User:Maryabiteana/sandbox

The Land I Called Paradise

The day I conquered my fear of heights, the day I gained the courage to take the step upstairs on a platform that reaches the skies. At first, I was afraid and my knees were trembling but the challenge had made me decide on the action so encouraging. The lighthouse I saw, in the center of that island. The structure that leads me to view the beauty of the world from above.

We took the boat fifteen minutes from island to island, reaching this place surrounded by white sand. Broken corals are scattered offshore. And around were doing different types of sea plants gloom. As we traverse the crystal clear water, small fishes greeted us with joy. Colorful stone structures tease our feet to slip. But my heart was so amazed.

This island is green from a view afar. Compelling us to enter its thick vegetation. The Kalachuchi’s branches were like soldiers in cross swords honoring us. As I look up, white flowers were blooming giving me an enchanted feeling. Then we reached the heart of this island, I saw flying monsters lurking and gliding above us. They are the flying foxes, as my mom mentioned. The Balete tree is as old as my grandmom’s grandmom. This is like a kingdom far from the reach of everyone.

They said experience is the best teacher. If we love our land, the nature we live in. We clean, we plant, we do not litter. Fresh air, fresh and clean water, the great and true treasures. Beautiful flowers and animals do dance and sing. This defines a wonderful world we enjoy one or a thing. These are all my conclusion after I set my foot on Nogas Island.

Education in Times of Pandemic

While countries are at different points in their COVID-19 infection rates, worldwide there are currently more than many children are affected by school closures due to the pandemic. In the Philippines, schools were divided into two academic systems: the modular and online to promote learning and education to the stranded learners.

With this sudden shift away from the classroom in many parts of the globe, some are wondering whether the adoption of online learning will continue to persist post-pandemic, and how such a shift would impact the worldwide education market. Sad to say that most of the areas in this country can only have a modular system and cannot adopt online mode due to several reasons, first the internet connectivity in their area is so thin which a learner cannot rely on, second, most of the families are financially down and cannot support their children to buy data or load for online classes.

In our case, the school has adopted a modular system and has distributed modules every week, topic by topic or lesson per lesson. Most of us student’s including our parents had so much struggle answering the requirements and activities in our module.

As I have observed, this country in terms of educational philosophy is still stacked on idealist ground. There are conflicts which I am drowned in the big question, Learning vs High Grades and Learning vs Passing. Most of us were doomed under the belief that if we got high grades in academics we are definitely intelligent and that is what makes us proud. So most of the parents were the ones answering the modular quizzes, exams, or activities without making their children understand the lessons in their module. Also with the help of the internet parents and children would seek and search for answers from internet surfing. Some of them hire someone to answer who is knowledgeable about the subject. Some of the children who belong to a poor family and cannot afford to hire tutors and has lack of funds to connect from the internet had suffered more.

In the Philippines, people tend to believe only the narrow side of education generally, that is you can only achieve success if you have graduated with a degree. For me it is different, you can achieve success and a degree if you have learned a lot.