Thursday, June 25, 2020

Amazing Naureen – not yet 2 years old




With Naureen tugging at my sleeves, I woke up from my afternoon nap. She took my hand with both of her hands and pulled me towards the 6 liters plastic jar she was playing with. She put my hand over the cap meaning – she was asking me to open it. She learned to do that in the last 3 months. If she wants to open the door – she will hold my hand and tug me to the door placing my hand over the door knob. She is not yet two years old unable to verbalize what she wants. 

The first words she learned from the You Tube nursery rhymes are the colors, shapes and the numbers 1-10 and yeah, the alphabet. I presumed that at her age, it’s no surprise for her to recognize some letters like A, E and O that she can easily point out from prints over her grandmother’s shirts.

She was sitting on my lap while we both watched the nursery rhymes on You Tube. To my shock…omg, she recognized all the letters from A-Z although she pronounced the letters with funny, very funny kind of way. She recognized the alphabet from A-Z before she can even say, milk, mommy or mama?

We have some pillows with different shapes in the living room. My wife asked her, “What’s this” and Naureen answered, star, square or round then suddenly, she picked up one, raised it up and asked me – “wasdiss?” LOL!

She wanted to bring some of her blocks to another place so what she did - she took my hand and in my palm, she put her blocks and gently as if she was holding a glass container took it where she wanted. She tilted my hand to let the blocks fall to the spot she chose. 

I was watching Jurassic Park on my mobile. She climbed over to my lap and watched with me but to my surprise, she climbed down and hid under the table obviously afraid. We always ignore children's perception and understanding of what they see around them. It was the part where the dinosaurs and everybody else were running away from the erupting volcano. 

This morning, I was busy reading the news in my mobile. I didn’t mind what she was doing and then I heard her say, “eight” and when I turned to where she was – she was holding two rubber bonds touching tangentially. It’s an 8.



This one likewise made her grandmother and I laughed so hard, we doubled up laughing: She said “triangle.” She was standing on top of the table where I was reading. She had a good view of the 32 inches TV and she was trying to show me and her grandmother something.  With her 2 index fingers touching at the edge forming an angle and her overlapping thumbs as base – it’s a “TRIANGLE.”




It reminded me of Nishreen (my youngest daughter) when she was about 2-3 years old. She saw her mother’s slipper turned upside down with grooved soles and said, - ESCALATOR. LOL!

Monday, June 8, 2020

CLASSROOMS WITHOUT WALLS: The Future is Here


It is almost certain that in the future, blackboards will be replaced by big screens and textbooks will be in the student’s pockets that they can plug into any gadget with a monitor.

What I didn’t imagine is that students can stay home on a mass scale from nationwide to worldwide.

DepEd has a plan that is known to work at a smaller scale but if it succeeds even at level 6 out of a scale of 10, it will set a precedence that has far more implication for the future. Parents may continue to opt for distance learning even after the pandemic. Not only that it is safer for their children, it is also cheaper minus the 'baon,' uniforms, fare etc.

The shutting down of ABS-CBN could be a blessing in disguise because now, they broadcast in the best of medium that technology can offer. If in the past, not long ago (LOL!) – the network broadcast only TV Patrol in HD, lately if you have noticed, they seem to broadcast all the network’s programs in High Definition.

I wonder if there is anymore need for ABS-CBN to be in a hurry for a franchise. It can broaden its base by simply building cable television where there is none and broadcast via local cable networks. Sky cable which ABS-CBN also owns can be its flagship network. It can also invest heavily in internet broadcasting and if Space X interlink succeeds, there is no place on earth that internet cannot reach. Telephone companies will be dead. Traditional air broadcast could vanish into oblivion. 

Media networks could be the future of education where pupils/students can record their online teachers’ lectures. With the technological perfection of animation, there is no need for hands on classroom experimentation meaning face-to-face learning is moot but there is a catch – the end of the teaching profession.

Imagine this: ABS-CBN (or other companies/Google/FB/Amazon) with its massive resources builds a futuristic university – for each country or one university for the entire planet. Poor kids and the rich can receive the same education coming from one source and free paid for by advertising. Space X have started deploying thousands of interlink satellites that will ring the planet and bring internet access to every corner of the globe.

ONE EDUCATION, ONE SOURCE, ONE UNIVERSITY FOR THE HUMAN RACE

HUMANKIND IS FINALLY TRANSITING FROM CIVILIZATION “0” TO “1”

nk