Teaching Children Well

My ten year old came back from school with a Science class homework. Surprise, surprise, the topic was the Seven Environmental Principles. It was comforting to realize that the school was starting them early on this matter. Of course we had to do the assignment together and what I did was to open the PEMSEA website (http://www.pemsea.org/) so that she could read more on the topic. It was PEMSEA and its various programs in Batangas that opened my eyes to the lifelong pursuit of the study about the environment.

The first principle is NATURE KNOWS BEST. As the site says "This principle is the most basic and in fact encompasses all the others."

It could not have been said better. The foundation for learning about the environment rests on two things: first, it must come with the understanding that we should respect nature and its processes, and two, we must realize how humans have failed miserably to do this and in fact we have come close to davastating Mother Nature.

Thank you so much for the Grade School and its curriculum that places a heavy emphasis on environmental study.

The assignment became a work in progress then. Since Monday, we have had a mini-lecture series on the Seven Principles, Batangas Bay and the emissions of the vehicles caught in traffic at Katipunan Road. Homework time has never been this enjoyable, what with your daughter eagerly plunging head-on into the subject matter. (To think that Science has been her least favorite subject matter for the last 4 years of Grade School!)

I just hope that we could continue this. Children learn mostly from school and if this learning could be ably supplemented by parental concern, children would know more and get to love what they learn about.