Reader's Views: On K-12 Program, Bro. Armin Luistro Secretary of Education Department of Education Pasig City, Metro Manila

Dear Sir:

I am writing this letter to raise my concern and opposition to the implementation of K to 12 Curriculum. I am Roy C. Codilla, Araling Panlipunan teacher of Mabolo National High School, Cebu City.

These are as follows:

1. That teaching for Araling Panlipunan under the new curriculum is a tailored teaching. It is described as tailored teaching in a sense where someone other than the teacher himself perform his official function, usurp his exclusive prerogative and render him generally useless in the teaching-learning process. A teacher cannot be a teacher if he cannot prepare his own lesson plan, determine his lesson objectives, chose his own topic, select and utilize references at his convenient, and employ means and methods in his discretion by which to accomplish his task. In the same manner that a doctor cannot be a doctor if someone other than him decides the way he treat his patient. We are in a situation where an Araling Panlipunan teacher cannot use his intellectual faculty while in the performance of his professional duty. However, he is utilized as convenient vehicle to deliver the finished product to the students. This is a mockery of the teaching profession of the highest order.

2. That under the tailored teaching scheme, we have the Tailor, the Agent, and the Students. The Tailor, which is the program designer prepares practically everything necessary for teaching. The Agent, which is a classroom teacher is tasked to deliver it. The Agent upon doing his task cannot swing to the left or to the right but to deliver the Tailors’ teaching straight to the students taking into consideration the presents of communist in many sectors of our society, it is incumbent upon the Tailor to appear in public, identify themselves, and state their purpose to avoid speculation that some of them belong to a leftist organization, and That their goal is to transform our education slowly but consistently into a Marxist-Leninist oriented education in the same way China, Russia, North Korea and Cuba run their education program.

3. That as a classroom teacher, it is our duty to be vigilant and ready, and whenever necessary confront them if they want DepEd a battleground for ideological conflict.

4. That K to 12 Curriculum offends the spirit of Magna Carta for Public School Teacher. Section 12 of RA 4670 provides; Teachers shall enjoy academic freedom in the discharge of their professional duties, particularly with regards to teaching and classroom methods.

5. That K to 12 Curriculum violate teachers’ constitutional right on academic freedom worse that UBD. What is academic freedom? In one of the Supreme Court decision, the court said; Academic freedom is freedom to teach. What does freedom to teach include? Freedom to teach includes right to choose the subject and the method by which the subject is to be taught.

6. That K to 12 Curriculum cannot stand on its leg when challenge in court on constitutional ground.

Respectfully yours,

Roy C. Codilla

Aral Pan Teacher