Historical Field Trip

On the anniversary of Ninoy Aquino's death and the Plaza Miranda Bombing, we went on a historical field trip to enrich Noelle's Civics class. After breakfast, we packed lunch and dinner and headed for the City of Manila to visit the historical landmarks there. Since this is our first historical field trip, we would focus on places relevant to the story of our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.

First, of course, on the itinerary was the Rizal Monument in Luneta which marks the place where Rizal was martyred. Aside from the monument itself, the girls enjoyed the carabao statue and the horse-driven carriages also featured there.

But the highlight of the day was our last stop at Fort Santiago in the walled city of Intramuros where Rizal was detained and spent his final days. We tried to imagine the conditions under which he lived there as we surveyed the grounds, traced his last footsteps and studied the relics he left behind.


As with Cory Aquino's story, Noelle was disturbed at the cruelty of the oppressors (in this case the Spanish colonizers of Rizal's time). She could not understand how people could treat others so badly. We did our best to explain how the colonizers wanted to suppress calls for Philippine independence because they had so much to lose.

It's still too complicated for her to really grasp. Actually, if our kids never learn how to justify such behavior, we would be very happy. Our effort at modeling to them only loving behavior (as often as possible) and limiting their exposure to television and other popular media would have been worth it. (Most so-called "kid-friendly" material actually undermine the value for life and limb and desensitize kids to violence -- despite the "moral lessons" usually added to them as an afterthought.)

At day's end we pondered Rizal's willful and deliberate sacrifice for his beloved country and how he inspired many others to do the same. Our prayer was that we would be so inspired ourselves, feel more intensely our rootedness in our homeland, the Philippines, and give our best to her and to our fellow Filipinos.

Learning Styles

Another thing that we appreciate about Noelle's school (The Master's Academy Homeschool) is how well they take care of us parent-teachers. They make sure that we get the best inputs and advice on education, child development, and parenting available. They recognize how gargantuan the task of homeschooling (and parenting, for that matter) is so they provide us with the necessary resources and build our capacities to cut the task down to size. And as an added bonus for them, they get to spread the gospel of effective parenting in the process.

We attended a talk that was part of TMA Homeschool's parent-teacher enabling efforts. Given by Marissa Adviento of the Ateneo de Manila Psychology Department, the talk was about Learning Styles.
Each person tends to have preferred modes of absorbing new information and is thus more open to particular ways of presenting such new knowledge.
These learning styles are...
Visual -- learning through images and spatial understanding
Auditory -- learning through sound and music
Verbal -- learning through words (written and spoken)
Physical -- learning through the body, hands and sense of touch
Logical -- learning through reasoning and systems-thinking
Social -- learning through interacting with others
Solitary -- learning through working or studying alone
Each learner has a natural degree of receptivity in each style. Teachers could appeal to the student's most dominant styles as "entry points" for new content to facilitate learning.
The primary challenge though in applying this theory is in identifying each student's unique set of learning styles. This is where homeschooling parents have a special opportunity. They are in a position to observe their students not only in the "classroom" setting but also while playing and doing other activities. The kinds of activities and ways of accomplishing things that their kids gravitate towards give clues as to their learning styles.
Once the student's dominant learning styles are established, the teacher may then design lessons according to these styles. This is where we find another advantage of homeschooling: Because of the very low teacher-student ratio, lessons can easily be tailor-made to fit the learner.
It might be helpful to also mention one point about the match-up of the learning styles of the teacher and the pupil. Those who teach, especially if not aware of the learning style theory would tend to teach in a way that targets students who have similar learning styles as theirs. Special care must be taken to overcome these "teaching blinders" and be truly responsive to the pupil's learning needs.
Our experience of homeschooling Noelle and Faye is enriched by the challenges of applying the learning styles theory. We constantly push ourselves to be more observant and understanding of our children's learning needs. For example, we noticed that it doesn't seem to be enough for Noelle to read about the things she needs to learn in her lessons. She needs to see and hear them, and if possible, even touch, smell and taste them. We realized that these indicate her need to learn in the non-verbal styles as well as the verbal. Accordingly, we began to incorporate visually and bodily stimulating activities into her lessons to facilitate her learning.
The learning style theory is a valuable tool for optimizing the learning of our kids. And it's usefulness transcends the teacher-student context, deepening the parent-child relationship.
For more on learning styles please click on the following links:
http://www.learning-styles-online.com/
http://homeschooling.golmipitas.com/weblinks/assets.htm
http://www.leapingfromthebox.com/art/kmg/learningstyles1.html

NOELLE & TITA CORY

We awoke to very sad though not unexpected news this morning. President Corazon C. Aquino died at 3:18am today.
We very seldom let the kids watch tv, much less the news. But their eyes were glued to the set in our bedroom this morning learning all about Tita Cory from the tributes being shown.
Noelle was particularly impressed that Cory stepped down graciously when her term ended in 1992. It seems Noelle had assumed that it was an option, if not a temptation, for people in public office to extend themselves beyond their terms.
It then occurred to us that although Noelle often listened to and sometimes participated in our discussions of the shortcomings of the current administration, she rarely saw models of good civic leadership. Today was an opportunity for her to get acquainted with one of the most shining examples.
Tonight Noelle had trouble sleeping. She came to us saying Tita Cory's story disturbed her. How could anyone find anything about Cory Aquino disturbing? Upon further probing, we found out that it was Ferdinand Marcos that troubled her. It was so hard for her to process some of the horrors of the Marcos administration (the "milder ones" that we could tell her about) that she could not sleep. She could not assure herself that the same things would not happen again.
All we could offer was one of the lessons we all could learn from Corazon Aquino's life: Prayer is the only defense we have from the things that we fear. And the surest way it works is by keeping us open and responsive to God's loving guidance.