BOOK SHELF # 2

Just CLICK the picture to go there.

"One of the best ways parents can teach their children is by example. Husbands and wives should show love and respect for each other and for their children by both actions and words. It is important to remember that each member of the family is a child of God. Parents should treat their children with love and respect, being firm but kind to them.

Parents should understand that sometimes children will make wrong choices even after they have been taught the truth. When this happens, parents should not give up or become discouraged. They should continue to teach their children, to express love for them, to be good examples to them, and to fast and pray for them."

Benjamin Franklin once said:

"The height of foolishness is to discard an idea without proper investigation".

Man is looking for peace but why war between nations happened?
Is it important to know about the cause of this incident?
I know that we should study history to avoid repeating it again. Many had ignored this lesson and don't mind at all. We need to know the truth and the clear understanding of the experiences of those who are involved in the war.
To go to this article, click the soldier's picture.

A biography of my survival of the Bataan Death March and three years as a Japanese Prisoner of War.
--Russell A. Grokett, Sr.

Click Mrs. Filipinas picture at the left

By HENRY S. TENEDERO

THERE is a silent war being fought at home and in the classroom between teachers and students, between parents and children. To a very real extent, this war is also being fought in offices and perhaps even in corporate boardrooms. It is a war of differing styles.
The basic problem is not so much in the differences themselves, but in the failure to recognize those differences and to act accordingly.

Sue Teele, is the director of Education Extension at the University of California, Riverside. In one of her many books and articles, she made the sad observation that many students are lost...because we do not understand how they learn.

This observation points unerringly at what I call the war of differing styles: teaching styles versus learning styles. In other words, the way we teach, more often than not, is incompatible with the learning style of those we are teaching, be they our students or our children, or our office subordinates.

Drs. Kenneth and Rita Dunn collaborated, beginning in 1977, in the development of what is now known as the Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles Model. Through the years, they field-tested their original assertions until they came up with 22 preferences subdivided into five major categories: environmental, physiological, emotional, social and psychological.

They thus defined learning style as the sum of a person's individual preferences in all those categories. Their basic contention is that each person has a unique learning style. War happens whenever that unique learning style is frustrated - unknowingly, in perhaps or nearly all instances.

Examples are in order.

Generally, parents cannot imagine how their children can study anything, much less learn, with all that loud music blaring at them from the walkman earphone or while watching their favorite show on TV or while slumped bellydown on the floor or while reading in dim light. And so, they sternly order their children to turn off the walkman or the TV, to sit up properly, or to go read under a brighter light. It's almost funny, except that it isn't so for their children.

Chances are, they do learn better with music or with the TV on or under low light or with a more relaxed bodily posture. This may be a horrifying thought for parents, but it is an established fact that many students actually do learn better under such conditions traditionally, and erroneously, labeled as unhealthy.

Perhaps another horrendous thought for parents is eating while studying! Again, research is on the side of the culprits: intake does help many students in their concentration on, and retention of, new and difficult information. Perhaps parents should worry not about the habit itself drinking, eating or chewing something while studying but rather about the substance of the habit.

They would be helping their children more by providing them more nutritious food to eat, drink or chew while they are studying, instead of forcing them not to do so at all - or else...

Sound, light, design/posture and intake are but four of the 22 preferential elements identified by the Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles model. It would take too long to discuss them all here, but it would not hurt to list down a few others which parents and teachers can start chewing on their own: temperature, time of day, motivation, peer and pair study, and mobility.

There are others, but what I have mentioned may already be quite a handful for starters.

QUESTIONS

For renewal purposes, perhaps we can ask ourselves some curious and searching questions.

Would it be too much to allow some kind of music in the classroom? To refurnish or redesign classrooms so that they have better ventilation, if not electric fans or airconditioners. To allow students to eat or drink or chew something while in class so long as this does not bother or get in the way of the rest of the class? To schedule classes so that subjects that require more mental effort are not taken up during the sleepy hour immediately after lunch? To allow students to move around even while the teacher is going on with the lesson, again so long as this does not get in the way of the rest of the class?

Harder questions are in store for us when we look at the rest of the learning styles preference menu.

One of the many elements that comprise an individual's learning style is the way new information is processed. There are two possible ways: global, and analytic. Other terms referring to this distinction may be more familiar: spatial, conceptual or simultaneous, for global, linear, logical or sequential, for analytic.

LEFT-RIGHT

BRAIN CONCEPTS

It will be easier to appreciate this distinction if we first take one step back and briefly review the LeftRight Brain concept. According to this theoretical framework, the two halves of the human brain differ not just in terms of which half of the human body each controls: the left brain controls the right half, and vice versa.

More pertinent to our discussion is the observation that the two halves of the brain separately carry out the two main tasks in the learning process: the right brain works on the big picture, and the left brain attends to the details.

The right brain thus approaches learning in a more comprehensive manner: it looks at the forest first, and at the trees later, if at all. This allows for more flexible and subjective learning, stronger emotional response, artistic expression, and intuitive problemsolving. Being more experimental than factual, right-brain thinking is more open to invention and creativity.

This is the part of our brain that remembers faces and song melodies.

The left brain on the other hand, approaches learning in a more inductive manner: it looks at the trees first, and at the forest later. This allows for more conventional and objective learning, greater emotional inhibition, linguistic expression, and scientific or stepbystep problem-solving. Inclined to be factual rather than experimental, left brain thinking favors innovation and improvement. This is the part of the brain that remembers names and song lyrics.

Right-brain thinking is global learning; left-brain thinking is analytic learning. Neither type of learning is better than the other. In fact, both types need to be developed for logistic, or whole-brain, learning and thinking. The problem for educators is how to teach so that both preferences are effectively catered to and satisfied.

Most books and required reading materials are, for example, generally presented in a lopsidedly left-brain manner. Too many words and hardly any illustrations. So much information and so few summaries. Heavy emphasis on hard data and little effort to establish relevance to personal, everyday living.

Again, the question at this point is not on substance but on form, not on content but on presentation, not on curriculum but on methodology.

A few years ago, a United Nations Development Program report cited the Philippines as having one of the highest functional literacy rates in the world. However, the same UNDP report noted that majority of Filipinos have a very poor quality of life.

The irony is so glaring.

No one could possibly suggest that education, or miseducation, is entirely to blame for the sad state of affairs presented in that UNDP report. From the educational point of view, neither fingerpointing nor blamelaying will alleviate the situation. The only genuine, healing response to try and enrich education, and with determination.

The constant, underlying concerns should be: learners, and their learning.

In terms of the learning styles (LS paradigm), the failure of a learner (whether student or child) is generally indicative of inadequate, inappropriate or incompatible teaching style. Unfortunately, this shortcoming from the teaching end is systematic: it is an inadequacy of Philippine education at large.

Whenever there is a mismatch between teaching style and learning style, learning is frustrated: made more difficult, more burdensome. Conversely, whenever teaching style matches learning style, learning is facilitated: made easier, more meaningful, and, thus, more lasting.

To teachers and parents: you can begin trying to discern the learning styles of your individual students and children. And then you can also try to adopt or employ an appropriate teaching style.

Your efforts will surely be rewarded: if not with immediate success, then at least with more insight for future efforts. Your student's or child's success in learning, I am sure, will also be your joy in teaching.