First, Teachers Have To Learn – Joei Villarama Wanting To Defy The Odds

I first wrote about Joei Villarama’s school Abot Tala on 23 July 2018, "’School Is Optional’ – Ken Danford. ‘School Is Where The Mind Is’ – Frank H[1]” in another blog, Creative Thinkering, and I had hopes high enough for each of the young learners, not to mention the school, to Reach That Star, Abot Tala.

Today, on Facebook, I am quite saddened to read Ms Joei’s swan song, “Wanting To Defy The Odds[2],” and the lyrics are neither listener-friendly nor reader-friendly.

Ms Joei says:

Maybe we shouldn’t have started this. Maybe we should’ve given up earlier. Maybe we should’ve sought enough funding first. Even if odds were stacked against us, we bulldozed our way to the starting line and ran away with it until we sputtered, and chutzpah, courage and good intentions were not enough fuel to last a long marathon.

Of course it was madness; it is a PH version of American Ken Danford’s Self-Directed Learning. But I don’t give up easily.

Now, I note the full name of the school:

Abot Tala:
Personalized Learning Collaborative For Teens.

Crying inside, Ms Joei is giving up on her Star, but not me. I am a friend; what are friends for?!

The images above tell me Abot Tala is too structured for young minds. Yet, Abot Tala is for “Personalized Learning” – so, I am right now volunteering for a free one-whole-day session to excite the teens the kind of “personalized learning” that they did not see in Abot Tala. Yes, one day session will be enough for me to animate each of the teens towards reaching their individual stars. All I ask is a WiFi connection and that each kid brings a laptop, or Ms Joei will bring in a few units for individualized learning.

I would then conduct the class based on Harvard psychology professor Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, that young or old we have within ourselves 9 intelligences:

(1)    Bodily-kinesthetic;

(2)    Existential;

(3)    Interpersonal;

(4)    Intrapersonal;

(5)    Linguistic-verbal;

(6)    Logical-mathematical;

(7)    Musical;

(8)    Naturalistic;

(9)    Visual-spatial.

I don’t have to teach the young ones those. I will lead them to their own discoveries using their laptops and the Internet. I will teach them to surf the Web as much as they want, as far as they can, and click Like as many as they can – after a whole morning of individual surfing, no coaching from the teacher – I will ask each one of them, far from earshot of the others, what interested one most. The individual answer will tell me what is the most favored intelligence of the young one, and that will be what Abot Tala will help the learner pursue from then on!

To excite those young ones with a class session like that where each discovers one’s hidden talent, is to excite their parents, and the school funders too!

And so, in each class session from then on, the teacher helps learners sharpen their individual intelligences. And sooner or later, each one will Reach That Star!@517

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[1]http://creativethinkering.blogspot.com/2018/07/school-is-optional-ken-danford-school.html

[2]https://entirelyofpossibility.wordpress.com/2020/03/20/wanting-to-defy-the-odds/?fbclid=IwAR1B6gpri4xxAnKDL8C7R5jLgZxPoHFxwzOGuu5IUFDjYL5CgMQf8QyNZhU