“HUGAS KAMOT”

Music As Memory Aid In Handwashing

Upat! Ayuha paglugod ang kumagko

Four! Clean your thumbs

Have you ever noticed that learning or becoming familiar with a song lyric is easier than remembering the lesson our teachers taught us?

Lima! Nusnuson ang mga tudlo

Five! Interlace and rub your fingers

Our teachers use an array of strategies to help us better understand the lessons they teach. However, by simply sitting somewhere, putting on some headphones, and listening to the melody and rhythm of the song, even without a teacher, we could effortlessly remember the lyrics, grasp its meaning and memorize the entire song.

This is because music interacts with our memory through our emotions, as deduced by emotional arousal theory.

Unom! Apila hasta ang mga kuko

Six! Inlcude your fingernails del Norte (ZN Division) approved this research, realizing the benefit it will give the students, as its results were promising.

This phenomenon led Evanessa V. Jutingo, Neoriente A. Ferrer, and Kent Jestoni Q. Gabo to a moment of “Eureka!” as they incorporated music to the steps in handwashing to strengthen the procedural memory of students in washing their hands, which was later known as “Hugas Kamot” jingle.

The accumulation of procedural memory runs a process by which the result is the automation of motor skills like driving, brushing one’s teeth, and swimming, from which handwashing is closely related.

The jingle, which stands as the innovation of the research project, has now been institutionalized in schools in the ZN Division through the Division Memorandum No. 26 series of 2023.

Schools were mandated to adopt the song by performing the jingles’ actions during the flag ceremony and the preliminary activities conducted for all teaching and non-teaching personnel.

As a nurse, Ferrer declared in an interview his aspiration that this initiative would help DepEd nurses inculcate good hygiene practices among the students in Zamboanga del Norte.

“With this initiative, I am hoping the students in our division will be motivated to do and follow the proper way of washing their hands for everyone to enjoy a safe, healthy, and clean life,” said Ferrer.

Because of this project, UNICEF granted 20,000 pesos to the proponents of the research and 5,000 pesos as a reward for the innovation.

Pito! Apila ang mga pulso

Seven! Include your wrists

Having rhythm and melody as memory aids, Jutingo, Ferrer, and Gabo tried to test whether it could effectively help students gain procedural memory in handwashing through a research dubbed “Rhythm-Melody as Mnemonics: Optimizing Procedural Memory in Handwashing amid a Pandemic.”

The creation of the jingle was a response to the call for research papers under the Wash in School (WinS) research agenda led by United Nations Children’s Fund research (UNICEF), to which Jutingo, Ferrer, and Gabo responded.

Walo! Banlawi human sa kinse sigundos

Eight! Rinse after 15 seconds

The Technical Working Group of the WinS program of the Schools Division of Zamboanga

Moreover, according to Leonido A. Pampilo Jr., Senior Education Program Specialist for Division Planning and Research, this is the first time that an innovation from an action research has been institutionalized in the entire division.

“Usa pa ka-research ang na-institutionalize sa atung division, ang kato pang ‘Hugas Kamot,’ busa gi-encourage naku tanan nga maningkamot ug sulat ug research para mapun-an pani ug para makatabang pata sa atung mga eskwelahan [We only have one research innovation which was institutionalized in our division, and that is the ‘Hugas Kamot.’ I encourage everyone to exert all their efforts to write more research that can help our division],” said Senior Education Program Specialist Pampilo.