As a mother of three children (two of whom are school-aged and will enroll in the coming school year), I wish to give feedback on the Department of Education’s Araling Panlipunan revised curriculum for Grade 10. Under this curriculum, it will be taught that there are a number of genders that students must learn to respect — a concept that is unscientifically founded yet is being pushed as truth in many ways already as it is.
While I agree that respecting people from all walks of life must be taught in schools, I do wonder why schoolchildren must — in the same breath — be taught concepts from gender theory/ideology. This is not the time for them to be formed in ideologies because, at this stage in their education, children must be taught facts, values, and skills.
Inserting gender theory concepts, however subtly, into the lessons of schoolchildren is detrimental to society as it sows confusion — not to mention distress—in the youth. Wouldn’t it be better to teach values without ideology, so that our schoolchildren can grow up confident that their education was not a social experiment done to them?
Let’s leave these ideologies out of our classrooms and instead respect the rights of our children to be taught what they came to school for: A proper education that molds them into dutiful citizens with moral character and personal discipline.
NICOLE BAUTISTA
Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines, Inc.