A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

222 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

tribution to the relative needs of different subjects; and the general
problem of discipline.
To consider each of these briefly, the first two may be taken together.
As the schools were observed, there was very little stimulation and direction of pupil initiative. Pupils did what they were assigned to do.
They did not even ask questions. They participated in the work to
the extent of answering questions asked them, or of trying to do so.
When questions were asked by the teacher, there was generally a show
of the hands of more than half of the class signifying a willingness to
answer. In most cases the questions were rather generally well distributed among the members. In a few cases they were limited to
a few children who seemed to be best prepared. This was exceptional
however. If initiative is stimulated and pupils are interested in contributing to the development of the work by outside investigation and
reading, or by bringing to bear their experience or thoughts, the problem
of control of such participation becomes more difficult. As the work
is conducted, however, very few teachers could be estimated in their
ability for this kind of control. An outstanding exception was observed
in two cases in the period for current events in seventh grades. In
these, the pupils practically did all of the work, a guiding word or
question from the teacher being sufficient to control and direct it. What
these two teachers did could probably be done by others if they were
trained for it. In most subjects, this plan would mean altogether more
pupils participation than was observed in most schools.
There is a shortage of reference books, maps, and other teaching
materials in most schools. However, those available are not always
used as fully as they should be. Maps should be used much more
frequently. Blackboards are used about as fully as is possible with
the large amount of their space taken up with assignments. It would
seem desirable to teach children to take more oral assignments and thus
release most of the blackboard space for the use of pupils. In many
schools more blackboard space is needed. More attention should be
given to the use of teaching materials of all kinds as aids in making ideas
meaningful and clear.
Regardless of the time required to cover given units of work assigned
by the course of study or by the teacher in individual lessons, the time
taken was uniform-it was the full program time in an exact number of
minutes. No flexibility in the use of time was observed. If a lesson
was finished before the end of a period the time was occupied in reviewing or restating what had been already accomplished. Teachers should
be privileged to use the time of pupils in the best way to meet their
needs and should be held responsible for doing this rather than in
following slavishly the dictates of a clock and time schedule.