Peace lessons in public schools

A fellow journalist and friend gave me a copy of the draft of ``Peace Education Teaching Exemplars for Elementary Schools’’ which, she said, will be published as a teaching guide for teachers. She told me that some peace-conscious parents who had read the draft were wondering whether this draft has passed scrutiny and will soon be used for the peace education of their children.

The book project is the joint initiative of the Department of Education (Deped) and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP).

So concerned was this friend that she set a meeting so that she could show me what it was all about. She was worried that the book’s printing seemed imminent. I told her I was not an educator in the strict sense of the word but I have close friends in the Education Revolution and Mentoring for Mentors Program of the Foundation for World Wide People Power whom I could consult.

I promised to go over the draft (which has almost 50 lessons for Grades 1 to 6) with plain common sense and as if I were the pupil myself. The very first lesson for Grade 1 caught my attention. Here it is.



Pamagat: Ang Aking Mag-anak
Aralin: Makabayan (Sibika at Kutura)
Baitang: 1
Mensahe: May mahalagang ginagampanan ang mga kasapi ng isang mag-anak sa pagpapanatili ng kapayapaan sa tahanan.
Takdang Panahon: 60 minuto


I. Layunin:
A. Nasasabi ang kahalagaan ng pagsasagawa ng bahaging dapat gampanan.
B. Natutukoy ang mga salik/elemento sa pagkakaroon ng papayapang tahanan.


II. Nilalaman
A. Paksa: Ang Aking Maganak
B. Peace Concept: Interpersonal skills
C. Kagamitang Panturo: (blank)


III. Pamamaraan
A.Gawain:
Magpakuwento sa mga mag-aaral ng tungkol sa mga tungkulin o gawaing ginagampanan ng bawat miyembro ng kani-kanilang pamilya. Itala ang ilang mga sagot sa pisara.


Halimbawa:
A. Gawain
Tatay: naghahanap buhay
Nanay: namamalengke, nagluluto
Kuya: tumutulong sa paggawa ng assignment
Mag-aaral: tumutulong sa paglilinis ng bahay


B. Pagsusuri…


(More follow…)
The examples in the first salvo (page 1, Grade 1) just jumped at me. I do not mean to question the pedagogic skills of those who made the lesson. But I couldn’t help noticing the sexist slant of the halimbawa or example. The father is the breadwinner and the mother goes to market and cooks.

These are just examples, of course. A gender-sensitive teacher could always redirect the discussion toward a more egalitarian scenario and even stress that the examples given above are not to be the standard for normalcy. But how many teachers would go beyond the examples given if there are no suggestions for them to do so?

How many true stories have I heard about children complaining to their mothers (yes, their mothers) that when they recited and told the class that their fathers cooked and often stayed at home while their mothers went to the office every day, their families were looked upon as special cases or that their examples weren’t too correct?

Right now, I can count at least five married women I know who are main bread winners of their families. Their husbands earn supplementary incomes.

But I also encountered fathers who did so-called mother roles while their wives were abroad working. A couple of years ago I did a series on ``left-behind husbands’’ who had OFW (overseas Filipino worker) wives.

One husband took care of his two young children so conscientiously and his thriving vegetable farm as well. On a typical day, he cooked breakfast, drove the children to school in his owner-type jeep, went home to do work on the farm, did some washing (on scheduled days), cooked and brought hot lunch to his kids in school. He then went home to rest and do some house work. In the afternoon he fetched the kids. On Sundays, he and the kids would attend Mass and then go to a favorite fast-food joint for lunch.

This guy was as masculine as masculine gets and was a respected official in the barangay. His story was included in a book on families of Asian migrant workers.

I could see the value of starting with the family as the first setting where a child should experience peace, equality and justice. But the school’s teaching tools on the subject of peace must be sharp and reality-based.

``The main objective of the exemplars,’’ former Deped secretary Edilberto de Jesus wrote, ``is to expose the learners to life-related classroom experiences which require cooperative efforts and group dynamics in the application and demonstration of peace-building skills and conflict resolutions techniques.’’ This is in line with the government’s peace efforts, he added.

The effort is indeed laudable but there is a small group that wants the book to be reevaluated. These persons, if they have suggestions to improve the book, should get in touch with OPAPP’s Secretary Ging Quintos-Deles, herself a known peace and feminist advocate before she took on the peace post.

Deles said in her message included in the book: ``By institutionalizing peace education through our public school curriculum, we are called to ensure a genuine institutional response by disseminating these modules as well as providing the adequate resources and policy support to enable our public school teachers to carry these through.’’