A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3:8)
Ukraine may be about 10, 000 kms. but it has been close to my mind for a little more than two years ago, four months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It has become even closer since last week with media images flushed on the Russian invasion that pounded installations in key Ukraine cities and left hundreds of deaths with the casualties’ figures mounting.
In the last quarter of 2019, I was trying to figure out flight connections, fare rates and related details for a summer trip to Ukraine — to thebiggest central city in the country, KhyvyiRih, via Kiev, the state capital.
My two research papers presented in an Asia-Pacific conference in Surabaya, Indonesia earlier had apparently led me to the loop of academe-based researchers that led to an invitation from a top Ukraine state university to be part of the program committee of the international gathering on history and social science education.
As a member of the committee I was tasked to help promote and publicize the conference, invite participants and serve as a peer reviewer for some research papers submitted for presentation.
The invitation led me to establish contacts with a number of Ukrainian professors and scholars particularly the conference chair, Professor Serhiy.
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That committee involvement gave me the opportunity to share my professional insights on proposals covering Communications education curricular development and the public relations program enhancement of a Ukrainian university.
I was also privileged to articulate my views on a paper that detailed the historical and related developments on Communication and Journalism education in Canada which could serve as a fine global example in higher learning.
Sadly, it was a flight to Ukraine that never was as organizers, pushed the schedule back four months later due to the COVID-19 crisis. The conference must have been one of the early international zoom gatherings ever held.
I emailed the professor expressing my concern for him, his family and colleagues right after the outbreak of the invasion reverberated across continents.
I would understand his silence, especially after I read from UKRINFORM, the official state news agency, that people in parts of his city were being evacuated following air strikes on warehouses of government armored brigades.
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I readily thought of Ma’am Rachel Nepangue, a teacher of Rizal Elementary School in Bacolod City, when the International Mother Language Day was celebrated on Feb. 21. Ma’am Rachel has been a constant contact, especially or school-related events since I met her in a Journalism training I conducted for school paper advisers and editors.
Now a fourth grade teacher, she has been an advocate of the teaching of the mother tongue, or the local language or dialect, especially when she was handling grade 2 classes.
UNESCO spearheads the annual celebration, that is focused on the almost 7,150 living languages in the world today, including those spoken in our country.
The event promotes multilingualism and raises awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity. At the same time, it serves as “an opportunity to advocate for the preservation and protection of all languages regardless of their popularity.”
Like other mentors, the RES teacher believes that knowledge and proficiency in the mother tongue “develops schoolchildren’s critical thinking and skills in literacy. It also enhances their personal, social and cultural identity.”
Citing research findings, Ma’am Rachel said that children learning in the mother tongue adapt a better understanding of the curriculum and could express themselves freely and learn better and faster in a language they are familiar with.
At the same time, she said that learners’ anxiety is reduced and a more relaxing environment in created.
Asked on difficulties encountered, she said some pupils who rely on the mother tongue have the tendency to forget and may decrease their capacity to learn other languages, especially English, and, consequently, they will be behind with other learners who are comfortable with English as their medium of instruction.
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A look at difficulties was at the heart of this year’s IMLD observance, which was themed, “Using Technology for Multilingual Learning: challenges and opportunities”.
The pandemic proved to be a seemingly insurmountable barrier for global learners. Technology, however, served as a functional platform that despite the odds, education managed to accomplish its mission with the different modalities it has adopted using among others, the convenience of the new information order.
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It is lamentable that the semantics of cultural diversity and democracy in a rather distant place that has become close to my mind has been silenced by the language of ballistics and missile power.
We need to pray more for the bells of peace and freedom to ring again soon in Ukraine.
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Though I speak in the language of men and of angels but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. (I Corinthians 13:1) – NWI
