WHEN THE THOMASITES and religious missionaries first ventured to educate Igorots, they taught them their ABCs by using things American—A is for apple, B for bread, C for chocolate and so on.
But local educators have been encouraged to make their ABCs or “abakada” (alphabet) as indigenous as “aladog” (a migratory bird), “batog” (stonewall or riprap wall) and “cowat” or “kowat” (an edible mushroom).
The interest in “indigenized education” began in 2000 or even earlier. That was when indigenous peoples—along with their traditions, knowledge systems and practices—were officially recognized through the 1997 Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (Ipra).
But how much indigenized education have pupils and students in the Cordillera been getting? Not much yet, local educators admit.
“The success of our indigenization efforts depends largely on the initiative and capacity of the individual teacher to at least localize or contextualize his or her lessons,” says Macarthy Malanes, acting principal of Tuba Central National High School in Benguet. The school has 302 students.
In teaching history, for example, Malanes says the teacher can incorporate the history of Tuba, Benguet or the Cordillera in discussions.
“Since much of our local histories remain unwritten, the initiative of the teacher to research additional teaching material is a plus,” he says.
Indigenization is a must to the other subjects as well—English, mathematics, science, technology and livelihood education (formerly practical arts), and arts and music.
“Whether we are teaching English or science, the key is giving local examples which students can relate with,” says Malanes.
Community immersion
In Itogon, a mining town in Benguet, Alejo Pacalso Memorial National High School may yet be one of the few schools making a dent in indigenized education. The school is home to 520 students.
Aida Payang, its principal, takes pride in how her teachers have blazed trails in indigenizing their lessons.
The school’s social studies teacher, Edgar Tomino, for example, has been encouraging his students to “immerse themselves in the community” to research about their local heroes and other historical events, which remain undocumented.
“It pays to have a teacher like Mr. Tomino, who comes from the community and who has the passion for action-research,” says Payang.
Tomino guides students about the art of interviewing elders and other community leaders and about taking notes. With his role as facilitator, Tomino is actually teaching his students about the discipline of basic research, says Payang.
After their community immersion, the students are required to submit written reports, which they also present in class. The school then compiles the reports as part of its documentation of unwritten local history.
Teachers of other subjects such as English and music have been doing similar initiatives. These teachers, along with their students, have documented on tape their interviews with elders, who shared about local legends, folklore, chants and songs.
“It would have been excellent if we have the capacity to also use video or film to document all these,” says Payang.
In teaching science, being in Itogon, a mining town, is an added advantage. “In teaching about the different kinds of rocks, for example, our students can get from their community sufficient samples,” says Payang.
Some overage freshmen and sophomore (15- to 16-year-olds) who double as small-scale miners on weekends can easily understand lessons in earth science, particularly about mineralized rocks.
“Our small-scale miner students could even teach us something we don’t know,” says Payang.
Challenges
One challenge that Payang and her teachers have to face is the diverse origins of their students.
As a mining town, Itogon had attracted migrant workers from other provinces since the 1960s. “So one challenge is how to let children of lowlander parents appreciate the indigenized education intended for upland children,” says Payang.
She says this requires teachers to be keen about lowland culture and sensitivities and help students appreciate their commonality and the richness of their diversity.
For Malanes, a challenge is how teachers can sustain efforts at indigenization despite changes in focus of curriculum being handed down by the Department of Education.
The DepEd’s focus now, for example, is anchored on the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which are directed at reducing poverty. For the DepEd, the challenge is how to make education help reduce poverty.
For an MDG-oriented curriculum, the DepEd has advised teachers to change their approach, one of which is that they don’t need to prepare lesson plans. They instead must follow a syllabus, which is geared toward producing “functionally literate Filipinos.”
“We are being encouraged to teach our subjects in a way that students can immediately apply them if they intend to work after high school,” says Malanes.
So for their technology and livelihood education, for example, students can be trained to repair mobile phones, operate and troubleshoot computers, and other technical skills that can equip them for possible livelihood options in case they skip college.
Losing focus
With such change and shift in focus in the country’s education, teachers seem to lose their focus on earlier thrusts such as indigenization, says Malanes.
But again, much depends on the initiative and imagination of the individual teacher to integrate indigenization with the MDG-oriented curriculum, he says.
He cites as an example the Igorots’ age-old engineering skill of building riprap walls and terraces, which is hardly being passed on to young Igorots but which can be encouraged in schools.
Malanes also suggests that the “best practices” of schools making breakthroughs in indigenization be documented—either in film, written or other forms—so these can become benchmarks or models for other schools.
Joseph Gaganos, social studies education supervisor for Benguet, agrees. “There are various efforts of different schools in indigenizing their curriculum, but we have yet to monitor and evaluate where they have succeeded and where they need to improve,” he says.
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