RONAN JOSEPH B.

DOMINGO BSED IV-A

A SYNTHESIS PAPER EDUC 196- SPECIAL TOPICS

THE MULTIGRADE EDUCATION Education is the strongest foundation of each and every powerful nation, that through education we receive light and with that light we receive hope and with that hope we perceive our dreams and with that dreams we see and acknowledge a better tomorrow. Indeed, education is very important to every one of us. Education is an essential human virtue. Man becomes 'man' through education. He is what education makes him. Education is an essential basis of good life. A man becomes a human being in the real sense when he is transformed from primarily an animal being into a human being. In short, education is an essential affiliate of all human societies. "What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul", says Addison. Every child must be given an opportunity to right education in order to achieve all their aspirations and life and for sustainable development for their future. Schools in lightly populated rural areas have had to resort to multigrade education to be able to be economically workable. Hard economic realities force people to move to bigger towns and cities. The constant demand for better schools, effective principals, qualified teachers and an improved service to the communities coupled with the demand for better working conditions and salaries for teachers drained the education budget even further. To keep in line with the four major policies of education namely equity, access, quality and democracy, the operation of smaller, rural multigrade schools has become a necessity. The multigrade was executed because of these factors. Multigrade Education Defined Multigrade education involves the teaching of children from two or more grade levels in one classroom. Such contexts need the employment of teaching methodologies and classroom

organization and supervision. Seeing as multigrade classes are lesser and can be recognized more inexpensively than normal schools in big cities, multigrade schools are located closer to where the children live. Multigrade teaching is a situation in which one teacher has to teach many grades, all at the same time. It happens in all schools where there are more students than the teacher. Some multigrade teachers may teach two grades, but some teach three or four grades. In every small school, teachers may teach six or seven grades at the same time under one roof. In the traditional single-grade teaching, or monograde as it is sometimes called, the teacher teaches only one grade. The learners in each grade are usually of the same age but may differ in abilities. In the Philippine public school system, classes with two grade levels inside a single classroom and handled by the same teacher is called combination classes. Those with three grade levels in one classroom and handled by a single teacher is called a multigrade or multi-level class. This means that a multigrade classroom mixes children with different skills and aptitudes, different developmental levels and needs while working together under the guidance of one teacher. The truth is long before multi-tasking became a buzzword, our teachers were actually already living up to the word, Luistro said. Observed Factors In Multigrade Education In the implementation of the multigrade education, some effects were observed. The factors contributing to the establishment of multigrade teaching are cultural and socio-economic factors, greater community involvement, development of a healthy competition, greater understanding between learners and educators and richer learning environment. These factors truly affect the teaching and learning process in a multigrade school. The multigrade school is a stable, reliable environment for the children because the mix of ages and abilities provided best opportunities for student collaboration as older students served as role models. Cooperation

between different age groups is more common resulting in collective ethics, concern and responsibility. Students develop positive attitudes about helping each other. Remediation and enrichment activities can be more discreetly arranged than in normal classes. Although these advantages are not grounded in systematic study, they do suggest the kinds of non-cognitive effects that a well-organized multigrade classroom can promote. Multigrade schools, being smaller and more dispersed, would enjoy much closer links with the smaller communities that they would be set up to serve. Multrigrade teaching provides a positive effect to teachers as well as to the students. Multigrade classes are used when there are too few students in one grade to make up one-single-grade class and if there are too many students in a grade for one single-grade class, but not enough to make up two full single-grade classes. Despite the efforts to make education more widespread and accessible with this method, certain persistent problems and issues have been observed. School plans, instructional materials and methodological guidelines are often difficult to apply to multi-grade teaching situations. There is a shortage of support materials for teachers and individualized instructional materials for learners, due to the large class size and diversity of the students grade levels. There is a need for more work on the kinds of continuous evaluation, diagnostic testing, remediation and feedback which would best assist multi-grade teaching. Although many teachers work in multigrade teaching situations few countries have developed special teacher training curricula for preor in-service training. The educational system as a whole pays inadequate attention to the proper functioning of multi-grade schools through, for example, not filling vacant teaching positions in rural areas, the absence of systems of teacher accountability, a lack of basic physical facilities in these schools, lack of training for supervisors of multi-grade schools and a general "inattentiveness of education officers to the needs of these schools."

Multigrade teaching poses a challenge to learning. Millions of learners worldwide are taught by teachers who, at any one time, are responsible for two or more school grades/years. These are the invisible multigrade teachers who struggle to provide learning opportunities for all within curriculum and teacher education systems designed for monograded classes. In many countries multigraded classes arise out of necessity and are regarded as second class education. Yet in some parts of the world learning and teaching in multigraded settings is embraced as the pedagogy of choice, offering equivalent, and sometimes superior, learning opportunities. Multigrade teaching provides an opportunity for improved learning. The challenges of a multigrade teaching are planning for delivery can be very time consuming, attitude, and isolation due to the geographical location, disadvantaged local environment, learners at different learning levels, isolation of teachers may lead to frustration, few materials are available for multigrade teaching, stakeholders may have reservations about multigrade teaching, and the physical conditions may be unattractive, some classrooms are very small and overcrowded. Possible Solutions on the Problems of Multicultural Education The ways to overcome these challenges in multigrade teaching are self-directed professional growth or development should be encouraged providing distance education material at resource centers, materials should be given to small schools, education officers should visit and supervise these small schools regularly, not to inspect but to advise and teachers who have taught at multigrade school should be considered for promotions. The school is a part of the community and the school is established to serve the children of the community. Some parents in the community may not have had much schooling, but they have experience, and many have skills that can be relevant to the school curriculum. Organization of parent-teacher meetings should be considered. Also discuss with the community when and how they can willingly help.

Multigrade teaching requires spacious classrooms so that learners can move and interact freely without disturbing one another. The classroom should be protected from wind and rain. When the weather is suitable, learners can also be taught outside the classroom. In order to have all these, develop a good communication system to the community so that they will not be tired of helping the school. Vency D. Bulayungan, written in an article titled DepEd Ifugao Conducts Enhancement Seminar for Multigrade Teachers stated that the Department of Education (DepEd) conducted a three-days division enhancement seminar-workshop at the Lagawe District Hall in an effort to help address the concerns of multigrade teachers. DepEd Supervisor Jane Dulawan of the Division Office said that the workshop aims to help multigrade teachers in the preparation of more lesson plans. Moreover, it also enhances the skills of the multigrade teachers in preparing instructional materials for their multi-grade (MG) or combination classes. Dulawan explained the MG/combination class is an answer to the problem of access to education to children in far flung barangays of the province. The multigrade teachers are the key factors in providing meaningful learning experiences in these classes in order to sustain pupils interest and make learning more effective, she said. The said seminar was attended by 115 MG teachers from the 11 districts. According also to this article by Vency D. Bulayungan, it is explained that conducting enhancement seminar for multigrade teachers is common in far flung mountain villages in the province where houses are located far apart and pupils have to hike through difficult mountain trails just to reach the nearest school. However, despite the hardships of the said teachers in going to teach in said places, it is said that DEPED has to bring services to these remote places in line with the Education for all program of the government and the Millenium Development Goals. Through these purposeful training, teachers of multigrade education will be equipped

wirth proper training and knowledge for a successful, effective and useful teaching and learning process in a multigrade class. Teachers of Multigrade Education Geared Up In the execution of this multigrade school, a proper training and seminars the teachers should attend. It has been written in The Philippine Star titled Basic Education Through MultiGrade Teaching, a multigrade demonstration school project was established to improve the overall performance of MG schools through the training of teachers and school officials, as well as the provision of textbooks and instructional materials. In particular, 12 MG demo schools were established. A series of training programs was also conducted to strengthen MG teachers' and para-teachers' capability in managing the MG system of the country. Some 1,863 teachers from nine divisions were involved in the trainings from May to December 1997. Combined class of students differs a lot from the conventional type of a student class of a single grade. That means that the way that the students of the multigrade class should be taught must be different as well. It is true that the function of the teacher in the multigrade classroom is multidimensional or to be more accurate it is much more complicated and demanding than the role of the teacher in the monograde school respectively. For children to learn effectively in multigrade environments, teachers need to be well-trained, well-resourced and hold positive attitudes to multigrade teaching. Multigrade teaching in many views represents a more demanding teaching situation and special attention should be given to it. However, many teachers in multigrade environments are either untrained or trained in monograde pedagogy; have few, teaching and learning resources; and regard the multigrade classroom as a poor cousin of the better-resourced monograde urban schools that are staffed by trained teachers. In addition, at the majority of the cases, the multigrade teachers are very young without significant experience, "chosen" by the

state to teach at the specific rural areas. The effort should be focused by the educational authorities to reverse the teachers' negative view for multigrade teaching and the rural school and provide them with the resources and support to be able to overcome any difficulties. Teachers should attend special training programmes before introduce them at the multigrade classroom and try to adjust to their multidimensional role as multigrade teachers. As the teacher, the main role of the multigrade teacher is to teach students by imparting knowledge. Teacher must be able to develop and expand skills and inculcate pleasing values and attitudes among students. The teacher is expected to be flexible and makes use of different strategies to make learning significant and successful for all students in his or her classroom, no matter what person differences may exist among the students. Also, the teacher should be able to comprehend and appreciate the differences between students, be able to motivate them to learn and direct them though their learning materials. The teacher should be able to do this for all grade levels in the classroom, no matter what curriculum subject is being studied. The teacher should not only be a provider of knowledge but should also be a facilitator of learning both at a group level and on a one-to-one basis. The planning and implementation of the curriculum is a major role of a teacher, in multigrade setting, appropriate planning by the teacher will result in classes which are more productive for the learners and easier for them to follow. Planning in the multigrade school classroom is much more important that in a monograde one. The teaching hour must be spent productively for student groups in grades of the class and thus accuracy on time spending is crucial. The learning activities, individualized or group should be carefully planned by teacher for successful and effective teaching and learning process. Multigrade educational setting consists of different kinds of teaching approaches, curriculum, and level of learning skills. A teacher must plan systematically, methodically,

analytically, scientifically and apply according to his classroom conditions. Students belonging to different grades, with different levels of learning experiences and with different types of skills come under the control of a single teacher in a multigrade class room. The teachers of multigrade education has special opportunities, he/she becomes the teacher educator for the entire school, he/she paves way for students self-learning, the teacher attempts for deep and thorough learning outcomes from the learners, he/she becomes the facilitators and organizers of joyful learning and understanding by involving students in group activities and most of all, activity based learning releases tension among the students so the students mingle with each other in their learning process and that becomes memorable and happy experience of the lives of multigrade learners.

Conclusion Multigrade teaching is not an attempt to compensate the lack of teachers in a classroom/school. It is a responsible method adapted by a teacher to improve the standard of education. In this kind of teaching, the educator helps the students to grow and expand themselves in their learning process. The teacher manipulates the content of the teaching units to provide to the needs of the multigrade level classroom within the set time. The teacher possesses the ability of using the teaching learning resources and equipment effectively and successfully in the classroom situation. First, it is necessary to identify personal beliefs about teaching and learning and to determine how those beliefs can help or impede a change in practice. Second, it is necessary to examine classroom organization and management with a view to identifying those factors which better support learning. Taking a different perspective on curriculum and seeking alternate instructional strategies comes next.

A further condition is noting and establishing a collaborative relationship between pupils and teacher and determining the roles and responsibilities in that relationship. Being committed to including parental and community involvement in education is another condition. Last but not least, the desire to want to change is one of the essential conditions for changing any practice. It is believed that change will not happen in classroom practice until practitioners are ready and willing to seek what they need to make any changes and obtain the support necessary from other teachers, the administration and district office in order to implement successful change. Any teacher, group of teachers, or school improvement team wishing to make a change from singlegrade, multigrade or traditional methods of teaching or attempting to look at curriculum and its delivery in their own classrooms, would find that multigrade instruction is flexible and has application in any teaching situation. All we need to do is to adhere by the principles and rules of the administration. Teachers should have sufficient training to formally inculcate knowledge to students in a mutligrade setting. Conducting purposeful trainings to multigrade teachers results to a more efficient and useful multigrade classroom teacher. Through these trainings the teachers will be able to facilitate learning within the classroom and help the students to master, appreciate and know the lessons to be taught by the teacher. Many teachers in urban areas are choosing to organize their classrooms using this approach because of its effectiveness when implemented properly. As teachers in rural areas become aware of the characteristics and advantages with proper training and support, they too will use the multigrade approach throughout their schools and feel enthusiastic about the prospect. In order to make the change from a traditional to multigrade progress, we have to be realistic about the time and resources necessary to make a change of this magnitude. Also, students in multi-grade classrooms will have to know their responsibilities as well and be able to develop themselves personally and socially.

The success of multigrade education depends on the learners, who are the center of the school community, and the teachers who must be equipped with proper training for appropriate methodologies and approaches in effective and successful teaching and learning process of multigrade learners. ###