IN THIS SCHOOL in Lingayen town in Pangasinan, storytelling and reading sessions are held for 30 minutes daily in all levels. More importantly, pupils do not compete for grades and no one is given academic honors at the end of the school year.

But the system enables fast learners aged 9 years to complete elementary education, though a few slow learners graduate when they are 13 or 14. The school also frowns on homework.

Margarita Hamada, founder and directress of Harvent School, has veered away from the traditional school system that emphasizes competition and lumps fast and slow learners in one class, often to the detriment of both.

?Our school offers nongraded and competition-free system where pupils do not study for grades and honors, but where they enjoy learning at their own pace,? Hamada says.

Harvent, which has a branch in Dagupan City, is accredited by the Department of Education and has been offering the alternative learning system for 35 years now. It started small in 1975, with children of Hamada?s relatives and friends as the first students.

?When my son was four years old, I looked for a school in the town where I could enroll him, but they all offered the same system I loathed in my school where we had to memorize loads of information,? says Hamada, who obtained her mass communications degree at Maryknoll College (now Miriam College) in Quezon City.

Disappointed, Hamada came up with the idea of establishing her own school. The traditional system, she says, does not recognize individual differences ?so fast and slow learners have to start and finish a grade level at the same time.?

Inhuman system

?The fast learners get bored and unchallenged, while the slow learners get intimidated and frustrated, and flunk, which is detrimental to their self-confidence. I think it?s a very inhuman system,? she says.

The situation led her to open a school that recognizes children?s individual differences and levels of aptitude.

In Harvent, some children can finish a skills level in less than six months, while others need five more times to do so, Hamada says.

She says schools should also establish the students? strength?whether they lean toward the arts, mathematics or other fields.

?Our profile shows that we lean toward the arts. Of the thousands of pupils we have handled, very few love Math. But they enjoy storytelling sessions more, where they are required to write a summary of the story afterwards,? she says.

Among the stories are fairy tales and fables, Greek mythology, folk tales from the Arabian Nights collection, biographies, the Hindu epic ?Ramayana? and ?Mahabharata,? and stories from the Bible.

The reading and storytelling sessions are done alternately. ?When half of the class is being taught basic skills in reading, writing, math and the arts, half is listening to stories or are reading. Then the two groups switch places,? Hamada says.

Teaching, not lecturing

?Our teachers teach; they do not lecture,? she says. ?They teach the basic skills on a one-on-one system of instruction.?

The children, she says, ?learn [but] they do not study. They learn the vital skills of decoding, encoding and reckoning in school. They do not need to copy anything from the blackboard. They won?t fear books and examinations, and resent going to school.?

Harvent?s system emphasizes basic skills over information. ?In other words, it emphasizes learning, not studying or memorizing data,? Hamada says.

She encourages students to share their insights and express their confusion or doubts about their subjects through class discussions and journal writing activities.

Every year, Harvent School publishes ?The Magic Pen,? a magazine that contains unedited written works and drawings of its students.

There is no competition, no reward or punishment in terms of high or low grades in Harvent.

To Hamada, competition is ?a violent game of the immature.?

?Contrary to what [others] say, competition does not foster sportsmanship and harmony. It breeds cheating and hypocrisy and unhappiness. Competition for good grades in school negates the pure joy of learning and paralyzes the child?s vital principles for achievement,? she says.