Last whimper of the humanities?

By John Anthony S. Estolloso

The next school year will see the implementation of the strengthened Senior High curriculum. The new curricular program clumps together the more or less 15 core subjects into five courses. General maths and sciences are categorized into two generic subjects, with the intention of decongesting the curriculum and directing more focus on specialized courses; the same plight goes for languages and the humanities. The rest are relegated as ‘clusters of electives’.

At the onset of the Senior High program in 2016, its curriculum offered a smattering, if not too comprehensive selection, of core humanities subjects: a cursory exploration of Culture, Society, and Politics, a dip into Filipino Contemporary Literature and Arts, and a brief introduction to Philosophy, accompanied by the inevitable PE classes, the activities of which are usually left to the discretion of the institution.

In all appearances, the goal of these academic offerings has always stayed true to the essence of the humanities: to equip students, regardless of intended track or career path, with a reflective and critical understanding of the human persona and his place and role in the world.

Now, DepEd seemingly condensed these into one subject: Philippine History and Society, the description of which, to give a rough and poor translation, stipulates the ‘deepening and enrichment of historical, national, and social consciousness to strengthen and support civic competence that is important to a responsible citizen of the country and the world.’

Lofty words, lofty intentions. As always, the question is: how well would this be implemented?

Back in 2023, when DepEd hinted on merging MAPEH subjects (which are essentially the humanities) with Social Studies, the proposal was met with online derision and criticism, with memes and reels abounding on social media about dancing the history lesson to other inanities reflective of the inability to see the integrated fields of knowledge constituting the social sciences.

The reception and response reveal three things: we have encaged Social Studies in a fixed lens, our teachers are not ready to break out of this cage, and we are facing the possibility of graduates deprived of any in-depth exposure to the humanities.

Then again, we have always been taught Social Studies the political way: names of conquerors, despots, and freedom fighters, dates and locations of battles or assemblies, government positions – these take precedence. In our textbooks, where are the writers, artists, sculptors, thespians, and dancers? Amid the carnage, oppression, and struggle, who wrote about these in paeans of verse and prose? Who memorialized these in song, stone, and script? Why are their names consigned to the footnotes?

For the study of history and its corollaries are not merely about dates, names, places, or the sheer politics which intersperse between these. The cultural treasures and accomplishments definitive of the times are more indicative of how we understand ourselves as a nation. It just goes to show that we have implemented a curriculum that values simple recall more than understanding, resulting to lack of appreciation nor any social consciousness at all.

Perhaps our teachers are likewise handicapped on content. That they cannot see connections between the social sciences and the humanities provides an alarming picture of academic compartmentalization, revealing that our teachers cannot find integrations between bodies of knowledge.

But all knowledge is integrated. A discerning musician understands the physics and nuances of the performance hall to get the best acoustics. To know how nuclear fission in a missile works does not suffice: one must also question the ethicality and moral implication of making that weapon of mass destruction in the first place. Knowing the names and biographical details of our national heroes is empty if we cannot weigh their heroics against their culpabilities.

Relegate all these to electives and what do we expect from our graduates? Here now, when the nation is scrambling up from the dismal results of literacy, numeracy, and creative tests comes the depreciation of the very subjects that were supposed to address the issue. Here in this moment when values are critiqued and questioned if they still make sense, we make optional the academic space where these could be properly discussed. Here in a time when one can still prevalently hear the phrase, ‘There is no money in the arts,’ and AI wreaks havoc among our creatives, we downgrade the subjects supposed to encourage the creative impulse and critical thinking among young Filipinos.

It would appear that the strengthened curriculum is in fact weakened by depriving the very soul that provides education is humanizing aspects. If haphazardly implemented, heaven forbid we end up with scientific automatons schooled in equations and data but depleted in finding the humane and transcendent in these.

Would this be the finale for the humanities in our basic education – to reference T.S. Eliot, ‘not with a bang but a whimper’?

(The writer is a language and literature teacher in one of the private schools of the city.)