“A Good Education Begins At Home” – Those Teachers Say. “GMRC Begins In Grade School” – This Teacher Says

Allow me to say first that I was educated to be a teacher – BS Ag Edu, UP Los Baños, 1965, weighted average 2.36. I have been engaged in teaching high school students at the Asingan High School in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, and college students at UPLB and Xavier University College of Agriculture. I passed the Civil Service exam for teachers at its first offering, in 1964: 80.6%. The next year, I was #2 with 90.5% in the qualifying exam for Pangasinan teachers, where #1 was 90.6% (female, from UP Diliman).

The above quote says completely (shared on Facebook Sunday, 24 March 2024, by Virginia Barraquio):

A good Education begins at Home. You cannot blame a school for not nurturing values in your child that you have not instilled.

I teacher disagree!

I say:

Teachers, especially for the elementary grades, go to school to teach children how, among other things, to behave. Parents are not necessarily taught how to teach their children good manners and right conduct (GMRC) because their own parents may not have learned GMRC themselves! (And no, the Catholic priest does not require parental knowledge in GMRC to marry people.) Among other things, it is the duty of the teacher to teach GMRC to the children!

Lei Sison says “'Magic Words Like Please and Thank You' Must Be Learned at Home, Say Education Professionals” (2019, Smart Parenting, smartparenting.com.ph). “It's important to teach kids good values even before they start schooling.”

Yes, the parents must teach their children good manners like saying “Please” and “Thank you” but incidences to do so are few and limited. In contrast, from Grade 1 to Grade 10, there is much interaction among the children and teacher and, therefore, the teacher is the most likely (liable) to teach GMRC!

From Canada, ANN says (Author Not Named, 2019, LegalLine.ca, legalline.ca):

Ontario’s Education Act is the main law that governs how public school education is delivered. Section 0.1(2) of the Act states that “the purpose of education is to provide students with the opportunity to realize their potential and develop into highly skilled, knowledgeable, caring citizens who contribute to their society.”

Read again about the purpose of education – for children “to realize their potential” and “to develop into … caring citizens.”

Don’t tell this citizen of the Philippines that the teachers of Canada know more about the basics of educating the children than teachers in my country!

Instead of the parents, the Grade teachers in any country have more time spent with the children during regular days and, therefore, owe more the young ones to teach them not only reading & writing & arithmetic but GMRC!

Now, here is a 4-year old Philippine law about GMRC (Supreme Court E-Library, elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph): Republic Act 11476, “An Act Institutionalizing Good Manners And Right Conduct And Values Education In The K To 12 Curriculum, Appropriating Funds Therefor, And For Other Purposes,” which was passed 25 June 2020.

Now then, a good education begins in Grade School, not at Home!@517