The Department of Education once again drew criticisms after posting a flawed music lesson video.
In a video posted on DepEd’s YouTube channel last December, a teacher named Eujan Abracia was discussing rhythmic patterns for a virtual music class.
However, the teacher committed an error when she was demonstrating how to read and clap rhythmic patterns in different time signatures.
Abracia taught students to clap four times instead of counting four beats and clapping once to represent the whole note.
Moreover, she erroneously pronounced the 4/4 time signature as “four-fourths,” rather than “four-four.”
The music has since been deleted after it gained traction online.
Prior to deletion, some online users managed to make copies of it and shared it across social media to criticize and correct it.
As a music major & a music teacher, I am disappointed on how #DepEd teaches music on live television.
Like, come on, that’s not how you clap half notes and whole notes! 😤
Why do this, DepEd? Our kids our getting wrong info. :((#DepEdMusic pic.twitter.com/tnJTGIjTPa
— Zeik-kun (@YoZeik) January 2, 2021
Twitter user Joseph Tinio who goes by the Twitter handle @sephtinio shared an audio clip of himself reading musical notes to correct Abracia’s error.
The notes are to be held based on the TIME value or # of beats (quarter = 1, half = 2, whole = 4). See vid for the explanation
Also four-fourths? FOUR-FOUR! Di yan math! Di yan fraction!
Minor subject na nga ang MAPEH, maliit pa tingin sa mga subtopics na nakapaloob dito? pic.twitter.com/k1j27qTbcD
— Joseph Tinio (@sephtinio) January 2, 2021
In the same Twitter thread, Tinio lamented the continued struggles of teachers of subjects of Music, PE and Health or MAPEH.
“Some of the teachers who teach Music are not really music graduates. Imagine letting a nurse do a heart surgery just because they are in the same (medical) field,” he said.
Another user @ismolmaroon, who introduced himself as a health major, echoed this view and noted how difficult it is for educators to teach the entire MAPEH as a whole.
“As a Health Major (not MAPEH) na mawawalan ng choice but to teach the whole MAPEH subject ay sobrang hirap. We should really start looking into teaching its subunits separately and not collectively,” the user said.
The user further criticized the education department for providing flawed teaching materials to its official instructors to teach in its video modules.
“Sobrang laking dagok para sa mga guro at sa mga nais maging guro ang mga kritisismo na natatanggap ng institusyon pagdating sa laman o paraan ng pagtuturo. Pero sana ay maalala natin na ang bawat guro ay lumalaban para sa kapakanan at sa pagkatuto ng kanyang mga mag-aaral,” the user wrote.
Another Twitter lamented how the education sector neglects MAPEH.
“MAPEH is really a neglected subject in the field, with few counts that majors this subject. It is tend to give to the newbies or other teachers though it is not their major,” the user said.
DepEd to review learning modules
While DepEd has yet to issue response to these criticisms, the agency said it will implement a more effective evaluation process for its self-learning modules (SLMs) that will be used for the third and fourth quarters of the school year.
The DepEd Order no. 001, series of 2021 released January 4 indicates that all SLMs that private and public entities will submit shall undergo evaluation conducted by the DepEd Central.
DepEd Central will implement a pass-fall method where a 100% means that a module was approved and conditionally approved for those with 61 to 99%.
The module is considered “fail” if it received 60% and below score.
In the past months, particularly during the first weeks of the distance learning, DepEd had also been in hot water for the glaring blunders of its learning modules. These include errors in spelling, grammar, mathematics and even in the module instructions.
This prompted the education department to launch a “bayanihan” campaign that encouraged the public to report mistakes in the learning materials they produced.
