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PRESUMPTIVE American President Barack Obama was recently confronted
by one passionate young teacher from Chicago’s Dodge Elementary
School on a fundamental problem characterizable as “These Kids
Syndrome”—the willingness of society to find a million excuses
for why “these kids” can not learn. Education officials keep on
promoting the idea that “these kids come from tough
backgrounds;” that “these kids are too far behind;” or that
“these kids are vagrants, delinquents, and just squatters” as
many Filipino teachers consider their public school students. And
after awhile, “these kids” become somebody else’s problem;
that they are a social welfare or a police problem; or that they are
the problem of their parents, “not ours.” The young teacher
tutor correctly reprimanded education officials, fellow teachers,
and the children’s parents when she emphasized: “When I hear
that term, it drives me nuts. They’re not ‘these kids.’
They’re our kids”.
The same problem permeates Philippine society.
Adults wish to distance themselves from these young children who now
occupy and inhabit the streets in this country. Yet, these children
who come from the slums, the streets, the dirty esteros, the parks,
Manila Bay’s breakwater rocks, and Mindanao’s jungles are
children who deserve the same opportunities at life as any other
Filipino child who may have been born to affluent and wealthy
families, or who are born to our families.
Our own education officials must now confront
themselves: Is the Philippines a “these kids” country? In a free
and democratic society that our government wishes us to believe,
education is a mandatory entitlement of every child “regardless of
wealth, birth, ethnicity, or other accidental condition.” Yet, we
have never even reached the standards set by our own
Constitution—free, compulsory, accessible education for all
children at the primary and secondary levels. All our government
leaders, despite their drumbeating, have fallen short of this ideal.
Children in provinces have to walk seven to 10 kilometers just to
attend school. And when children attend school, they do not even
obtain the benefits, or learn modern skills, of the advancements in
communications and technology. They even have to pay for school
uniforms, Boy Scout and Girl Scout membership fees to further enrich
the American founders, junior-senior prom fees, registration fees,
deposit fees, and such other absurd fees required even when it takes
no stretch of the imagination that these children seeking public
school education already come from the “poorest of the poor,”
and no fee should further burden them from seeking education.
The present education system that our children
experience is not only morally unacceptable; it is economically
untenable for our nation. Children in other countries are already
advancing rapidly into the modern world of high technology,
computerization, and communications while our government cannot even
provide enough school buildings or teachers. It means that today’s
educational system has never been more important to the development
of this country and to its children who will spell the progress that
this country has achieved. In encouraging teachers, Obama declared
that the single most important factor in determining the
children’s achievement is “who their teacher is.” Certainly,
it is the teacher who passionately dedicates herself or himself to
the selfless sacrifice of educating the young that spells the real
difference in the development of this nation. Because it is the
promise of a good education for all that makes it possible for any
child to transcend the barriers of race, social class, or background
and achieve their God-given potential.
Our leaders must realize that national politics
cannot forever remain riddled with corruption issues at the highest
pinnacles of governance. National government cannot remain forever
in an endless cycle of praise for educators in speeches and photo
opportunities, but then abandon the teachers when the demand
increases for more quality schools, more skills training programs,
more realistic and practical courses, more financial resources, and
more support be poured into educational institutions. The slogan
that the Department of Education banners is “Education for All.”
We never questioned that education is indeed for all but we soon
realize it is only for all those who can afford to pay the high and
increasing costs of education. In this country, most children are
being left behind as we build more jails for children, more flyovers
for them to take refuge in, more road expansion projects for them to
play in those dangerous streets, rather than using those much needed
financial resources in constructing school buildings, children’s
shelters, playgrounds, and finding permanent homes and embarking on
high quality education for our children.
At the beginning of this new millennium, with
two peaceful revolutions paving a better future for our people, we
have continually upheld the promise of education for all as that
which allows any child to transcend the barriers of social class,
ethnicity, or background and achieve their God-given potential. We
must always remind ourselves that little children in the slums or
esteros of Manila or the jungles of Mindanao are not “these
kids”—they are all our children too. We cannot let them down.
ericfmallonga@yahoo.com
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