‘THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY’: FIlipino Teacher’s After-School Program Cited By UNESCO

For Marco Meduranda, a teacher, today's generation of learners should “think globally and act locally” to become better citizens of the world and not just their country.

Meduranda launched school Project GLACE (Global Learning through Active Citizenship Education), which was initially an offshoot of Meduranda's application project for the Korea-Philippines Teacher Exchange Program. He was among the 13 Filipino teachers selected by the Department of Education (DepEd) for a teacher exchange training in Seoul, South Korea in 2018.

The project was fully implemented last school year 2019 to 2020 in nine public secondary schools in the Division of Navotas, involving 27 teachers and 354 learners from Grades 9 to 12.  The program was conducted beginning the fourth week of June 2019 until the first week of March 2020. 

Through the project, Meduranda proved how teachers in the Philippines could implement good educational practices and provide experiences that promote global citizenship education (GCED).

GCED, as defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “aims to empower learners of all ages to assume active roles, both locally and globally, in building more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and secure societies.”

Project GLACE was recognized by the UNESCO's Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) in South Korea on July 2 as one of this year's five best GCED practices globally. The other four selected programs by UNESCO came from Albania, Brazil, Burundi, and Sri Lanka.

“The award that we received from UNESCO validates our work, and it really pushes us to do more. It's a significant milestone that boosts our confidence in the structure of the project," Meduranda told The Philippine STAR / One News PH on July 10.

"I'm so happy that it was recognized, supported, and valued," he said.

According to Meduranda, Project GLACE has three main components - the after-school learning sessions that are done for the first five weeks, and then off-campus intercultural visits, and the community outreach to enhance the students’ global citizenship skills from the sixth to 10th week of the project.

He noted that these components made the students more aware and immersed in social and global issues as well as community engagement.

The learning sessions cover themes or topics per week about GCED, including social justice and equity, identity and diversity, self-awareness and reflection, concern for the environment and commitment to sustainable development, and commitment to participation and inclusion.

"We would want to propagate or popularize this after-school program, this GCED so that they will see that it has really made an impact on the learners," Meduranda said. 

Meaningful knowledge, experiences

Meduranda shared that one of the significant successes of the after-school program is the active citizenship education it instilled in the learners. Based on their focus group discussions, students viewed the project as “generally excellent.”

Angel Anne Caranto, a Grade 10 student of Navotas National High School (NNHS) in Navotas City, joined Project GLACE in 2019 through an invitation from her English teacher. But she said she was initially hesitant to participating since she was not into extra-curricular activities.

"When I got introduced to Project GLACE, it piqued my interest. At first, I did have hesitations as I am not the type of person who is very active in joining organizations. But after joining, I had zero regrets," she noted in an interview.

One of the activities she enjoyed the most was when they visited the Indonesian embassy in Makati City on Oct. 3, 2019 to learn about the Southeast Asian country's culture and tradition. This was part of the off-campus intercultural visits, community engagement and service learning projects.

"They gave us the opportunity to make ‘batik,’ an Indonesian technique of dyeing fabrics using wax, and we had so much fun," Caranto said.

Aside from the intercultural education activities, Caranto added that the learning sessions that introduced them to GCED topics helped her become an "active citizen" in their community, just like what the project is targeting to make of its participants.

"By means of this project, I had many realizations, and I have come to the conclusion that I have yet to learn so much more things. The benefits I received through this project were the knowledge I gained and the experiences I will treasure," she said. 

Caranto pointed out Project GLACE deserved UNESCO’s recognition given the knowledge she obtained and her experiences as one of the program’s learners.

"As a student who participated in this project, I am very much honored and happy with this recognition. And as someone who personally underwent the amazing journey Project GLACE has given me, I can most definitely say that it deserves the recognition," Caranto said.

Authenticity

One of the reasons cited by UNESCO in recognizing Project GLACE was its authenticity, according to Edmundo Jose Ternida, who teaches the English subject to Grade 9 students at the NNHS for seven years. Ternida is one of the project implementers in the school.

"This project is not for learning only. This project aims to give back to the community," said Ternida, who previously worked with Meduranda in a program called “Project YSTAR (Youth for Social Transformation through Action Research),” a three-month program that involved students in community-based action research in 2017.

After the learning sessions are conducted, Ternida said the final output required from them is a community initiative or service-learning projects in Navotas, such as a literacy outreach program for special education students and coastal clean-up drives.

"The students nowadays have that commitment to make a difference, that's why they really take a stand on issues, they really want to know what's happening. They basically want their voices to be heard," he said.

NNHS had four teachers that served as school-based implementers of the program – two from the English department, which included Ternida, and the other two from social studies.

Together with other educators selected to handle GLACE classes, they underwent a three-day teacher training on transformative pedagogies and GCED lesson designing workshops during the project's pre-implementation phase.

Despite the added responsibilities during that time, Ternida said the program introduced him to a different avenue of teaching that he enjoyed throughout its execution. "Every session is very informative and educational, and I carry it over in my class."

Ternida and the other three teachers at NNHS conduct the GLACE after-school sessions every Thursday to students who were selected based on their willingness to finish the project, academic standing, and parental support and consent. At the time, Grade 10 students were scheduled to attend the GLACE classes in the morning while Grade 9 students joined in the afternoon.

He was also delighted knowing that the project was feted by UNESCO. "I'm very proud. The fact that I'm one of the implementers in the school. It gives me a different sense of fulfillment."

Project GLACE 2.0

With the project’s success during its first year of implementation, Meduranda said they decided to continue it for the upcoming school year 2021 to 2022 amid the new normal in the education sector.

“We want to see how this will transcend into a different landscape – distance learning. If we successfully made it during face-to-face classes, we can also do that in a distance learning platform,” he said.

Meduranda added that the same GCED themes will be covered by Project GLACE 2.0, but it will utilize a blended learning modality that includes synchronous sessions and asynchronous self-learning modules on GCED. 

The nine public secondary high schools will still participate in the program. These schools are NNHS, San Roque National High School, Bangkulasi Senior High School, San Rafael Technological and Vocational High School, Tangos National High School, Tanza National High School, Kaunlaran High School, Navotas Science High School, and Filemon T. Lizan Senior High School.

According to Meduranda, the project continuation will still cater to Grade 9 to 12 students, but it will also expand the program by engaging students from the Alternative Learning System in Navotas.

“Project GLACE is about providing opportunities for learners who have the willingness, capability, that level of support,” he said.

The Project GLACE 2.0 is expected to be implemented in the last week of September or the first week of October 2021.