Aside from educating a child in his or her first language also known as mother tongue and upgrading teacher skills, updating the enhanced basic education curriculum in a constitutional republic is fundamental to raise up good citizens that are also lifelong learners with topnotch skills that match the demands of the world of work that is unpredictable and rapidly changing in the 21st century (Marope,Amadio, Opertti, Ji,Brylinski, What makes a quality curriculum? March, 2016, No.2 IBE/2016/WP/CD/02) The curriculum update must have enough room for teachers to conduct critical thinking maneuvers that nurture higher order thinking for students to be clever critical thinkers to sidestep scams, fake news and historical revisionism.

Curriculum is “always part of a selective tradition, someone’s selection, and someone’s vision of the knowledge that needs to be taught to everyone,” says Prof. Michael Apple,of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It is time for Dep Ed to rectify the sloppy presentation of our nation’s history to cure the cognitive amnesia of our society.

Dep Ed should be bold enough to bare the truth in Araling Panlipunan that oligarchic Filipinos living in barangays in the three major islands, were not cavemen when Magellan set foot in Mactan in 1521 and that Europeans used evangelization to hide their real intent-gaining worldly riches, under the concept of terra nullius embodied in the three papal bulls that sanctified the doctrine of discovery ; instead of singularity of events, let there be a wholistic aggregate approach showing the time line of the PH revolt against Spain and the deceit of the Americans at the Treaty of Paris that led to the PH-US war; that aspirations to become the 51st state of the US was smashed because Americans believed that Pacific Negroes would just aggravate the negro problem they already had in the mainland; that the 1925 Monroe report already pointed out that the problem of the PH education system is the use of English as language of instruction and poor teacher training; that there never was a golden era from 1965 to February 1986 and end romanticizing poverty by a test of one’s resilience.

The study of the 1987 Constitution is to be included in the curriculum. In particular the objectives written in Sec 3(2) Art XIV are to be integrated in it. In addition, RA 10533 requires the enhanced basic education curriculum to be learner centered, inclusive, and culture-sensitive using spiral progression pedagogical approaches that are constructivist, inquiry-based, reflective, collaborative and integrative; adheres to the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education; and flexible enough to be localized. (Section 6 RA 10533). (Critical and creative thinking is required by Section 3 par (2) Art XIV of the 1987 Constitution).

Given that there are only 203 school days in a school year( RA 11480) , curriculum developers are faced with two dichotomies: should the curriculum be WIDE and THIN or NARROW and DEEP? Should the discussion focus on experiences HERE or THERE?

Those favoring BREADTH reflect the old saying, “throw enough mud on the wall, and some of it is bound to stick.” This view recognizes that not everything that is taught is learned. Bombarding students with information is still a worthwhile effort because they will remember at least some of it.

Those favoring DEPTH follow the maxim,” less is more.” Alfred North Whitehead asserted that dumping vast amounts of information on students is counterproductive because humans were not mentally equipped to handle a great deal of random “inert knowledge.” The young, he advised, need to study in great DEPTH a relatively few really powerful ideas that encompass and explain major aspects of human experience.

Educators who think that individuals learn by connecting new information to personally meaningful experiences believe in starting each student’s learning “here”: where the student is, cognitively, socially, physically, and experientially. E.g. Grade 2 student studying “society and family” would learn more by starting at home, looking at their own families’ behaviors.

The “there” adherents, in contrast, would teach the same topic to Grade 2 students in the US, Israel and ancient Greece- places far away from children’s own experiences or present knowledge. The stress is on the subject, not the learners, and do not consider how learners can find the subject meaningful and useful.

Regardless of one’s preference in these dichotomies, what is important is for the curriculum to provide enough space to develop critical thinking skills so that no matter how appealing scams, fake news and historical revisionism are packaged, the next generation will spot the deception, reject it outright and condemn its authors.

Atty. Magi Gunigundo is a former lawmaker, civil law instructor, and author of law books. He is also an education reformer and an advocate of anticipatory governance.