"The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful" - The Republic by Plato

Plato's words on the issue education not only serve as a guideline to education's ultimate objective but also function to inspire change within educational systems itself.

Last month, I, along with our UNESCO club, Earth Savers initiated a service trip in Alabang Elementary School which is a public school within the Philippines suffering, like many other public schools,  from the lack of available resources and facilities. Students here have no access to science laboratories, arts and computer rooms etc., and thus face a great challenge in their growth as learners. Instead, funds from the government are focused on constructing classrooms in order to accommodate more students from the region.

While the number of students being able to attend a school is truly important, it can also not be denied that the quality of the education they experience should also be of significant importance. Having this in mind, our club journeyed to Alabang in the hopes of formulating a solution to this problem. Which we did. We've coordinated with the school teachers and principal and proposed a project wherein our club would be hosting free and open lessons every Saturdays on the subjects of Math, Science and Arts, bringing with us the materials necessary for the activities and allowing the students to experience a more holistic and hands-on learning experience.

In order to better understand the needs of the students more, we've also piloted a sample class in one of their classes. Here we talked about the importance of sustainability and asked students on their thoughts and opinions regarding it. Various students explained the environment's crucial role in supplicating people through various ways and it was really fun to watch the students synthesizing their knowledge from science and connecting concepts such as photosynthesis and the water cycle to sustainability. But one student in particular caught my attention. When asked about why the environment is important to us, the student gave a very concise answer: "dahil maganda ang kalikasan", or "because nature is beautiful" in Filipino. Her classmates seemed to giggle at the simplicity of her answer, perhaps thinking that there ought to be a more nuanced elaboration to satisfy our question. But the answer in fact gave me even more insight on the realities facing the educational system of the Philippines.

Due to the limited availability of resources, schools, especially public ones, seem to focus on their efforts on teaching maths and sciences with the hopes of having their students pass prestigious colleges in the country. To many of these students, gaining scholarship from a high college entrance score is their only way out of poverty. Thus, more and more attention is given on teaching students to excel in standardized tests. However, in a system like this, students will most likely lose the chance the savor the true purpose of education which is to learn the beauty of the world. To be inspired to innovate and change and not only to conform to the limitations imposed by the system.

This key insight has now given me even more purpose in pursuing the objective of our club to help these students gain access to out-of-box educational opportunities in learning in order to foster their "love for what is beautiful".

Hopefully, our next trip to this school would provide even more insight to problems enveloping the educational system in the Philippines, and help us all find a solution to it!

Thank you all for reading!