TEACHING CONCEPT OF RESPECT

VIRGILIO NAVARRO GUINTO, JR.

The Department of Education is reminding teachers in schools to take every opportunity to teach their students the concept of respect.

According to Secretary Leonor Briones, this is imperative with the ever-changing environment most learners are now exposed to.

Briones said we should teach respect and consideration for others who are not necessarily like us.

In the DepEd circular, she noted that it is specified to instill among learners respect when it comes to various issues such as gender, religion, food, and race – among others.

Supposing a learner asks about a particular person’s behavior, statement, or opinion, teachers should “go back to respect.” Briones said teachers can tell the learner that he or she does “not have to necessarily agree” with the other person but to “respect” that person’s belief in various issues, instead.

Briones also underscored the importance of imparting among learners the concept of “global citizenship” and “respect for people who are not like us.”

Learners should be able to learn how to identify and respect differences as prejudice is not only religion, gender, the kind of food that we eat, the color of our skin, or the country that we come from.

Meanwhile, DepEd is conducting the Harmonized Gender and Development Guidelines (HGDG) workshop for training program developers and implementers starting next month.

Briones, in DepEd memo 104 series of 2018, said that the HGDG workshop aims to “develop a better understanding of the HGDG as an “analysis tool in integrating gender equality and addressing gender issues in training programs.”

DepEd— through the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP) – is conducting the said three-day workshop by batch to “capacitate program/ implementers in the use of HGDG in assessing gender-responsiveness in training programs, projects, and activities (PPAs).”

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The author is Teacher III at Sta. Cruz Elementary School, Masantol, Pampanga