"Things are bad. We've gone through all of these difficulties but life must go on... What we do now is open our hearts and tell them with a big smile, ‘We will mourn with you, we will walk with you, welcome back to your second home,’" Armin Luistro, secretary of the Department of Education, was reported saying.
The tropical storm, anticipated to hit the country a day or two after it had done so, wrought about P1 billion worth of the country’s infrastructure and agriculture, affected some 65,067 families, and damaged more or less 12,131 houses.
The education secretary maintained, though, that going back to school would help the students—especially the young ones—in the region to get past the tragic event.
"I kept emphasizing there are times when you need a textbook, but this is not the time for that... There's science, there's values, a lot of mathematics that we can learn from Sendong itself [such as] viewing their geohazard maps," Luistro added upon introducing ‘special modules’ for the students who were affected by Sendong.
Luistro also proposed to designate an evacuation center in every municipality so that schools will no longer be the default place for evacuees. His department will also try to ‘restore normalcy’ through building villages for teachers (Brigada Eskwela), and implementing the K-12 program.
The National Association of School Psychologists, a nonpartisan professional organization in America, agrees with him, noting that the community must (1) remain calm and reassuring, (2) acknowledge children’s concern, (3) encourage children to talk about disaster-related events, (4) promote positive coping and problem-solving skills, (5) emphasize resiliency, (6) strengthen peer support, and (7) take care of its own needs.
Pilipina Ako hopes that would really do for now.
"We can't just be reactive to typhoons handle them and work on the status quo. Part of the K+12 program is the quality and the relevance of education to the country today." ~Secretary Armin Luistro, Department of Education
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