“We've learned by teaching”

Below is an article written in 2006 about the volunteer work of Ateneo de Naga college students in a rural elementary school in Nabua, Camarines Sur, Philippines. I found it stored in my e-mail. CCD-Volts days..
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“There were also other activities I could get involved with this summer, but everything just led me here.” 

This is what Pat Ursua, an incoming 4th year college student and a member of Education Honors Program of Ateneo de Naga University, said after spending a week in Inapatan Elementary School in Nabua, Camarines Sur.

Pat was one of the 64 student volunteers who opted to give a week of their summer break with some 200 kids of Inapatan, Nabua, some 45 kms. south of Naga City.  The Center for Community Development (CCD) of Ateneo de Naga University organized and facilitated the activity dubbed as Tulong-Dunong which is now on its 4th year as an extension service.

The student volunteers made their own modules and lesson plans for the kids who were grouped according to their grade level in the next opening of classes. Kids got advanced lessons to prepare them  for the regular classes this coming June. Instead of just playing around, the kids were treated to a variety of activities including the tutorials of subjects taught in the regular classes, basic skills in art painting, computer operations, guitar lessons, singing, modern and folk dancing, sports (arnis, volleyball, and football), and other structured-learning experiences.

“To teach young children was our main task,” Karen Bigay, another Education Honors Program's member, added. While teaching science, she discovered splendid pictures of contentment – the children of Inapatan. What amazed her was the detachment of the children on the wordly things, and yet flashing the faces and smiles of genuine human aspirations – to be happy.

For these teachers to-be, teaching kids was really challenging especially that they are  still studying, and struggling sometimes, to become a real and licenced teacher someday. But it was also rewarding for them to see the kids learned, appreciated and enjoyed what they did for that one week.

At first, coming from a city and going to a rural barangay, they had a feeling of superiority since they were going to render service and teach. Then they felt privileged and fortunate to be in that position to serve. Pat shared this view. She said, “It is ironic that these children would look up to me as an “ate” or a teacher but no one of them knew that despite their age, I am learning a lot from them. The children taught me the simplicity of life.”

Likewise Karen said, “factual knowledge taught us to enrich our intelligence but it is with other people's experiences and interaction with them where we find real learning. We were not the only persons who touched their lives but they too, left marks in us.”

Pat, Karen and the rest of the student volunteers who taught the kids in Inapatan, and in the process, the Inapatan kids teaching them too a lesson or two can put the lesson plans and modules aside until they return next year for another Tulong-Dunong for the Inapatan kids. This time they will be more prepared to teach and learn too.

Pak Frans Huskens (1945 - 2010)

I am privileged to have met and actually listened to a man who was esteemed for his intellectual generosity and immense and genuine human curiosity by his peers, students, and friends.

I first met Pak Frans when he came to the Philippines to interview me for a slot in the NWO-funded Ethno-Religious Conflict in Indonesia and the Philippines (ERCIP) program at Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands. My interview schedule was at 8:30 AM at the Philippine Social Science Center (PSSC) in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

It was a Monday of Oct. 26, 2009. On that day, I had to report to the office in Laguna, about 55 kilometers away from Quezon City. But I was happy to have that panel interview on Monday morning.

During the interview, I remember Pak Frans was seated at the far left of a relatively long table. I was prodded to take the center seat. All throughout the interview, I noticed that Pak Frans was listening perceptively, writing once in a while on his notebook, and nodding intermittently. I remember him saying that I had a good background on theories of conflict. Of course, that made me feel good.

I believe that Pak Frans had this special gift to make people feel good about their work and themselves. He truly believed in the ability of individuals to make and do things possible and turn them into a reality, in their own volition.

When I arrived in Nijmegen from the Philippines, I received an email from Pak Frans welcoming me to his country and city. That was really comforting to have in the midst of new weather, culture, and all other things that made feel strange and isolated inside and even outside my 14-square meter room.

Then, our first scheduled meeting as a research team came. The students were supposed to submit a paper, but he said that a simple presentation of our ideas would be enough for our next meeting. He understood students' adjustments, struggles, personal situations, and pacing of writing. Or he understood us too much that he blurred the distinction between him and students.

After that meeting, in our small conversation, he wondered why Asians study Asia, why not Asians study Europe. In a way, he was challenging me. And in his words, he even encouraged me to write about Europe, to visit as many places in Europe, to enjoy my stay in Holland. "There is so much more here than your studies."

I guess he was then talking from his experiences. During his fieldwork in Indonesia and academic career in the Netherlands, he made personal ties and friendships that would last beyond his lifetime.

I remember that the first set of books that Pak Frans gave us as students were fiction books mostly by Sidney Sheldon. They were not non-fiction books, nor ethnographies. They were novels.

Indeed, there is so much more here. There is so much more.. Thank you Pak Frans.