SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGICAL: CULTURE MATTERS

POSITION PAPER

The Philippines is a competitive nation in various aspects. Be it in the field of

sports, talents, craftmanship and even in the educational system. It would be seen to
various institutions with their vision and mission that they wanted to produce a ‘globally-
competitive’ individual. By this alone, the objective is clear to the different education
sectors both in the public and the private sector.

By stating so, is the country really making ways to reach this goal and to be
recognized worldwide? If yes, would there be sufficient facilities and globally competent
faculty that would aide learner to this goal? If no, then why does it still becomes part of
the vision and mission? With the statement above, it would lead to a question, why do
we keep on moving forward amidst the global struggles and global demands? And what
would be the essential factor in keeping things in order or in other words, can we
sustain what we have started in our education system.

In the study of the Socio-Anthropological aspect in Education, education is

clearly defined as the pursuit for knowledge and socio-anthropological is the study of
people and its culture. Such, it is inherent for the development of the human person to
be educated or else no advancement and would not be able to understand the reality of
their culture. This only means, in the learning process we must take into consideration
the words our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal stated “Ang sinuman ang hindi marunong
lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararating sa kanyang paroroonan” which
vividly means, our culture and tradition is a vital part of our growth and development as
a person. On a different perspective, we must give importance of who we are as a
person and what we ought to be as persons.

Human Person as we are, we go on stages and while on these stages we

continue to learn and to encounter much of the world. This encounter differs our
perspective to one another. As it differs, it changes of who we are as persons
regardless of our educational background, achievements and the like. As this
continuous change delves upon us, we may be able to lose one important aspect that is
our attitude as person and most importantly in the education sector.

Attitude, attitude, and attitude are the three important things more need by an
educational manager than the teaching, learning and the learners. As far as education
is concerned, there is the phrase that says “learning is reciprocated”. The learners learn
while the teacher learns from his students. First, the attitude of acceptance. That we are
not intellectual gargantua’s – because we must accept the fact that we don’t know all of
the things but it is expected that we should have a sufficient knowledge on our subject
matter. Second, the attitude of humility. As managers we don’t push ourselves to the
dead end – “pipilitin ba naten sagutin kahit hindi tayo sigurado?” that is why, we must
learn to be sorry if we cannot answer the questions of our students but instead giving
ourselves ample time to study more of the subject matter. Third, the attitude of
appreciation. We do not degrade our students because of their wrong answers but
instead redirect and appreciate their answers then leading them to the correct answers.
Thus, learners appreciate learning if we ourselves knows to study our own attitude
towards them.

Yes, I do believe that each school reflects a value system. In other words, each
has a unique characteristic that can be called as “trademark”. It depends on how the
school lives out its vision-mission-goal-and -objectives. There is no difference between
the private and public schools when it come to this trademark. It is due to the culture
and the value – system the school is implementing.

If I would critique an existing curricular offering in the school, it would be the

research integration for the grade 10 learners. Based from experience, the quality of
research papers of these learners where raw by nature. “Hindi pa hinog pero pinilit nang
pitasin”. I would justify this by stating the teacher factor. As a teacher you wanted the
best outcomes coming from your students but if you fail as a teacher to transfer
knowledge the tendency was to force the students to submit papers which are for
submission or for the sake of passing or complying only without any other learnings
learn.
Submitted by: Wennie B. Aquino