GMRC and Values Education

IT IS official, we have a new form of values education in the country. In 2013, the Edukasyon sa Pagpapahalaga was changed to Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao (EsP) with the shift to the K to 12 Curriculum. With the recent signing of Republic Act 11476, the government is going back to GMRC and Values Education as terminologies of the subject and with it, a revised curriculum. Let me dissect some of its core ideas.

The declaration of policies declares that “the State recognizes the vital role of the youth in nation-building and promotes and protects their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social well-being. It also recognizes the fundamental role of all educational institutions in the inculcation of patriotism and nationalism, fostering of a love of humanity, respect of human rights, appreciation of the role of modern-day and national heroes in the historical development of the country, teaching the rights and duties of citizenship, strengthening ethical and spiritual values, developing moral character and personal discipline encouraging critical and creative thinking, broadening scientific and technological knowledge, and promoting vocational efficiency.”

So, these ideas serve as the backdrop of forming Values Education (VE) as a subject and as I understood, the reasons why the current Edukasyon sa Pagpapakato educational framework was revised. The previous curriculum was not effective, in short. The physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social well-being form the holistic development of a learner and Values Education addresses all these domains, particularly on moral and spiritual facets. It basically touches all of these aspects but the focus is on the two.

RA 11476 defines VE as the process that provides young people internalization of values which aims at student’s grasp of underlying principles, together with the ability to act with those principles, and the settled disposition to do so. This definition should give GMRC and VE curriculum developers and its framework designers that the lesson and educational experiences of learners in the subject are concentrated in enlightening students the desired moral principles. (What are these principles should be the first question here).

Once the learners imbibed these principles, the learning then should go on to capacitate the learners to apply them on real-life situations, and finally to instill a lasting conviction on the part of the learners that these principles are the things they need in life, not just theories that give them high grades.

Also, it refers to different pedagogies, methods, or programs that teachers and/ or educators use to create learning experiences for students when it comes to valuing process, value positions, and value judgment. Did the GMRC and VE teachers and/or educators utilize a method or a strategy (such as role-playing or journal writing activity) that helps the students judge or analyze their thoughts? Did the strategy or method use to lead the students to be critical of their judgments and decisions? These are assessment questions. VE then is to ensure the efficiency of the methods employed by GMRC and VE teachers.

Finally, it is learning about self and wisdom in life in a self-exploratory, systematic, and scientific way. This is astounding for its depth but it should serve as a guide to the GMRC and VE educators that the subject aims in developing selfawareness and become wiser. This can be done of course by utilizing the appropriate methods highlighted in the second definition.

“Good Manners and Right Conduct (GMRC) refers to certain and particular universally accepted social values and etiquette and/or prop

er modes of behavior that convey respect to those whom one interacts with. With this definition, GMRC must tackle basic moral behaviors (like proper greetings, manifesting respect, and others) that students should learn. The social values and etiquette should be clear on this because we understand that social norms/behaviors vary based on cultural and values orientation.

“GMRC shall be taught from Grade 1 to Grade 6 as a separate subject with the same time allotment as the other core subjects, and shall be integrated with the daily learning activities in the kindergarten level. The Department of Education (DepEd) shall introduce GMRC through clear, distinct, specific, and concrete character-building activities, such as role-playing in the classroom, community-immersion activities, teacher-parent collaborative learning activities, school-initiated values formation activities, simulated activities, and other forms of experiential learning.” The government has enumerated primary methods in educating the learners. Experiential learning is the preferred general strategy to be used.

“GMRC shall inculcate among the students the concept of human dignity, respect for oneself, and giving oneself to others, in the spirit of community, for the effective and holistic development of the decision-making skills of the child. The curriculum shall also focus on the basic tenets of GMRC such as caring for oneself, giving concern for others, according to proper respect to people, upholding discipline and order, cultivating sincerity, honesty, obedience, and above all, love of country.

“Values education shall be taught from Grade 7 to Grade 10 as a separate subject and with the same time allotment as the other core subjects. The subject shall also be delivered using clear, distinct, specific, and concrete character-building activities as prescribed in the immediately preceding subparagraph. At these grade levels, GMRC shall remain integrated into the teaching of Values Education.” It is interesting to see how curriculum developers distinguish the lessons in GMRC and VE. It is clear in this statement that while discussing the lessons designed for high school students, the teachers at the same time must integrate the lessons in GMRC.

In Senior High School, the emphasis is integrating VE lessons. “Values Education shall be integrated into the teaching of the subjects in Grades 11 and 12 under the K to 12 Basic Education Curriculum.” VE is not a subject in Senior High School but the lesson logs or pans, if possible, should reflect the integration of VE lessons.

One of the challenges of curriculum developers and teachers (soon) now is to align the revised curriculum to the objectives of the subject which should anchor on the policies where they were developed and to the definition of GMRC and VE. The important thing here is to give GMRC and VE a distinct face. The subject is not only about teaching the learners proper behaviors. This is broad. GMRC and VE must have a clear direction so that we will have a clear picture of what they will become after mastering the competencies of the subject.