austraLasia #2697 Asia's Nobel award to past pupil
MANILA: 21 August 2010 -- This
year’s seven laureates from Bangladesh, China, Japan, and the
Philippines for what is considered Asia's Nobel prize, the Ramon
Magsaysay Award, include an alumnus from high school batch 1975 of Don
Bosco
Technical College in Mandaluyong City. He is Christopher Bernido who
shares the award with his wife Maria Victoria. Both came from
well-to-do families who earned their doctorate degrees in physics from
the State University of New York.
The Philippine-based Ramon Magsaysay Award was
established in 1957 by the trustees of the New York-based Rockefeller
Brothers Fund to commemorate the late Philippine president known for
his “integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and
pragmatic idealism within a democratic society.”
In 1999, husband and wife left their lucrative jobs
in Manila to manage a struggling high school in the poor and faraway
province of Bohol better known for its white-sand beaches and endemic
tiny primate called tarsier. Both respected physicists in the National
Institute of Physics, Christopher and Maria Victoria introduced to poor
students a “revolutionary way of teaching science subjects” they called
the “dynamic learning program.” The “cost-effective strategy” uses
locally available teaching aids, as it was the advocacy of the late
Salesian pioneer in the Philippines Fr. George Schwarz, and limits
teacher participation by devoting 7o% of class time to student-driven
activities “built around clear learning targets, aided by well-designed
learning plans and performance-tracking tools.”
Radical improvement in the performance on national
scholastic aptitude and university admission tests of these poor
students more than pay off the couple’s sacrifice. Through their
“Learning Physics as One Nation” program, the Bernidos are also
addressing the problem of severe shortage of qualified physics teachers
in the country. Their school in the remote town of Jagna in Bohol holds
regular workshops that have attracted not only hundreds of schools all
over the country but even international scientists and Nobel laureates.
By leaving behind his high-paying job, Christopher
Bernido wanted to show that poverty is no excuse to compromise on
teaching and learning excellence. The late Salesian Fr. George Schwarz,
who pioneered in the Philippines the use of local materials to create
instruments to demonstrate the laws of physics especially to poor
people who did not have the resources to return the favor, had the same
dream. He taught the poor that they were not helpless to excel no
matter how limited the available resources were. Fr. George Schwarz
must be rejoicing in the afterlife over such legacy to a past pupil. _________________ AustraLasia is an
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