If I were a student again . . .

The other night I had a bad dream. I was back in high school and was running in the dark hallway looking for my locker. “Where is it?” I started to panic. “Gosh! I’m late. Where are my books? Are there exams today?”

Another thought occurred to me: “No, I haven’t been attending classes lately—or for quite some time.” I didn’t even know where my classroom was. Then a bell rang, loud and persistent. Even the walls seemed to be shaking.

Suddenly I woke up. It was just a dream. Whew! Thanks to the alarm clock! I sighed with relief, “I’m no longer in school!” I had been out of that school for decades!

The nightmares could be a delayed reaction of my mind trying to process the anxiety, stress and pressures accumulated through years of schooling, hidden and squeezed in the layers and lobes of my brain.

“Squeezed” was how it was for us. Squeezed in a room of 50 kids and bags spilling out, squeezed in a school system trying to force two curricula (of the Philippine Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports and Taiwan’s basic education) in a day’s work and squeezed in a long queue to a tiny, smelly washroom. These residual impressions formed in my youth have remained at the back of my mind.

As a professor of educational psychology at the University of the Philippines for a considerable time now, I have frequently looked back to those years with dread. How did we survive? But also, with awe. We did survive, didn’t we?

Hard work and long suffering were instilled in most students in those schools—to look at it from another perspective!

Space

But if I were a pupil again, I would wish for plenty of space to sit comfortably, courtyards for leisurely walks, hallways for thinking freely and rooms to whisper privately.

I would wish students did not have to grab—a seat under the only ceiling fan, a book with only a few copies available and the attention of a teacher in front from the farthest seat in the back of a room full of noisy kids.

I would wish there were enough lockers, washrooms and faucets, bigger canteens, more spacious playgrounds, better equipped laboratories and microscopes for everyone.

How space affects learning

Proxemics is the study of how to use space and how much space one needs to feel comfortable.

It is said that Jonas Salk had been working on the polio vaccine for quite some time in his dark basement in Pittsburgh, without much progress, when he decided to look for another work space. He traveled to Assisi in Italy and stayed in a 13th-century monastery. Walking amid medieval columns and courtyards, insight struck that led to the development of the vaccine. He believed the contemplative surroundings sparked his creativity.

Different degrees of distance mean different levels of intimacy. A distance of 12 feet or more, called “public distance,” is suitable for formal addresses and lectures. Business and transactions can occur in a distance of four to 12 feet, called “social distance.” From 18 inches to 4 feet is “personal distance,” great for friendly conversations—close enough for normal voice and ideal for classrooms.

Less than 18 inches is “intimate distance”—for lovers or wrestlers, where interaction may be by touch and whispers.

In a crowded classroom like mine when I was a kid, students were forced to tolerate the “intimate distance” with seatmates, making us all quite uncomfortable.

Students through the years have drawn a deep line down the middle of the squeaky desk. Or we put a bulky bag between us and our seatmate on the narrow bench to keep us farther apart, even if only by an inch.

There was no space to contemplate or reflect or create anything as worthy as Salk’s polio vaccine, or a novel like “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” The cramped condition, perhaps worse for some schools, is still the scourge of most schools today. Not to speak of public transports!

If I were a pupil again, I would wish we had more time to enjoy the studies—to discuss parallels between historical and current events, to share our feelings about values choices, to try new ways of finding Math solutions, to compose poetry, to mix new colors for artworks, to debate on Rizal versus Bonifacio and to share what our goals were.

I would wish we did not merely memorize regions, capitals, industries and products but had more time to visit a place or try our hands at a craft. That we did not merely enumerate the definitions of “virtues” from the Character Education book, but reflected on life and clarified our values. I would wish teachers were not just interested in our answers in examinations but how we came to the conclusions.

But time was a luxury we did not have. When I was in elementary and high school, our classes started at 7:15 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m., which was, literally, two shifts in one day every day: six or seven subjects for the morning English classes and four or five for the afternoon Chinese classes.

I remember just feeling so tired, slumping on the bed upon reaching home!

How does time affect learning?

It takes time to process learning. Planning, thinking, reading and writing take time.

But if we are merely looking for the correct word for an answer, to parrot the textbook, to do projects as a matter of routine or to submit an essay that does not mean much to the writer or reader, then learning can be sped up.

We learn deeply only when given sufficient time.

Knowledge is not just about memory and comprehension. It is applying learning in our analysis, synthesis and evaluation of ideas, procedures and products. Without enough time, we glance through textbooks, cram for exam and rush our projects. Test answers are forgotten after a day.

Time and space to learn

If we do not fall so easily into the hurried-child syndrome, forcing down new information into students, young and old, in such speed and quantity, they may just get a chance to develop a taste for true learning—enjoying attending, observing, comparing, experimenting and reflecting to savor the beauty of words, the harmony in music, creating their own rhymes and producing their own plays.

By providing time and space, we may help kids build a more positive attitude toward schools, teachers, books, the laboratory, and, yes, even exams.

(E-mail the author at [email protected].)