By Crizalyn Mae S. Asiong
Man will be knocked down occasionally and get discouraged if adverse events happen in his life. This is because man is not perfect and is prone to facing adversity. James Allen in his article “If You Can’t Climb the Wall, Build a Door” said that adversities strike anyone without warning, a truth that the walls of adversity confront both the wise and the foolish; the learned and the unlearned; the rich and the poor; the young and the old; and those of every race, creed, and color. It also confronts groups or individuals from a simple family to prominent organizations including the educational institutions of today. In addition, challenges are part of living, and we choose how to respond. Sometime it will be senseless, unfair, painful, and beyond our capability to prevent them. However, such problems come into our lives for a reason. In every adversity, we encounter, we learn lessons from it. The more difficult the adversities, the more valuable are the lessons learned from them.
As we exist in this world, we face different conflicts, issues and concerns. Across the world, we witness widening economic disparities; rapid population growth; widespread environmental degradation; climate change; civil strife and armed conflict; political turmoil; sickness; poverty and what is worst, total value deterioration.
When 2020 started, the world was appalled due to the pandemic caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Many facets of education have been significantly impacted by COVID-19. Some of the most affected in the educational system are the school managemers, parents and learners.
Such alarming situations in the last few months of this year caused many changes in the educational system. These included curriculum decongestion, technological revolution; scarcity of school resources; mental depression of stakeholders, problems on learning modalities, parents’ misconception on blended learning, etcetera. Each of these brought about hardships to almost everyone..
As the recognized front liners in the educational system, teachers, school heads and parents have a lot of responsibilities and accountabilities. Their roles are critical to the system’s development and academic growth of the learners, and the evolution of ideas among them, which is very important as they are the driving force that sustain the welfare of the system.
The adversities that the system and the processes involved therein are multi-faceted and require a lot of mental work to deal with, resulting in the intellectual development of those who are involved. Lessons are learned and new thinking processes are used and refined.
In sum, all the challenges and adversities can only result in progress. Not only among the learners but also among the teachers, parents and other stakeholders. How we harness such, is dependent on our resilience or the capacity to appreciate and absorb the positive and valuable fruits only adversity can bring forth.
It might take time though for us to see such in our present situation as we are still pre-occupied with the painful effects of this pandemic.**
