Teaching with Art in the New Normal

As a teacher and school administrator who had to rapidly shift and adapt to the effects of the CoVID19 pandemic to education; I had personally experienced the many challenges our school community faced. May difficulties arose from the sudden shift to remote learning – from lacking infrastructure, and technology, to student depression and anxiety, to poor school performance for both faculty and students – everyone was certainly reeling from the effects of the pandemic.

In the Philippines, our students are among the world who have had to stay home from without face-to-face learning. Many schools continued to work with different methods and materials to cope with this up until the end of 2021, and will likely still need to adopt a hybrid set up for the long months ahead.

Through these experiences, I have seen the power of what the arts can bring to our Filipino school curricula – not just in arts-based subjects, but in others as well. In my discussion at this year’s EDUtech Asia Conference, I share how our school used the arts to adapt to this new normal, in the hopes that many other schools and educators might find value in our approach and adopt a similar solution.

Certainly, arts education deserves a stronger place in our schools. In light of how much the landscape of education has changed in just the span of two short years, it surely brings what the students, teachers, community and the curriculum need the most; flexibility, agency, engagement and therapy.

If you would like to learn more about how art education can help students, please read more about ARTguro Philippines and consider to lend a hand in improving education for Filipinos.

©2022 Cathy Lasam Ballo. All rights reserved.