The new curriculum

The Department of Education Order (DO) no. 31, series of 2012, describes the new curriculum this way: “The overall design of the Grades 1 to 10 curriculum follows the spiral approach across subjects by building on the same concepts developed in increasing complexity and sophistication starting from grade school. Teachers are expected to use the spiral/progression approach in teaching competencies.”

The first thing to notice about this description is that the spiral approach is used not only for science and math subjects (as often misunderstood) but for all subjects. The second thing to notice is that the spiral approach is used from Grade 1 to Grade 10. This means that the curriculum is not divided into elementary school and high school, the way it used to be. There is now “vertical articulation,” or a seamless progression of competencies from the first grade of elementary school to the last grade of junior high school. (The seamlessness actually continues all the way to the university curriculum, but DO 31 is only about Grades 1 to 10. Future DOs and CHED memorandum orders will take the curriculum all the way to graduate school.)

What is the spiral approach? That virtual genius called Wikipedia compares the approach to the game Twenty Questions; that analogy would have been even better if Wikipedia had used Pinoy Henyo. In both games, we first ask general questions (Human? Male?), before we go into specifics. In the spiral approach, we teach everything at once, but only in the most general terms. As the children get older, we teach more and more details. At the end of their education, the children know everything that needs to be known about a subject or know how to learn whatever still has to be known.

DO 31 specifies the “Desired Outcomes of the Grades 1 to 10 Program”: “The desired outcomes of the Grades 1 to 10 program are defined in terms of expectancies as articulated in the learning standards. In general terms, students are expected at the end of Grade 10 to demonstrate communicative competence; think intelligently, critically and creatively in life situations; make informed and values-based decisions; perform their civic duties; use resources sustainably; and participate actively in artistic and cultural activities and in the promotion of wellness and lifelong fitness.”

That sounds like the goal of all education, all the way up to graduate school, but this is the spiral approach. The goal is the same for Grade 1 students and for sub-sub-specialists in medicine.

Notice the big change in the way DO 31 approaches curriculum design. In the past, it was considered correct to think in terms of what the student should be given (techniques to teach students how to read, how to count, how to brush their teeth, that sort of thing). We used to worry about how to prepare a teacher to teach (get an education degree, pass the licensure exams, publish an article or two). We used to focus on what a teacher planned to do in class, insisting on detailed lesson plans prepared days, even weeks in advance. (Note to DepEd: please start thinking of doing away with routine lesson plans that merely take up time a teacher should devote to reading up on the latest education research.) We used, in short, to worry about the input side of education.

In DO 31, the focus has shifted to output. Following the general outcomes-based trend in education around the world, DO 31 emphasizes what the students can do after ten years of education. Note that we no longer want to test if children can add and subtract, but if they can “make informed and values-based decisions.” That is a bit harder to assess, but there are tools now available precisely for this purpose. (Later in the DO, DepEd does away with numerical grades and mandates a more qualitative system of assessment. That is in keeping with this radical shift from input to output.)

How, exactly, do we know if children are basing their decisions on values (and not just values, but the “right” values)? Following the logic of the spiral approach itself, DO 31 breaks down the general outcomes into specific ones. DO 31 continues: “These general expectancies are expressed in specific terms in the form of content and performance standards.”

DO 31 makes it clear that understanding is now a key product of the curriculum. Yes, this comes from Understanding By Design (UBD), but properly understood as a tool for curriculum design, not for classroom teaching. DO 31 continues: “The content standards define what students are expected to know (knowledge: facts and information), what they should be able to do (process or skills) with what they know, and the meanings or understandings that they construct or make as they process the facts and information. Thus, the content standards answer the question: ‘What do students want to know, be able to do, and understand?’”

Read that last sentence again. The new curriculum is based on what students want to know, not on what teachers, administrators, and adults want them to know. In addition to shifting from input to output, the new curriculum features a shift of focus from teacher to student. (To be continued)