Masters of Science Education

Here's an article to inspire everyone who wants to be one. Six science educators were honored by DOST for lifetime achievement in science education last September 26, 2008. The article from Philippine Daiy Inquirer reads:

Masters of science education
By Queena Lee-ChuaPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 07:53:00 09/29/2008

Last Friday at the Manila Hotel, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) honored six individuals for lifetime achievement in science education. As members of the 50 Men and Women of Science, they are evidence that Filipino teachers are among the world’s best.

The two mathematics awardees, whom I am honored to call mentors and friends, are excellent not just in math but in other fields as well. Two other awardees are engineers, and two are biologists.

Mathematics

Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, S.J., completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy in the early 1960s at Berchmans College in Cebu City. He studied for his graduate degrees in math at Stanford University in California from 1965 to 1970.

He cemented ties with Southeast Asian educators to develop math and science in the region, and spearheaded a network of universities that focused on these areas. The chair of a technical panel of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Fr. Nebres also headed a World Bank-Department of Science and Technology project and directed a Department of Education team to strengthen basic education in the poorest towns in the country.

Known for his advocacy of social and political causes, Fr. Nebres worked in conscientization programs at the Ateneo de Manila University in the 1970s, including those of alternative groups during the martial law regime. As provincial superior of the Jesuits in the 1980s, he supported church efforts in the years before and after the 1986 Edsa Revolution to restore democracy.
Fr. Nebres became president of Xavier University in Mindanao in 1990, and of Ateneo in 1993. He forged links with business, as board member of Metro Pacific and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company. An academician of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Fr. Nebres was given honorary degrees by the University of the Philippines (UP) and De La Salle University (DLSU).

Milagros Ibe is proof that math and English are complementary. In 1953, she graduated summa cum laude from Quezon College, with a bachelor’s degree in education, major in math, and graduated magna cum laude a year later, major in English. Ibe chose math as her life path, and received master’s degrees from UP Diliman and the University of Toronto in the 1960s, where she also got her doctorate.

“I have been a teacher since 1953, a researcher since 1964, an academician since 1972, and an administrator since 1990,” Ibe says. She taught at UP for more than ten years, and became vice chancellor for academic affairs and director of the Institute for Science and Math Education (ISMED). Since 1999 until her retirement last year, she was dean of the Miriam College Graduate School.

Now she is a consultant for the Professional Regulation Commission, the Science Education Institute and ABS-CBN Foundation. A trustee of the Philippine Science High School (PSHS) and the Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education (FUSE), Ibe has received several education awards from Bato-Balani Publications, the National Research Council, and Metrobank Foundation.

Engineering

Reynaldo Vea graduated magna cum laude in engineering from UP in 1978. Three years later, he got a master’s degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A Fulbright-Hays scholar, he got his doctorate at the University of California Berkeley.

A former panel chair in CHED, Vea was dean of the UP College of Engineering. In the mid-1990s, he became administrator of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System. A NAST academician, Vea received the ASEAN Engineering Award in 2003. He is now the president of the Mapua Institute of Technology.

Paulino Tan whizzed through his studies. Graduating from DLSU in 1967 with a degree in chemical engineering, he immediately went for graduate studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, where he received a master’s degree in two years, and a doctorate in another two.
He rapidly ascended the academic ladder at DLSU. He became chair of the chemical engineering department, then associate dean of the College of Engineering, vice president for academic affairs, and executive vice president. In 1991, he became president of the Asia Pacific College.
Tan also works in industry and government. A consultant in information technology for Shoemart, he is also a trustee of the Far Eastern University and Lyceum Institute of Technology.

Biology

Dolores Hernandez was born to be a teacher. A cum laude graduate of general science and health education from UP in 1948, she taught at Iloilo High School and UP Preparatory School. She received master’s degrees from UP and Southern Illinois University, and a doctorate from Indiana University.

Hernandez taught at the UP for more than 20 years and became ISMED director. In the 1980s, she also headed the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Educational Innovation and Technology. She received the first Jean Jacques Rousseau World Award for Education in Sweden in 1985. In 2000, her student, US-based biologist Baldomero Olivera, named a seashell “Turris Dollvae” in her honor.

Josette Biyo graduated with a degree in biological sciences from UP Visayas in 1979. Ten years later, she received graduate degrees, with distinction, from DLSU where she taught for a while.
But her heart remained in her hometown. In 1995, she started teaching advanced biology at the PSHS-Western Visayas, becoming in 2006 the school director.

Biyo is best known for her 2002 Intel Excellence in Teaching Award, besting 4,000 science teachers all over the world. The first Asian teacher to win the award, Biyo had a minor planet named in her honor. She also received the Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award, the Presidential Medal of Merit, The Outstanding Young Men Award, and the Metrobank Outstanding Teacher Award.

I thank DOST for naming me Outstanding Science Communicator, thus I had the privilege of sharing the stage with these icons last week. I marvel at their creativity and dedication, and I hope that other science educators will follow in their footsteps.