensive and most were not performing well on entrance exams to universities around the country. So Chris and Marivic agreed to lend a helping hand. They left their positions at UP (Chris was formerly director, Marivic assistant) and moved to Jagna. Much of Chris' initial efforts went toward the research center which began to hold workshops and host triennial international conferences attracting some of the best physicists in the world, two of whom have --since their visit to Jagna-- become Nobel laureates. Seminars were organized to transfer technology and know-how and help improve the research and academic programs of other institutions in the Visayas and Mindanao . Marivic's efforts, meantime, went toward studying the school system. She realized that the traditional teaching methods developed in the West were not effective in the Philippine context. They motivated the strong students but not the weaker ones. She remembered the words of her mother—a teacher.
Marivic and Chris began to work out a program called the Dynamic Learning Program (DLP). WHAT'S THE DLP? Under the DLP, lectures are only about 20 minutes, and the rest of the period is spent doing individual or group work. Students, using their own words, answer questions like
The work is entered into portfolios-- color-coded plastic-covered folders containing accomplished activity sheets in each course—all neatly accomplished in the student's own handwriting. All work is done within the school. Students have no homework. Evenings are for the family—household chores, building relationships. They soon saw that it had many advantages. It needed less equipment especially for the sciences; teachers could rotate, so the school needed fewer teachers; the system was not affected by the differences in the personalities and skills of teachers; it required a smaller number of textbooks. Most of all, it got around the so- called “damaged culture” of the Filipino as cited by James Fallowsi --the culture of pwede na 'yan, of receiving handouts and being dependent on others, our slanted understanding of honesty, and our skewed concept of time and discipline. In short, DLP turned out to be a program which was suitable for Philippine context. It modeled a culture of excellence and hard work and it taught the students to learn how to learn. THE RESULTS Things began to look up. After eight years of trying without any passers-- students passed the UP College Admission Test three years in a row: six passed in 2005, five in 2004, and four in 2003. Then, in the Mathematical Challenge for Filipino Kids Training Program conducted by the Mathematics Trainers Guild (MTG) of the Philippines, the number of CVIF qualifiers rose from one to ten since 2002-with two of them ranking second and third overall, outranking their counterparts from Tagbilaran City. Educators from all over the country including Poveda, De La Salle and Immaculate Conception Academy have visited the school to look at the system. A NATION TO BUILD? Is it an uphill climb? The Bernidos are born climbers. They chose a high mountain and then they began their ascent. Mark Twain said,
Without financial aid, one wonders why they keep on going in pursuit of excellence. Perhaps the question is best answered by this story. n the 1980's Chris went to Germany for a research fellowship. Marivic was in the US for her Ph.D. studies. Chris sent her a letter. The letter said
Marivic decided to marry Chris on the fifth reason. AN OASIS IN THE DESERT In the midst of the political squabbles and economic difficulties our country is passing through, the story of Chris and Marivic Bernido is like an oasis in the desert. F. Sionil Jose, who believes that it is his duty to call for a revolution, was right when he said that the people who will form the vanguard of change in our country are the ones who will benefit from it. He said, “Revolution starts in the mind and heart. It alters attitudes to enable us to think beyond ourselves, family and ethnicity to encompass the whole nation.” Moreover, that “the leaders of the revolution could be in [the] university, young men and women who have education but are not shackled by alien concepts, or the attitudes of superiority that destroy leadership. Such leaders, …must lead by sterling example, with integrity, courage, compassion, and a willingness to sacrifice, people who know that when the revolution is won, it is time to change from conspirators to even better administrators.” “A Call for Revolution” by F.Sionil Jose. An a daption from a speech he gave at the University of the Philippines on Nov. 23, 2004. A novelist, historian and journalist, F. Sionil Jose is the Philippines ‘most renowned living author. He is a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award and the title of the National Artist for literature.ii
If each one of us would walk on God's trail of justice, mercy, and humility, then, surely, no mountain would be too high for us to climb. __________________________________________________________________________________ i James Fallows is the former editor of the Atlantic monthly
Rev. Cawilihan Zubiri
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