ADDU HISflex classroom (photo by Igy Catrillo)

[An Open Letter of Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J., President, 4 April 2022]

To Our Students, Prospective Students, and Our Parents:

Before the COVID 19 pandemic, there were other pandemics.  When the COVID 19 pandemic finally ends, there will still be pandemics.  It is certain: more pandemics will come.  Uncertain is only how transmissible and how lethal they will be. 

Before the COVID 19 pandemic, there were wars and the upheavals that war brings.  When the COVID 19 pandemic finally ends, there will still be wars.  The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the East and the West, the North and the South, Iraq and Iran, Jerusalem and Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the USA and China and North Korea point to this sad reality.  The world organization created to eliminate war, unfortunately, has failed.   

Before the COVID 19 pandemic, there was the struggle of our planet to survive the ravages of global warming due to carbon emissions. When the COVID 19 pandemic finally ends, this struggle will continue, punishing both those who heed it and ignore it with unprecedented extreme weather occurrences, unprecedented destruction due to typhoons and hurricanes, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, burning forests, flooded coastal cities, increasing temperatures killing agriculture on parched soil.   Climate change promises to bring more global upheaval and suffering than the COVID 19 pandemic did.

Before the COVID 19 situation, there were upheavals in our historical, social, and political landscape in our People's struggle towards freedom and prosperity for all without exception.  When the COVID 19 pandemic finally ends, this struggle will continue demanding from each intelligence, knowledge, insight, commitment, sacrifice and cooperation unto a shared common good.

Before the COVID 19 pandemic, the fourth industrial revolution had begun. When the COVID 19 pandemic finally ends, the fourth industrial revolution will continue to upend old modes of production. It will replace tired manners of consumption, change the rhythms of everyday work, alter the universe of goods and services, and transform the ways of exchange and the worlds of finance.  To produce today to respond to increasing human consumption, we are beyond just harnessing steam, electricity, and computers and information technology.  Industry is integrating complex systems of electronically-automated systems of production using data science and artificial intelligence to become more efficient and responsive to (or exploitative of) current human "needs" – themselves created by the revolution.  Integral to this upheaval is the communications revolution giving people access to quick information and knowledge, but also to propaganda and wholesale disinformation.

Education had to change

Already before the COVID 19 pandemic, it was clear to educators that education had to change.  The classroom setup, which over centuries had equipped students with sufficient knowledge, skills, and disciplines for a lifetime career, had to be redesigned. Rich libraries, expensive laboratories, and a dominating – if not eccentrically domineering – teacher needed to be rethought and updated.  The 4th industrial revolution was sounding the death knell to many repetitive professions, even as it created hundreds of thousands of new jobs that were not on the lists of academic concentrations. 

Meanwhile, more and more people gained access to the benefits of basic and higher learning, debunking the idea that higher education was a privilege for the wealthy and not a right for all.  More and more educators began to see the benefits that the computers and smartphones in the context of the increasingly available internet could bring to people desiring education. Higher education could be democratized.  In time, prestigious institutions of learning began making their precious courses available to all free of charge online.  Whole collections of classical literature and scientific knowledge were put online.  So too everyday information about history, science, cultures, religions, and sacred books were made available.  "Google" was redefined as a verb used in the imperative.  If you had a question, "google it!"  Short courses on the Bible, archeology, politics, economics, dance, potting plants, and even – as was recently made clear to us – on how to make Molotov cocktails to repel invading Russians were available on YouTube.  Technology is now an inextricable part of the way people educate themselves today. 

ADDU HISflex classroom (photo by Igy Catrillo)

Hybrid-Blended Learning at ADDU

When ADDU declares it looks forward to a future of hybrid blended learning, this is the context.  The world has outgrown what the old face-to-face classroom with its single teacher dominating the learning experience of his or her students and leading him or her to the security of a single profession.  It has outgrown the comfort of the student in expecting a good grade for regurgitating what the teacher has taught in the classroom – all questions on content not taken up in class totally "unfair." The world is now much larger than that classroom; the teacher only one among a host of other possible teachers online to enrich the students' learning experience, the learning resources much richer than the school's library collection and the re-hashed handouts the "experienced" teacher has used over generations of students.  And while ADDU continues to affirm the validity and imperative of the student working hard to gain the knowledge, skills and competencies of a recognized and regulated profession, the student today must also learn that the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world must be engaged beyond that profession.  See what AI – artificial intelligence - can do to the call center agent or entrepreneur and 3D printing to the traditional civil engineer!

The pandemic gave us a vivid experience of how a virus can cause volatile upheavals in our society, knocking out our economy, causing death-dealing crises in our health systems, because of the uncertain nature of the virus, the untested method of responding to it and the complexity of how it is to be responded to using protocols that were scientifically ambiguous.  We are in a vuca world.  That volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity will be no different with future pandemics or with future crises brought about by wars and the conflicts among nations, the real effects of climate change, the socio-political national landscape, or by the 4th industrial revolution.  Filipinos fishing in Philippine waters can cause an international conflagration. 

21st Century Skills in a VUCA World

To meet the challenges of the 21st century, our basic education must deliver foundational literacies - verbal literacy, numeracy, scientific literacy, ICT literacy, financial and cultural literacy.  In the hybrid-blended learning of our higher education, beyond the professional disciplines our students must learn, our students must be exercised in critical thinking (not just in the way that their teacher prescribes), in creativity (not just in acceptable and legitimate forms of creativity), in communication skills (which have them communicating in the languages of their age that the teacher may not be literate in) and in collaboration (with partners in learning who may become partners in a variety of projects in life).  They must be able to deal with the farmers of South Cotabato and fishermen of Sulu, but also with the government officials of the BARMM, the national officials of the Philippines, and even with representatives of the Organization of Islamic States.

They must learn to whet and satisfy their own curiosity (and not just wait for a teacher to do this), to exercise initiative (not possible if a teacher is always directing this), to develop grit and persistence (not possible if they're always telling themselves they're about to have a mental breakdown), to be adaptable (not possible if they are fixated on only one mode of educational delivery, if they whine and complain if things are different from what they want or expect), exercise leadership (that is different from dominance) and social and cultural awareness (not possible if they are not accepting of often unsettling diversity). 

Collaborative Online International Learning

In all this the technology will allow the students to benefit from collaborative online international learning (COIL) – with student counterparts or internationally-known experts in their disciplines or in other disciplines coming from foreign countries in the hybrid blended-learning classroom.  We have already begun this in some courses through our ADDU Internationalization for Mindanao (AIM) office.  What we have learned is that COIL is not new.  It has been practiced in many universities since 2009.  Looking forward, COIL is not a substitute for but a complement to international global learning.  A face-to-face encounter with counterpart students in a trip to Korea, Indonesia or Singapore is prepared for and followed up by online encounters – making possible personal contacts for life. 

In basic education, there is an attempt to reach out to the global network of Jesuit schools. We are beginning to bring to our learners' (and teachers') consciousness the need to be formed as "Global citizens." They are those who actively seek ways to deepen their awareness of their roles and responsibility in an increasingly interconnected world. They are those who uphold solidarity (and fraternity) with others in the pursuit of caring for our common home and building a humane humanity. The main vehicle for this global effort is the Educate Magis – Jesuit global network of schools.

Technology-Enhanced Skills for Life-Long Learning

Finally, in hybrid-blended learning the student will become familiar with and have gained skills in the technology that enables lifelong learning.  As stated above, frontloading enough knowledge and skills in one course is no longer sufficient for life in the 21st century.  One needs continually to be able to learn more on one's own in response to changing conditions in a vuca world.  But "on one's own" doesn't mean alone.  Through the technology of online or blended learning one can connect to the lifelong learning offerings on one's alma mater where personal learning is complemented by faculty coaching.  Or one can connect to the adult-learning programs of countless other Universities.  One can gain new degrees in order to enhance one's resume (e.g. the master's and doctoral degrees desired by many working professionals for career advancement) or focus on particular skills or competencies (like expertise in renewable energy or in basic education) that can be accomplished through bite-sized chunks in a busy world.

HISFlex at ADDU Compatible with Socialization

At Ateneo de Davao University we have opted to use a Hybrid Implementation Strategy using the FLEX modality of blended learning (HISFlex).  For our HISFlex classes, we privilege the courses whose content needs face-to-face learning, e.g., courses in engineering, the natural sciences and physical education.  Unto this end, fifty of our classrooms and 29 of our laboratories have been retrofitted for HISFlex classes for SY 2022-23 at an appreciable cost of PHP 50 million.  In future years we will retrofit more classrooms in higher and basic education as our budget allows.

While HISFlex classes and online instruction can adjust to different ALERT levels of the COVID 19 pandemic which the current COVID situations in China and other ASEAN countries insist is not yet over (indeed, experts are already predicting that after the elections the pandemic will surge!), when the pandemic is finally over, it is clear that hybrid-blended learning is compatible with students meeting and interacting face-to-face normally on campus - having fun with one another, studying together in groups, interacting in student organizations, engaging together in outreach activities, singing and dancing!  The student activities led by the Samahan Central Board, the annual Fiesta, the College Days, the organized outreach activities, the pakighinabi, the Viewfinder, the daily Masses, the Christmas parties, the face-to-face graduations will all return. 

Ongoing Implementation of the ADDU Vision and Mission

Hybrid blended learning is a technologically-enhanced manner of instructional delivery. It is an improved way of delivering instruction today.  It is offered by ADDU in a VUCA world still in the context of the implementation of the university Vision and Mission.  It, therefore, needs to be complemented by appropriate Catholic and Jesuit formation as well as formation in freedom for leadership and service in Mindanao.  The Ignatian Spirituality and Formation Office will continue to provide vital and age-appropriate institutional interventions towards the appropriation by all of the values and methods of Ignatian Spirituality, especially through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the practice of Ignatian discernment.  Here, students, administrators, staff members and students build up one another as each individual comes to a deeper encounter with and following of the Lord.  This occurs not only in the very personal sphere of interior freedom in discerning and doing his will, but also in the external sphere of the actual promotion of social justice for Mindanao.  As our Mission entails, this includes especially service to the Bangsamoro and the BARMM as well as to Lumad communities.  It includes the protection and promotion of the environment in Mindanao.  It includes courageous interventions for peace and the human prosperity that peace brings.  It entails the peculiar formation in leadership for social justice particularly in Mindanao that our vision and mission demand (ADDU sui generis leadership).  

In the pandemic experience, however, we have learned that what seemed to be possible in spiritual formation and spiritual encounters with the Lord and one another only face to face is now also possible through fully online or hybrid encounters.

Because our graduate is our most precious gift to society, to respond to a VUCA world, we undertake to form a graduate who is steady in a volatile situation, sure of him/herself and of his/her gifts and resources when things are uncertain, cool and analytical when things are complex, and skilled in clarifying issues when things are ambiguous.  More profoundly, we undertake to form a graduate strong in the faith, imbued with hope, discerning, and wise - committed in wisdom to implement God's will as discerned – no matter what the future may bring.

"Take courage," the Lord said, "It is I. Do not be afraid" (cf. Mt. 14: 22-27, esp. 27).

In Our Lord,

Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J.
President

ADDU HISflex classroom (photo by Igy Catrillo)