A Compendium of Selected Readings

EDLM 716 EDUCATION IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY

A COMPENDIUM OF SELECTED READINGS

Compiled by Prof. June R. Dumanhug

TO THE READERS

The

selected

readings,

classroom use only.

compendium.

which

are

copied

online

and

copied

from

books,

are

for

The compiler has no intention of selling the information in this

AUSTEN

VISION & MISSION

PNU- Mindanao shall become an internationally recognized and nationally responsive teacher education university specializing in multicultural education.

To support the vision, PNU-Mindanao shall 1.Institute quality and culturally responsive teacher education programs; 2.Produce innovative teachers, education leaders and research scholars; 3.Conduct quality researches to improve its curricular programs to meet the felt needs of the mainstream and the marginalized sectors of the community; 4. Undertake local and global partnership, and extension services with the varied sectors of the community; and Generate teacher - enhancement programs and materials sensitive to context and culture.

01 - 03

Basic Concepts on Multicultural Education 04 - 05

Transforming Myself to Transform my School 05 - 06

Coping with Complexity in the Classroom 06 - 09 The Dynamics of Educational Reforms in the Philippine Basic and Higher Education Sectors 10 - 15 Inclusion 16 - 26 Faculty and Student Teachers ‘Voices’ in Developing a Multicultural Teacher Education Curriculum Using a Collaborative- Participatory Approach

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BASIC CONCEPTS IN MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

The Challenge of Defining "Multicultural Education” Since its earliest conceptualizations in the 1960s, multicultural education has evolved both in theory and in practice. It is rare that any two classroom teachers or education scholars will share the same definition for multicultural education. As with any dialogue on education, individuals tend to mold concepts to fit their particular contexts and disciplines.

Some discuss multicultural education as a shift in curriculum, perhaps as simple as adding new and diverse materials and perspectives to be more inclusive of traditionally underrepresented groups. Others talk about classroom climate issues or teaching styles. Still others focus on institutional and systemic issues such as tracking, standardized testing, or funding discrepancies. Some go farther still, insisting on education change as part of a larger societal transformation in which we more closely explore and criticize the oppressive foundations of the world around us and how education serves to maintain the status quo -- foundations such as white supremacy, global socioeconomic conditions, and exploitation.

Despite differing conceptualizations of multicultural education (some of which will be laid out more fully below), several shared ideals provide a basis for its understanding. While some focus on individual students or teachers, and others are much more "macro" in scope, these ideals are all, at their roots, about transformation: Every student must have an equal opportunity to achieve to her or his full potential.

Every student must be prepared to competently participate in an increasingly intercultural society.

Teachers must be prepared to effectively facilitate learning for every individual student, no matter how culturally similar or different from her- or himself.

Education must become more fully student-centered and inclusive of the voices and experiences of the students.

Educators, activists, and others must take a more active role in reexamining all educational practices and how they affect the learning of all students: assessment methods, pedagogies, school psychology and counseling practices, educational materials and textbooks, and so on.

While it is important to develop a deeper understanding of the various models of multicultural education and where these points fit into them, I feel it is equally important that I, as the site author, equip the user with my own working definition.

II. A Working Definition of Multicultural Education Multicultural education is a progressive approach for transforming education that holistically critiques and responds to discriminatory policies and practices in education. It is grounded in ideals of social justice, education equity, critical pedagogy, and a dedication to providing educational experiences in which all students reach their full potentials as learners and as socially aware and active beings, locally, nationally, and globally. Multicultural education acknowledges that schools are essential to laying the foundation for the transformation of society and the elimination of injustice.

The underlying goal of multicultural education is to affect social change.

The pathway toward this goal incorporates three strands of transformation: 1. the transformation of self; 2. the transformation of schools and schooling; and 3. the transformation of society.

1. The Transformation of Self As an educator, I have a dual responsibility to engage in a critical and continual process to examine how my socializations and biases inform my teaching and thus affect the educational experiences of my students. I have a responsibility to myself to examine the lenses through which I understand the people and happenings around me. Only when I have a sense for how my own perceptions are developed in relation to my life experiences will I begin to understand the world and effectively navigate my relationships with the people around me. I also have a responsibility to my students to work toward eliminating my prejudices, examining who is (and is not) being reached by my teaching, and relearning how my identity affects their learning experiences. To be an effective multicultural educator I must be in a constant process of self-examination and transformation.

2. The Transformation of Schools and Schooling Multicultural education calls for a critical examination of all aspects of schooling. Aspects of multicultural school transformation include the following: Student-Centered Pedagogy The experiences of students must be brought to the fore in the classroom, making learning active, interactive, relevant, and engaging.

Traditional teaching approaches and pedagogical models must be deconstructed to examine how they contribute to and support institutional systems of oppression.

Known oppressive practices like tracking (even if informal) must be exposed and critically examined.

All aspects of teaching and learning in schools must be refocused on, and rededicated to, the students themselves instead of standardized test scores and school rankings.

Emphasis should be placed on critical thinking, learning skills, and deep social awareness as well as facts and figures.

Pedagogy must provide all students with the opportunity to reach their potential as learners.

Multicultural Curriculum All curricula must be analyzed for accuracy and completeness.

All subjects must be presented from diverse perspectives -- this is related to accuracy and completeness.

"Inclusive curriculum" also means including the voices of the students in the classroom.

Concepts such as "the canon" and "classic literature" must be interrogated, again with the idea of accuracy and completeness, to debunk perceptions such as that the only "great literature" came from the U.S. and Great Britain.

1

Inclusive Educational Media and Materials Educational materials should be inclusive of diverse voices and perspectives.

Students must be encouraged to think critically about materials and media: Whose voices are they hearing? Whose voices are they not hearing? Why did that company produce that film? What is the bias this author may bring to her or his writing?

Supportive School and Classroom Climate Teachers must be better prepared to foster a positive classroom climate for all students.

Overall school cultures must be examined closely to determine how they might be cycling and supporting oppressive societal conditions.

Administrative hierarchies in schools must be examined to assess whether they produce positive teaching environments for all teachers.

Continual Evaluation and Assessment Educators and education researchers must continue to examine the emphasis on standardized test scores and develop more just alternatives for measuring student "achievement," "ability," or "potential."

Continuing evaluation must be in place to measure the success of new and existing programs meant to provide more opportunities to groups traditionally and presently underrepresented in colleges and universities.

3. The Transformation of Society Ultimately, the goal of multicultural education is to contribute to the transformation of society and to the application and maintenance of social justice and equity. This stands to reason, as the transformation of schools necessarily transforms a society that puts so much stock in educational attainment, degrees, and test scores. In fact, it is particularly this competitive, market-centric hegemony underlying the dominant mentality of the United States (and increasingly, with the "help" of the United States, the world) that multicultural education aims to challenge, shake, expose, and critique. This is precisely the reason that it is not enough to continue working within an ailing, oppressive, and outdated system to make changes, when the problems in education are themselves symptoms of a system that continues to be controlled by the economic elite. One does not need to study education too closely to recognize that schools consistently provide continuing privilege to the privileged and continuing struggle for the struggling with very little hope of upward mobility. "Informal" tracking, standardized testing, discrepancies in the quality of schools within and across regions, and other practices remain from the industrial-age model of schools. Only the terminology has changed -- and the practices are not quite as overt.

Educators, educational theorists, researchers, activists, and everyone else must continue to practice and apply multicultural teaching and learning principles both inside and out of the classroom. We must not allow the knowledge that the vast majority of schools are well-intentioned lead us to assume that our schools are immune to the oppression and inequity of society. We must ask the unaskable questions. We must explore and deconstruct structures of power and privilege that maintain the status quo.

In a sense, multicultural education uses the transformation of self and school as a metaphor and point of departure for the transformation of society.

Ultimately, social justice and equity in schools can, and should, mean social justice and equity in society. Only then will the purpose of multicultural education be fully achieve

Gorski, P. (2010) The Challenge of Defining "Multicultural Education". Retrieved from http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html

Multicultural Education: Approaches, Dimensions and Principles

Four Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform

The Contributions Approach This approach reflects the least amount of involvement in multicultural education approaches. This is incorporated by selecting books and activities that celebrate holidays, heroes, and special events from various cultures. For example, spending time reading about Dr. Martin Luther King in January is a common practice that falls into this category. In this approach, culturally diverse books and issues are not specified as part of the curriculum (Banks, 1999).

The Additive Approach In this approach content, concepts, themes, and perspectives are added to the curriculum without changing its basic structure. This involves incorporating literature by and about people from diverse cultures into the mainstream curriculum without changing the curriculum. For example, examining the perspective of a Native American about Thanksgiving would be adding cultural diversity to the traditional view of Thanksgiving. However, this approach does not necessarily transform thinking (Banks, 1999).

The Transformation Approach This approach actually changes the structure of the curriculum and encourages students to view concepts, issues, themes, and problems from several ethnic perspectives and points of view. For example, a unit on Thanksgiving would become an entire unit exploring cultural conflict. This type of instruction involves critical thinking and involves a consideration of diversity as a basic premise (Banks, 1999).

The Social Action Approach This approach combines the transformation approach with activities to strive for social change. Students are not only instructed to understand and question social issues, but to also do something about important about it. For example, after participating in a unit about recent immigrants to North America, students may write letters to senators, Congress, and newspaper editors to express their opinions about new policies (Banks, 1999).

Banks, J.A. (1999). An Introduction to Multicultural Education (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

2

Diversity and Life-Long, Life-Wide, and Life-Deep Learning The changes around the world caused by globalization and worldwide immigration are significantly influencing education in the U.S. and in other nations. Students educated in Western nations such as the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and France must compete for jobs with people educated in nations such as India, China, and Pakistan. Technology enables companies to outsource jobs from wealthy Western nations to poorer Asian nations where labor is considerably cheaper (Friedman, 2005).

Globalization moves jobs, people, products, and ideas across nations. Although nationalism is strong and national borders are as tight as ever, globalization challenges national borders because of its influence on trade, technology, jobs, and the rights of people who participate in global population movements (Banks et al., 2005). Individuals who live in nations that are members of the European Union, for example, have certain rights that all European nations must recognize. Similarly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights codifies human rights that should be extended to all people in the world, regardless of the nation in which they live (Osler, 2005).

Globalization and worldwide immigration have also increased the racial, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity in U.S. schools and in schools around the world. The U.S. has been diverse since its founding. When Europeans arrived in America, Native American groups spoke a variety of languages and had rich and diverse cultures. The arrival of Europeans and Africans from many different nations and cultures further enriched racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity in America. When the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, the U.S. annexed territory in the Southwest under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Consequently, many people of Hispanic and indigenous background were added to the U.S. population. Immigration peaked in the U.S. near the beginning of the 20th century. Today, the U.S. is experiencing its largest influx of immigrants since the early 20th century.

Globalization, global job competition, and the digital world in which students are socialized make it imperative for educators to rethink the conventional aims and means of education for all students, including those from majority and minority groups. Theoretical and empirical evidence indicates that there is a significant lag between education in the public schools and the digital technology and culture in which students today are deeply involved (Mahiri, 2004). The schools are not keeping up with the digital age in which students live and participate.

Schools in the United States and around the world face challenges and opportunities when trying to respond to the problems wrought by increasing diversity and international migration in ways consistent with their democratic ideologies and declarations. There is a wide gap between the democratic ideals in Western nations such as the United States and the daily educational experiences of non-mainstream groups in their schools. Non-mainstream students in the U.S. as well as in Western European nations such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands often experience discrimination and marginalization in school and society because of their cultural, language, and behavioral differences (Banks, 2004; Luchtenberg, 2004).

What Is Learning That Is Life-Long, Life-Wide, and Life-Deep?

Life-long learning refers to the acquisition of fundamental behaviors (e.g., walking and recognizing faces) and realworld information (e.g., objects fall when dropped, steeper inclines require more exertion than gradual ones).

Learning that extends from our childhood into old age includes all the ways we manage interpersonal sociability, reflect our belief systems, and orient to new experiences. Most of the time, such learning is intuited, “picked up,” and unconscious.

Life-long learning may conjure up specific kinds of information that relate primarily to career choices and the practical needs of daily living. As learners have gained all these sorts of information, they have also developed particular skills on which effective and satisfying performance depends. Generally, learners prefer to seek out information and acquire ways of doing things because they are motivated to do so by their interests, curiosity, pleasure, and sense that they have talents to support a move toward certain kinds of tasks and challenges.

Whether learning to play the banjo, build wooden boats, or whip up a perfect chocolate cake, learners take in information and techniques through observing, trying, testing, and finding satisfaction. Orientation toward these efforts begins in infancy and continues into old age.

3

Diversity...

Life-wide learning involves a breadth of experiences, guides, and locations and includes core issues such as adversity, comfort, and support in our lives. It takes in everything from knowing as a seven year old how to say no to chocolate cake at a friend’s birthday party without explaining your allergy to learning how to predict traffic patterns on a busy freeway. It tells an individual where an open parking space might be in a crowded town center and helps her figure out how to regroup if her wallet is stolen during a vacation in an unfamiliar city. This learning carries individuals through adaptation to new situations, ranging from unfamiliar terms and instructions on tax forms to relocation from one apartment complex to another.

Negotiating human relationships, health maintenance, household budget management, and employment changes reminds learners that the wider the reach of their sets of skills, the better life runs. An individual needs only to face a plumbing problem during a holiday, misunderstand the fine print of an insurance policy, or puzzle over an unexpected credit rating to see the need for broad general know-how. If individuals cannot take care of these issues themselves, they at least want to know how to find someone they can trust either to do these tasks for them or to help them learn how to do them.

Life-deep learning embraces religious, moral, ethical, and social values that guide what people believe, how they act, and how they judge themselves and others. Fundamental in such learning is language. The symbol- making and processing capacity of humans is one of the most remarkable of human traits, underlying what they think and do and many of the ways they learn. People have to learn how to use all that comes with the gift of language in their roles: as child, parent, religious instructor or mentor, tenant, neighbor, employee, and public citizen. Each of these roles requires more than a single way of talking or a single medium of presentation.

LIFE-WIDE LEARNING Experience in management of ourselves and others, of time and space, and of unexpected circumstances, turns of events, and crises. This learning brings skill and attitudinal frames for adaptation. Here we figure out how to adapt, to transport knowledge and skills gained in one situation to another, and to transform direct experience into strategies and tactics for future use.

LIFE-DEEP LEARNING Beliefs, values, ideologies, and orientations to life. Life-deep learning scaffolds all our ways of approaching challenges and undergoing change. Religious, moral, ethical, and social learning bring life-deep learning that enables us to guide our actions, judge ourselves and others, and express to ourselves and others how we feel and what we believe.

Banks, J. A., et al (2007). Learning Life slc.org/docs/Banks_etal-LIFE-Diversity-Report.pdf

Report.

Retrieved

from

http://life-

IN A NUTSHELL

LIFE-LONG LEARNING Language and interactional strategies that determine orientations toward engaging one’s body and mind in learning. This learning begins in our earliest experiences of play, physical activity, and opportunities to plan and carry out ideas and work projects alone and with others. This learning shapes our foundation for curiosity, eagerness, communication, and persistence in continuing to learn and to keep on learning.

3

TRANSFORMING MYSELF TO TRANSFORM MY SCHOOL

Multicultural education must be a transformational process; that is, it must be a process through which all aspects of education are examined and critiqued and rebuilt on ideals of equity and social justice. Most people who identify with multicultural education as an important process for improving education for all students agree that transformation--large scale change--is needed in curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and other aspects of schools and schooling.

A majority of multicultural education courses and workshops focus on these pieces of the education puzzle.

Most multicultural educators would also agree that some level of self-reflection and self-critique are important. But even those who are willing to fully engage in a discussion about curriculum transformation are often resistant to a discussion about self-change, or self-transformation, at the same level or depth.

One reason for this is that it is extremely difficult work to be selfcritical and to open oneself up to the level of outside critique necessary for transformation. Just as my attempts at curriculum transformation must begin with a reconsideration of whose voices are being heard and not being heard and whose perspectives are being valued or not valued, all with an initial and constant focus on equity, my transformation of self must begin with a reconsideration and examination of everything I carry into the classroom with me-my value system, prejudices, biases, assumptions, pre-service experience, preferred learning styles, experiences as a student, etc.--and how these ensure, or interfere with, an equitable learning community for all students. This is a daunting, scary, exhausting process.

But even more daunting, scary, and exhausting is the realization that no matter how liberal and open and accepting I fancy myself to be, I, like everyone else, have prejudices, biases, and assumptions, and these prejudices, biases, and assumptions inform my teaching and my interactions with students as well as the ways in which my students and colleagues experience me. The intimidation factor of this process is intensified by the fact that I am already being critiqued through standards and tests and assessments by a system that seems to depersonalize teaching. I am already vulnerable to administrators, supervisors, parents, colleagues, national and local standards, and even my students. At the end of the day, it is often difficult to also answer to myself.

Another contextual factor that makes the process of selftransformation difficult is that I am constantly bombarded with messages that I should be "color blind" or that I should "treat all kids alike." Some people even suggest that by discussing prejudices and discrimination or different forms of oppression like racism or sexism, I am actually contributing to, or causing, the oppression itself. After all, we are teachers. We like kids.

We want our students to achieve and succeed. I cannot possibly have a prejudice or take ownership of a bias because having a prejudice or a bias means that I must be a bad teacher.

But I disagree. I know that I have prejudices and biases, and failing to address them or challenge myself to think more critically about my role and its complexities in relation to those prejudices would constrain me--would, in effect, make it impossible for me to be the most effective educator I can be for all of my students.

The next question, then, is how to engage in this process of selftransformation. What are some entry points? What are some concrete things I can do or think about?

Through my own reflection and critique, I developed a list of ten critical and self-critical things I can do to be a better multicultural educator. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, but a starting point. And I am not intending to make a statement about what every educator must do, but instead voicing and owning things I, as an educator, can and should do to begin the process of transforming schools by transforming myself. The list appears below.

Ten Critical and Self-critical Things I Can Do to Be a Better Multicultural Educator 1. I can engage in self-reflective writing or journaling to explore my processes of identity development and how I react to different events or people.

2. I can invite critique from colleagues and accept it openly.

Though it's easy to become defensive in the face of critique, I can thank the person for their feedback and take the time and responsibility to process and consider it fully.

3. I can understand the relationship between INTENT and IMPACT. Many times, especially when I'm in a situation in which I experience a level of privilege, I have the luxury of referring and responding only to what I intended, no matter what impact I have on somebody. I must take responsibility for impact, recognizing that I can never be totally aware of the biases and prejudices I carry into the classroom and how my students or colleagues experience me.

4. I can reject the myth of color-blindness. As painful as it is to admit, I know that I react differently when I'm in a room full of people who share many dimensions of my identity than when I am in a room full of people who are very different from me. I have to be open and honest about that, because those shifts inevitably inform the experiences of people in my classes or workshops. In addition, color-blindness denies people validation of their whole person.

5. I can recognize my social identity group memberships and how they may affect my students' experiences and learning processes. People do not always experience me the way I intend them to, even if I am an active advocate for all my students. If I appreciate this, I will find deeper ways to connect with all my students.

6. I can build coalitions with teachers who are different from me (in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, first language, disability, and other identities).

These can be valuable relationships of trust and honest critique.

4

TRANSFORMING...

7. I can invite critique from my students, and when I do, I can dedicate to listening actively and modeling a willingness to change if necessary.

8. I can reflect on my own experiences as a student and how those experiences inform my teaching. Research indicates that my teaching is most closely informed by my own experiences as a student (even moreso than my pre-service training). The practice of drawing on these experiences, the positive and the negative, provide important insights regarding my teaching practice.

9. I can challenge myself to take personal responsibility before looking for fault elsewhere. For example, if I have one student who is falling behind and misbehaving, I will consider what I am doing or not doing that may be contributing to their disengagement before problematizing their behavior or effort.

10. can celebrate myself as an educator and total person. I can, and should, also celebrate every moment I spend in self-critique, however difficult and painful, because it will make me a better educator. And that is something to celebrate!

Gorski, P. C. (2001). Transforming Myself to Transform My School. Retrieved from http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/edc hange_10things.html

COPING WITH COMPLEXITY

: ON

These initial yearsof K-12 implementation reveals much complexity in the classroom to contend with. The integrated approach introduced with the K-12 spiral curriculumis meant to address the complexity of the modern classroom. In a Cultural Diversity in the Workplace class for graduateMAEd studentsthat I conduct, the initial session is utilized to hone them on the meaning of culture. They may not clearly realize that cultural diversitybreeds varying degrees of complexity. Hence, the definition of culture as “a blueprint for living,” or “one’s lifestyle” may need expanding. I found it meaningful for them to mindmap what culture is. Culture elements spiral out in layers as described in a master thesisat Guelph University ofAnn Gordon.

Hercomprehensive definition proved useful for a mind-mapping exercise in culture as a “holistic system of interrelationships that encompasses a group’s identity, beliefs, values, activities, rules, customs, communication patterns and institutions.”

After apportioning the foregoing terms to groups, they pored over descriptions of the terms presenting examples drawn from local settings. This activity delivered them from the temptation to merely copy foreign examples from the web, which are often alien from their experience. With group work such as this, rather than mere lectures, students tend to be seriously active than passive. Next, the groups listed the function of culture which is “to teach significant rules, rituals and procedures, reinforce values and relationships with others.”Again, examples were from their experience. They worked on the next layer, into the most significant elements of the core of the culture systemsuch as “history, identity, beliefs, values and worldview of a culture” as well as the next level of elements radiating out from the inner core, which includes ideal culture--culture’s abstract elements which can only be “seen” when these are manifested, such as “customs, rules and even communication pattern of a group.”

Similarly they mapped the outer core comprising the institutions and organizations within a culture and the visible structures in the cultural elements such as “education, religion, economics, health, kinship and political systems.”

This comprehensive description of what culture is proved to be very versatile. Mind-mapping “culture”would be a very apt exercise for students in the social sciences, psychology and other study areas. So as not to abuse their thinking, I had the MAEd class probe deeper those elements that are commonly visible in the classroom; and for business and governancefreshman masters, those more common to themsuch as on institutions (local governments, departments, industries,church, civic organizations, etc).

IN THE CLASSROOM

SOURCES OF COMPLEXITY IN THE CLASSROOM

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

My class would begin with diversity in genders. How does a teacher deal with pupils/students? How about religion? In a non-sectarian school, enrollees maycome from various churches.

Socio-economic status may not have a big difference; a few would beexpatriates, not only from the United States but also be from Japan. As for regional origins, besidestheCebuanos, there could be several Warays, Ilokanos, or from the Tagalog regions.

Each of these regions would have some difference in culture as in communication patterns--where the Cebuanos would not have the honorifics po or ho or kayo in addressing the elderly which does not mean they are less respectful in their manner of speech as compared to those from Luzon. One of the students asked why one from Luzon would address an elderly in the pluralform of kayo not the singular ka or ikaw.

THESE days, we usually use the word complex. A complex situation, a complex environment, etc. Complexitys defined as“the quality or state of not being simple: being complex means to be “a part of something that is complicated or hard to understand.”Complex means “involving a lot of different but related parts:difficult to understand or find an answer to, because of having many different parts”. Complexity is a term much used in most study fields, including management, educationand literature.Students are drilled on the complexity of decision-making. How do we cope with complexity in different spheres of human activity, including that in the classroom?

5

COPING WITH COMPLEXITY

...

I said that such is a form of respect, such as tapos na po kayo? insteadof tapos ka na? in addressing an elderly or one with a high status (a guest, a director/principal). I further said, when one addresses the Queen of England, one does not say “Are you through, Your Majesty?” Instead, the proper way to address her is, “Is Her Majesty through?” She is addressed in the third person.

Similarly, people in Luzon address an elderly differently, in the second person and in the plural form.

With more mobility these days, a teacher from Luzon, a newcomer to Mindanao or to the Visayas, such as Cebu, expects honorifics when pupils/students address him/her; hence may be irked, if unaware of the difference in communication patterns.

Or the diversity may be in religion. Some teachers in nonsectarian schools recite very brief prayers. A Muslim student or one similar to or from the United Church of Christ would not make the sign of the cross as Catholics do. This far, we have slightly dealt with complexities in the classroom. We touched on ethnic and religious backgrounds, communication patterns and on socio-economic status. There are other elements on our mind map on what culture is that spawn complexities in the classroom.

We will deal next with these.

An institutional management expert, the author held top academic positions at Xavier University (the Ateneo de Cagayan) before heading chartered institutions. After studies in the Philippines, universities, she attended universities in Germany, Great Britain and Japan. An internationalization consultant on call, she is journal copy editor of, and Graduate Studies professorial lecturer at, the Liceo de Cagayan University.

Tumapon, T. (2016). Coping with complexity in the classroom: On cultural diversity. Retrieved from https://www.manilatimes.net/2016/12/02/opinion/a nalysis/coping-complexity-classroom-culturaldiversity/299538

THE DYNAMICS OF

EDUCATIONAL REFORMS

IN THE PHILIPPINE BASIC

HIGHER EDUCATION

SECTORS

Education as a dynamic and time-tested social force has long been recognized as the mirror of historical changes. Its dynamism has shown how curricular reforms in the school organization, modes of delivery, policy structures, and even pedagogical philosophies could be altered and enriched by forces in the environment. Changes in the social, economic, cultural, technological and political arenas are forces that every educational system has to reckon with. Failure of any school system to align its modalities to the needs of the times and the varying needs, problems and interests of its clientele may result in either entropy or atrophy. History has become an eyewitness as to how and why some educational systems have failed to survive or manage to carve a name or an image. The Philippine Educational System is a clear example of a boat sailing in a body of changes and challenges.

It has in fact followed the same pattern of education as that of the rest of the world. It has passed through various stages of development and undergone dramatic changes depicted in the various epochs of educational evolution. Its long years of exposure and contact with the Spaniards, Americans, and Japanese have created a spectrum of educational variations and lines of emphasis.

The impact of the three colonizers is still reflected on the present-day educational system’s thinking and practices. The Educational Decree of 1863 made possible the establishment of a complete secondary and collegiate levels of instruction; the provision for government supervision and control of these schools; and the establishment of teacher training institutions (Estioko, 1994). For almost 333 years, the Spaniards were successful enough propagating Christianity, thus making the country as the only nation in Asia practicing the Catholic religion. The Americans, for their part, laid down the foundation of a democratic system of education through Act No. 74. The coming of the Thomasites not only facilitated the gradual easing of feelings of rancor and animosity of the Filipinos towards the new colonizers but also has infused in them the spirit of democracy and progress as well as fair play (Martin, 1980).

6

EDUCATIONAL REFORMS

...

More importantly, with academic English Language and Literature as their focus, the American influence on the Filipino mentality has made the Philippines as the third largest English speaking nation in the world. The country’s exposure to the Japanese, though shortlived (1942-1945) has made the people realize the country’s position as a member of the East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the true meaning of establishment of a New Order in the Sphere (Martin, 1980).

After the country’s liberation from the hands of its colonizers on July 4, 1946, several educational reforms have been instituted and implemented by political leaders as part of their national agenda.

These reforms have been made as strategic instruments to realize the following Development Goals of the country (Nolledo, 1995): • To achieve and maintain an accelerated rate of economic development and social progress • To assure the maximum participation of all people in the attainment and enjoyment of the benefits of such growth • To achieve and strengthen national unity and consciousness and preserve, develop and promote desirable cultural, moral and spiritual values in a changing world

The Philippine Educational System is a clear example of a boat sailing in a body of changes and challenges. It has in fact followed the same pattern of education as that of the rest of the world. It has passed through various stages of development and undergone dramatic changes depicted in the various epochs of educational evolution. Its long years of exposure and contact with the Spaniards, Americans, and Japanese have created a spectrum of educational variations and lines of emphasis.

The impact of the three colonizers is still reflected on the present-day educational system’s thinking and practices.

Today, educational systems face multiple and diverse problems, among them, that of resources (Bullough et al., 1996). Schools and school systems are being challenged to develop new educational paradigms that will ensure survival and stability and at the same time effect the four pillars of education (Delors, 1996), namely, learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together. Such a tall order according to Trow (1994), calls for “soft managerialism”, which refers to the maximum effective use of available resources. On the other hand, “hard managerialism” involves redirecting program efforts through the adoption of new management systems, which call for a high degree of openness in school sectors and a kind of systems thinking characterized by alignment of delivery and attunement of values and value systems.

In so doing, educational systems become more responsive and resilient (El-Khawas, 2001); capable of preserving and strengthening quality (Thorens, 1996) and effecting reconstruction efforts (Castillo, 1987); and pursuing quality, equality and equity, institutional diversity, regional development, flexible curricula, stable financing, evaluation and innovation, governability, social relevance and internationalization (Gomez, 1999; Holtta & Malkki, 2000).

The foregoing reality calls for a systemic kind of reform that permeates all aspects of the educational delivery structure. The Philippine Educational System is not a system in isolation. Just like any other system of education, it is open to risks, certainties and uncertainties. Its long history under the different colonizers and not to mention the varying priorities of educational planners vis-à-vis the changing educational and social milieus has rendered it a system of vitality and reflectivity. Hence, this paper provides an avenue to explore various reform efforts initiated at the national level as shaped and influenced by variables operating in the internal and external environments of the school.

7

EDUCATIONAL REFORMS

...

The Philippine Educational System Today, the Philippine School system is said to be one of the largest in the world. The Congressional Commission on Education Study, popularly known as the EDCOM Report disclosed that enrolment at all levels was 16.5 million as of 1991.

Recent statistics from the Department of Education (DepEd) alone reveals that as of Curriculum Year 2000-2001, the combined enrolment size in the basic education system 19,138,635 indicating the dramatic increase in and demand for education in the country. This is the resulting scenario of the country’s Education for All policy and the explicit provision of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, to wit: The State shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels and shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.

Further, Establish and maintain a system of free public education in the elementary and high school levels. Without limiting the natural right of parents to rear their children, elementary education is compulsory for all children of school age.

With only 10 years of pre-university education, the shortest in East Asia (as compared to the longest, 13, of countries like Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia) (Manila Times, 1994), the Philippines follows the 6-4-4 Plan of education. The 6 years elementary schooling and the 4 years of secondary education are under the control, regulation and supervision of the Department of Education (DepEd). The concept of resource dependency explains why the Education Department exercises supervision and regulation over 7,444 private schools in the country as compared to its power to control, regulate and supervise the operations of 40,336 public elementary and secondary schools (DepEd Fact Sheet, 2001).

The Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM) Report provided the impetus for Congress to pass RA 7722 and RA 7796 in 1994 creating the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), respectively.

The tri-focalization approach in the management of the present-day education in the Philippines refocused the DepEd’s (RA 9155) mandate to basic education which covers elementary, secondary and non-formal education. TESDA now administers the post secondary, middle-level manpower training and development while CHED is responsible for higher education.

Bases of Curriculum Reforms in the Philippines In an excerpt from “School Reform in the New World” (1996), Navarro, in her paper “Educational Reform in the 21st Century” identified the following global reforms in both the lower and higher education levels (Table 1). The foregoing reforms pose a great challenge to decision-making at the national and classroom levels.

Decisions made by educational planners and classroom teachers are articulated as curriculum policies and structure, implementation strategies, evaluation procedures and research activities. The way these decisions are made and formulated is based on specific variables operating in the internal and external environments of the education sector.

De Guzman, A. B. (2003). The Dynamics of Educational Reforms in the Philippine Basic and Higher Education Sectors. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ776349.pdf 8

EDUCATIONAL REFORMS

...

TThe so-called internal and external enablers, as used by Ornstein and Hunkins (1988) have made reforms in the Philippines possible and have rendered these reforms theoretically grounded. These enablers are gathered and culled by educational agencies from school records, research outputs, textbooks and references and other empirically grounded documents available in the field.

External Enablers include legislation, public opinion, education studies, technological advances, societal demands, and industry demands.

Internal Enablers, on other hand, refer to research findings, national testing, new leadership, accreditation, cross-country evaluation and available funds.

Table 2 shows how these external and internal enablers have shaped educational reforms in the Philippines.

The foregoing summarized data and information are the bases used by policy-making bodies in the Philippines to chart the system’s directions and concerns, specifically along the areas of school improvement, teacher empowerment, democratization of access to education, curricular alignment and retooling, benchmarking with teaching best practices, and strengthening the academic preparation of students in terms of science and technology, mathematics, language proficiency and technological literacy. Moreover, program planners and decision-makers conduct system-wide investigations with the involvement of various sectors in society to identify prevailing strengths and weaknesses and to propose vital measures with quality, excellence, efficiency, responsiveness as the guiding framework.

9

INCLUSION

Inclusive education The 2009 Department of Education Order No. 72 defines inclusive education as the philosophy of accepting all children regardless of race, size, shape, colour, ability or disability with support from school staff, students, parents and the community.

The more recent 2013 Enhanced Basic Education Act refers to gifted and talented children; learners with disabilities; learners of the madrasa curriculum; indigenous peoples; and learners in difficult circumstances, such as geographical isolation, chronic illness, abuse, or displacement due to armed conflict, urban resettlement or disaster as target groups of inclusive education.

Special education needs The proposed 2019 Special Education Act defines learners with special needs as children who differ in mental characteristics, sensory ability, neuromuscular or physical characteristics, social abilities or multiple handicaps and/or have a lag in development requiring tailored school practices or special education services. The act includes gifted, talented, disabled, impaired and handicapped persons in need of special education and services of rehabilitation.

1. School Organization Considered an inclusive and learner-centred teaching and learning strategy, the 2016 Basic Education Research Agendadefines inclusive education as a cross-cutting issue implemented through special education, indigenous peoples’ education, madrasa education, the country's Alternative Learning System and alternative delivery modes.

Special education (SPED) is part of the country's education system and is implemented through a specific programme targeting both children with disabilities and gifted and talented learners, who need a systematic and deliberate process to achieve functional literacy and achieve their individual potential and capability. Supporting the 1997 Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, the 1997 Department Order No. 26 on Institutionalization of SPED Programs in All Schools established at least one special education centre for children with special needs in all schools. Called resource centres for inclusive education, the centres were intended to support the integration of children with disabilities into regular schools through the production of appropriate teaching materials and continuous assessment. Specific guidelines to set up special education centres in regular schools were defined in 2000.

10

The 2019 Special Education Actaims literally to institutionalize inclusive education though the institutionalization of at least one special education centre in each school division and three such centres in larger divisions, equipped with adequate qualified staff and administered by the principal of the regular school.

Indigenous peoples’ schools are registered within the Department of Education and mainstreamed in the national education system but benefit from some flexibility in terms of curriculum, teacher recruitment and school calendar.

Madrasa education was institutionalized in 2004 through the Standard Curriculum for Elementary and Public Schools and Private Madaris (i.e. madrasa schools), and then improved with the Refined Elementary Madrasah Curriculumin 2011 in public elementary schools with at least 15 Muslim students and in private madaris. Madrasa education is provided in public and private schools within the context of Muslim culture, customs, traditions and interests through the integration of the Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE) in the basic education curriculum.

The Alternative Learning System is a parallel learning system to the formal education system usually conducted in community learning centres. Established by the 2001 Governance of Basic Education Act, it provides an opportunity for the out-of-school population to access and complete basic education.

Alternative delivery mode programmes are based on self-learning modules to cater for learners in difficult and different circumstances.

Laws, Plans, Policies and Programmes The 1987 Philippine Constitution enshrines the right to quality education for all citizens and mandates the state to take appropriate steps to make it accessible to all (Art. 14, Section 1). The state must also establish an integrated education system build upon the needs of the people (Art. 14, Section 2). The 2013 Enhanced Basic Education Act calls for learner-oriented and responsive education provision according to the needs, cognitive and cultural capacity, circumstances and diversity of all learners through target-based programmes. The 2015 Education Plan reaffirms the overarching nature of inclusive education for the policy and planning framework for education for all.

Disability The 1997 Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, amended in 2007, mandates the state to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to quality education, making special education provision able to serve various types of impairments, in particular the visually impaired, hearing impaired, those with intellectual disabilities and other types of exceptional children throughout the country.

In response to the implementation of the Magna Carta, the 1997 Department Order No. 26 on Institutionalization of SPED Programs in All Schools established resource centres in regular schools to provide continuous support to children with special needs. The 2010 department order Strengthening Special Education Program at the Basic Education Level financed regular secondary schools to train education personnel and provide the institutions with adequate teaching materials.

Memorandum orders in 2000, 2006 and 2008 contained provisions on reasonable accommodation in higher education. In particular, the 2008 Manual of Regulations for Private Higher Education encourages private higher education institutions to admit students with disabilities.

11

Inclusion of children with special needs was promoted in the 2013 Early Years Act, for example through the use of Filipino Sign Language as the visual language of the deaf community, and in 2013 with the Enhanced Basic Education Act, which encourages the implementation of the Alternative Learning System to cater for the needs of the target group. The 2015 Education Plan calls for an expansion of the current basic education services through the multiplication of special education classes within the regular elementary and secondary schools and through the inclusion of learners with disabilities into existing regular classes.

Gender Gender equality is enshrined in the 1987 Constitution (Art. 14, Section 14). The 2009 Philippine Magna Carta of Womenestablishes a non-discriminatory and pro-gender equality and equity framework for policy formulation and implementation. In relation to education, it reaffirms the right of equal access and elimination of discrimination in education, scholarships and training. In addition, it declares unlawful the discrimination in education of women due pregnancy out of marriage in the form of expulsion, non-readmission or enrolment prohibition.

In 2013, a joint memorandum was adopted by various government bodies, including the Department of Education, to mainstream gender perspectives in local planning, programming and budgeting.

The latter lays down indigenous peoples’ right to equal access to cultural opportunities, including through the education system, where they have the right to receive education in their own language through the establishment and control of education institutions, respecting their cultural methods of teaching and learning.Although Filipino and English are recognized as official languages for communication and instruction, regional languages are acknowledged to serve as ‘auxiliary media of instruction’ (Art. 6, Section 7 of the Constitution).

In response to the distinct education needs of indigenous communities, the 2004 department order titled Permit to Operate Primary Schools for Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Communities allows the school curriculum to be adjustedaccording to the cultural interest of the community, as long as core learning competencies are cultivated. Based on the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, a 2010 department order on the Alternative Learning System curriculum for indigenous peoples’ education draws on the Alternative Learning System curriculum while taking into account the concerns of indigenous peoples. The 2013 Enhanced Basic Education Actreaffirms that basic education for kindergarten and for the first three years of elementary education must be provided in languages understood by the learners. It further mandates the Department of Education to formulate a mother-language transition programme from the first local language to English for other grades.

Ethnic and linguistic groups and indigenous groups Encouraged by the 1987 Constitution (Art. 14, Section 2), indigenous peoples’ education was formally regulated in the 1997 Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act.

12

The Philippines’ Response to Indigenous and Muslim Education (PRIME) programme is an education development initiative of the Department of Education that seeks to improve equitable access to and quality of basic education for girls and boys in disadvantaged indigenous and Muslim communities.

Poverty Within the school health and nutrition programmes, the breakfast feeding program aims to improve the nutritional status of its beneficiaries and increase their attendance rate.

Expanded to 14 regions, the programme serves undernourished children from kindergarten to grade 3. With the introduction of implementation guidelines in 2012, the feeding initiative was renamed School-Based Feeding Program and gave more flexibility to schools.

With the aim of addressing the poorest Filipinos, the Conditional Cash Transfer programme provides a monthly education subsidy to encourage school attendance.

Children engaged in labour The 2015 Education Plan identifies children engaged in labour as a specific group of unreached and underserved learners. It sets out to strengthen the implementation of distance learning programmes at elementary and secondary levels to reach out to children who cannot attend regular classes.

Street children The 2015 Education Plan calls for strengthening current partnership between government agencies and partners and the Department of Education to reach out to street children and their families and provide them with basic education and other basic services.

Governance Coordination across sectors The 2019 Special Education Act intends to establish the Bureau of Special Education to institutionalize and manage special education. It is to design an appropriate curriculum and tailored programmes and supervise divisions for gifted and talented youth and children and youth with disabilities within the Department of Education. It is also responsible for early identification of special needs and the provision of medical and financial assistance.

According to the 2015 new organizational structure of the Department of Education, the Bureau of Learning Delivery is in charge of the Student Inclusion division.

13

NOISULCNI

At the policy level, the 2011 department order Adopting the National Indigenous Peoples Education Policy Framework aimed to create an inclusive and respectful education system for learners belonging to minority groups, ensuring universal and equitable access of all indigenous people to quality and relevant basic education and providing adequate and culturally appropriate learning resources and environments. In particular, the framework intends to integrate indigenous knowledge systems and practices and recruit and train teachers and learning facilitators engaged in implementing education programmes for indigenous people. Since 2012–13, mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) has been implemented nationwide, with 19 local languages now used for instruction.

Learning Environments Infrastructure The 1983 Act to Enhance the Mobility of Disabled Persons by Requiring Certain Buildings, Institutions, Establishments and Public Utilities to install Facilities and Other Devices sets specific provisions to ensure access to school to some specific groups of people with disabilities.

Curriculum The 2009 Philippine Magna Carta of Women calls for a revision of educational materials and curricula to avoid gender stereotypes and images and ensure that gender-sensitive language is used. Gender-related modules have been developed and launched in the basic education curriculum.

According to the 2013 Enhanced Basic Education Act, the national basic education curriculum must be learner-centred, inclusive and developmentally appropriate, culturally sensitive, consistent with the principles and framework of MTB-MLE and flexible in order to allow schools to localize and indigenize according to the context.

Learning materials Appropriate learning materials have been prepared to support the indigenous peoples’ curriculum, open to consultation and translated into 14 different languages. Indigenization of learning materials is encouraged in Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro provinces.

14

NOISULCNI

At present, the Bureau of Alternative Learning System, under the Department of Education, is in charge of non-formal education. Strengthened in 2004, it addresses the learning needs of all marginalized learners, including indigenous learners. Madaris are also under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education, although most of them are private and locally managed.

Development programmes and service delivery for persons with disabilities, including in education, are managed by the National Council on Disability Affairs, a national government agency with the mandate to formulate policies and coordinate the activities of all public and private organizations dealing with disability issues and concerns.

Through the 2013 Department Order No. 27, the Department of Education institutionalized the Gender and Development Focal Point Systems, an institutional mechanism to ensure gender mainstreaming in government offices at the national, regional and school levels.

Coordination across government levels According to the 2019 Special Education Act, local governments bear the responsibility for special education institutions, the organization of parent–teacher associations and coordination with other civil society actors.

Basic education management and governance was decentralized with the 2001 Governance of Basic Education Act.

Teachers’ right to professional development is enshrined in the Constitution (Art. 14, Section 5). However, with regards to special education, trainings are not provided on a regular basis. Ad-hoc programmes are implemented upon the specific request of local authorities. At the national level, a training for special education teachers has been organized by the Department of Education’s Bureau of Elementary Education, while trainings on visually impaired learners and those with multiple disabilities were provided by non-government organizations from 2007 and 2009.

According to the 2000 Memorandum Order No. 23 on Quality Education for Learners with Special Needs, teacher training institutions must include special education courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels and provide further learning opportunities for qualified special education teachers through scholarship programmes, in coordination with the Commission on Higher Education and other government and non-government agencies.

The 2009 Philippine Magna Carta of Women calls for capacity building on gender and development for teachers and personnel involved in the education sector.

Monitoring and Reporting Within the Basic Education Information System (BEIS), all Department of Education offices and units gather relevant data from schools, learning centres and education programmes for the effective planning and implementation of education programmes.

Inclusion (n.d.) Retrieved from https://education-profiles.org/eastern-and-south-eastern-asia/philippines/~inclusion 15

NOISULCNI

Teachers and Support Personnel

Faculty

and

‘Voices’

in

Multicultural

Curriculum

Student

Teachers

Developing

Teacher

Using

a

a

Education

-

Collaborative

Participatory Approach

Introduction The purpose of the larger study on which this paper on stakeholders’ voices draws, was to introduce an innovative approach to how curriculum is developed in teacher education programmes in the Philippines.

Using a collaborative participatory approach, the aim of the curriculum development process was to reverse the prevailing top-down model of curriculum making to a bottom-up approach that would directly involve and give ‘voice’ to faculty and student teachers in the development of the multicultural teacher education curriculum.

Giving Voices to Faculty and Student Teachers as Curriculum Stakeholders In the review of relevant curriculum development literature (Henson, 2006; Kelly, 2009; McNeil, 2006; Oliva, 2009; Wiles, 2009; Wiles & Bondi, 2007) it was noted that stakeholders’ voices should be a significant part of the curriculum planning process. Stakeholders’ voices in making curriculum decisions helped to achieve the desired curriculum outcomes. However, in actual practice, more often than not, it is the dominant administrators’ voice that feeds the important decisions to every curriculum in higher education. This reality is shared across different countries where a top-down approach in curriculum making has always been a practice for educational institutions (Kelly, 2009). However, in the real sense of how the curriculum in school actually works, it would be the faculty and student teachers who should have the stronger voice being the implementers, and end users respectively of the curriculum. It was one aim of this research to give more emphasis to the voices of the faculty and student teachers in curriculum development without disregarding the significant contribution of the administrators in the process.

Providing opportunities for faculty to get directly involved in curriculum decision-making does not always happen. In the Philippine context, selected faculty involvement usually comes from the main universities in the Philippines but rarely involves teachers in the local campuses. However, for faculty members to implement a curriculum effectively at the classroom level they must be committed to it. One way of getting their commitment is to become part of the curriculum development process. Despite strong literature recognising ‘teacher as leader’ (Fullan, Bennet & Rolheiser-Bennet, 1990; Goodlad Soder & Sirotnik, 1990; Darling-Hammond, 1999 in Wiles, 2007), support for teachers as curriculum makers has been minimal. Research has consistently shown that when teachers believe they have influence over instructional decisions they consider significant, they try to show their ability to implement those decisions and harvest positive outcomes from them (Henson, 2006; Oliva, 2005; Wiles, 2007).

Student teachers are direct recipients and future implementers of the school curriculum at the classroom level in their local schools. In reality, they are participating both directly and indirectly in the curriculum process. However, generally their participation is mostly limited to answering survey questionnaires. According to Haas (2010, p. 276), students are the ‘major untapped resources’ in curriculum planning. In the case of the Philippines, student teachers’ direct participation in curriculum development has not previously occurred. In this study, student teachers were given a pro-active role. As Wood (Oliva, 2005, p. 92) stated ‘a curriculum for democratic empowerment engages students in choices about the control over the most central element of their school experience – the curriculum itself’.

16

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

The Need for a Multicultural Curriculum in the Philippines Teacher Education Programme No teacher education institution in the Philippines offers a programme on multicultural education. The Department of Education, which is taking care of the Basic Education curriculum in the country, seems to give it an importance by including the education of the indigenous peoples as part of the objectives of the Basic Education program. However, its implementation has not been given a place in the set-up of the curriculum. There are isolated efforts or projects for the education of multicultural groups like the indigenous peoples. Most of these projects are funded by international agencies such as the Australian Agency for International Education (AusAID), which funded the BEAM (Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao) project. In spite of this, the problem lies in the sustainability of the project when the funding agency finished the contract and the project has not been institutionalised in the Philippine educational programmes and structures.

The Philippine Normal University takes its leadership role as the national centre for teacher education in the Philippines. Creating a multicultural curriculum as a product of research will be a significant move for strengthening the teacher education programme in the Philippines. The Philippine Normal University offers curricular programs in response to market needs. It considers also the curriculum reforms made by the Department of Education in the Basic Education Curriculum. The realisation of the mission of any teacher education institution like the Philippine Normal University depends on the quality of the curricular programmes. The desired attributes of the expected graduates as the pivot for organising the curriculum often remains in the conceptual realm, if the institution does not translate this to actual product, processes or operations (De Guzman, 2006). Thus, creating a multicultural curriculum programme would be opportune in the process of intensifying the new teacher education curriculum. The need for creating a multicultural curriculum stems from the assumption that the role of the university is to educate as well as to address the needs of its local community.

Student teachers are direct recipients and future implementers of the school curriculum at the classroom level in their local schools. In reality, they are participating both directly and indirectly in the curriculum process. However, generally their participation is mostly limited to answering survey questionnaires.

Education is not only the transfer of knowledge or information, but also the major agent for transforming culture (Taba, 1962).In other words, education is the preserver and transmitter of cultural heritage. The content and process of what is taught reflect the cultural orientations of the socializing agent. From Dewey’s notion of education, (Dewey, 1938; Taba, 1962) the role of the school is not only to shape individuals but to shape culture as well. Therefore, education has an important role as an agent for social reconstruction. In the case of teacher education in the Philippines, specifically the Philippine Normal University Agusan campus now renamed as PNU Mindanao which enrols ethnic students and caters to indigenous communities, education can take its role of educating people to respect cultural diversity for different ethnic groups (Jocano, 1998).The respect for cultural diversity is protected by the provisions in the Philippine constitution, which recognizes and promotes the rights of indigenous cultural communities within the framework of national unity and development (Art. IX, Sec.2 (4).

There are many different ethnic groups in the Philippines that should be given attention in the educational system. They are dispersed in the 7,107 islands in the Philippines located in the different provinces and regions of the three main islands: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. They speak diverse vernacular languages. Filipinos are multilingual.

Filipino and English are considered the official languages. There are eight major languages and 76 indigenous languages in the Philippines (Jocano, 1998). In a previous study, it was noted that the indigenous language, such as the Manobo, is disappearing because the students who are assimilated in the mainstream do not anymore use their local language (Reyes, 2004).

17

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

Language is a vehicle of culture. If the language dies, culture dies with it. Thus, the importance of a multicultural curriculum would also be a response to this problem. Lynch (1986) attested to this in saying that the task of multicultural education is for the students to achieve a higher stage of ethnic and cultural existence through liberating curricular and educational pedagogies. Consequently, the role of the teacher is to enable the students to attain a higher stage of cultural competence and sensitivity so that the positive value of cultural diversity may grow.

Literature suggests that multicultural education is not only intended for schools with ethnic minority groups and it is not aimed at educating teachers to work exclusively with ethnic minority students (Rodriguez, 1984). It is equally beneficial to mainstream students and prospective teachers (Banks, 2008; Nieto, 2004).

The construction of multicultural education in the curriculum depends on the nature and needs of the society which it serves. For example, US, Canada, Australia and UK share the same experiences of constructing multicultural education in the curriculum as a response to the influx of migration in these countries making the society and schools multicultural (Banks, 2004; Gay, 1997; 2004; James, 2001; Lei & Grant, 2001). Special attention is given to the disparity between the students with different colour in the schools and the teachers whose professional education is mono-cultural. Thus, contemporary advocates of multicultural education,(e.g. Banks, 2004; Gay, 2004; Grant & Sleeter, 2005; Nieto 2004), initiated a reform movement in education to restructure schools, colleges and universities so that all students will have an equal opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills so that they can function in an ethnically diverse nation and world. Institutionalization of multicultural education programmes has become increasingly popular in the design of curriculum, special projects, and programmes. For instance, Banks (2005) proposed different dimensions of multicultural education to serve as a guide to school reforms when practising educators try to implement multicultural education. These dimensions (Banks, 2005; p.23) are 1) content integration, which deals with the content and examples that teachers can use to illustrate key concepts of the subject matter; 2) knowledge construction process which describes the extent to which teachers help students understand,

Education is not only the transfer of knowledge or information, but also the major agent for transforming culture (Taba, 1962).

investigate and determine how the implicit cultural assumptions, frame of reference, perspectives and biases within a discipline influence the ways in which knowledge is constructed; 3) prejudice reduction, which focuses on the characteristics of students’ racial attitudes and how they can be modified by teaching methods and materials; 4) an equity pedagogy when teachers modify their teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse, racial, cultural, gender and social class groups; and 5) an empowering school culture that focuses on grouping and practices that support participation, disproportionality in achievement, and the interaction of the teachers and students across ethnic and racial lines. The promotion of multicultural education as a field of study depends on the needs of the country’s educational system and its implementation in varying dimensions.

In the teacher education sector, as the world is becoming more globalised, there is a growing expectation that pre-service teachers become competently prepared to handle diverse types of students, embracing multiculturalism, universal standards and literacy in global issues and concerns. Teachers in the Philippines are one of the four types of professionals, other than engineers, nurses and computer professionals, who joined other Filipinos working abroad in different locations in the US, Oceania, Middle East, Asia and Africa on temporary migration (Alburo, 2002).

Many teachers in the Philippines were recruited to teach abroad. Common problems encountered are related to teaching students with diverse backgrounds. Stories from teachers overseas would perceive students to be naughty, bullying teachers, especially if they come from a different colour (personal communication). They would experience more difficulty if they do not have the multicultural perspective in teaching these diverse types of students in other countries. Although the creation of multicultural education in the teacher education curriculum in this research assumes to serve the needs of the local communities in the Philippines, 18

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

it may also be relevant to those pre-service teachers who may opt to work outside the country. The challenge is for the pre-service teachers to be empowered by the multicultural curriculum to be able to understand the cultural, ethnic, racial and language diversity that exist in their own community and the world at large. According to Banks (2008), alienation from community cultures and mainstream society results in marginalisation.

In the Philippine setting, the model that guides curriculum development usually uses the top-down approach. More often than not, school administrators are the key people involved in curriculum decisions.

The Central government ‘taps the heads’ of the universities to become committee members in curriculum revisions or crafting new programmes.

However, the proposition guiding this study was that curriculum outcomes could be achieved when the curriculum has been contextualized to the needs of its beneficiaries. The development of the curriculum should involve all the stakeholders, including the teachers, and students (Henson, 2006; Kelly, 2009; McNeil, 2006; Oliva, 2009; Wiles, 2009).

Research Aim and Question This research aimed to explore a collaborative participatory process in the development of a multicultural curriculum that would be suitable to its local context. The main feature of the collaborative participatory process was to directly involve faculty and student teachers alongside the administrators in curriculum decision making to give them ‘voice’ and a sense of empowerment. This paper will address the question: What are the significant contributions of the stakeholders particularly faculty and student teachers which give them ‘voice’ in achieving the desired multicultural curriculum outcome?

Principles Approach

of

Collaborative-Participatory

The curriculum development process was guided by the following collaborative participatory action research (CPAR) principles:

Language is a vehicle of culture. If the language dies, culture dies with it. Thus, the importance of a multicultural curriculum would also be a response to this problem.

Collaborative – Collaborative research encourages the commitment and dedication of the target participants to achieve the common goal, i.e. to create a multicultural curriculum for the social improvement of the local community.

All efforts for the development of the multicultural curriculum are geared towards that vision (Gaventa, 2001; Kemmis & McTaggart, 2003; Reason & Bradbury, 2001; Stringer 2004).

Participatory – Participatory research involves the full and active participation of the local university campus (teachers, students, administrators) in the entire research process as curriculum developers and learners as well. In curriculum planning and implementation those who are affected by curriculum changes must be involved in the process (Oliva, 2005). The teachers, students, and administrators are normally the people who are directly affected (Creswell, 2005). Thus, the exploration of the collaborative-participatory approach in curriculum development identified three groups of participants that needed to be represented on the curriculum team.

Action-Oriented – Action-oriented research requires that members of the team put their institutional vision into practice, such as the practice or advocacy for multicultural education in the classroom and the implementation of the multicultural curriculum in the whole school system. In this study, it is part of the institutional vision of PNU Mindanao campus to cater to the multicultural needs of the students in the local community particularly the marginalised (indigenous) group of people. In order to translate this vision into practice, the pre-service teachers should acquire the necessary multicultural perspectives they need for teaching students in the local schools. A concrete action to do this is to infuse multicultural education in the teacher education curriculum.

19

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

Empowering – CPAR processes can create a greater awareness among the participants involved of their own problems and conditions and mobilise them to make their own initiatives for their own local community development (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2003). The strong involvement of participants (teachers, students, administrators) in the curriculum decision-making process may lead to the successful creation of the desired curriculum outcomes.

CPAR emphasises the processes and meanings that are examined in the natural setting as experienced and created by participants. In this way, the participants in their local setting such as an educational institution design and implement the project in order to make recommendations for a change in practice.

Participants Three groups of participants were selected through purposive sampling in this research to form a curriculum development team. Four PNU Mindanao school administrators (Academic Director, Heads of Education, Arts and Sciences and Languages and Linguistics Departments) were selected to represent the administrators group. Five experienced faculty members (four from the Education Department and one from Social Sciences) were selected to represent the faculty group. Four student teachers (one indigenous and three with knowledge of indigenous communities) were selected to represent the student teachers group.

The curriculum development team originally comprised 14 members. However, at some stage of curriculum development one faculty member and one student teacher withdrew due to inability to attend all the meetings. Finally, it was a 12-person team that collaboratively initiated the bottom-up (Taba, 1962; Wiles & Bondi, 2007) approach of curriculum development at the Philippine Normal University Mindanao campus.

Sources of Data Curriculum meetings were the primary source of data.

The team members participated in ten (10) such sessions over the five months of the curriculum making process.

Meetings of between three to four hours were combined in some stages with focus groups and workshops to achieve the multicultural curriculum outcome.

Language is a vehicle of culture. If the language dies, culture dies with it. Thus, the importance of a multicultural curriculum would also be a response to this problem.

The researcher in consultation with the Academic Director drafted the initial timetable of the meetings. It was provided to the curriculum team as a working plan during the first meeting. The team members suggested revision in terms of content/topic and time schedules. Further changes to meetings occurred following the outputs of the preceding meeting.

Curriculum meetings were audio and videotaped with consent of participants. Two additional members of staff served as process observers; one to undertake the videotaping and the other to record meeting notes. Another member of staff served as a local language translator and transcriber. The process observers’ meeting notes were supplemented with researcher’s memos to keep track of the development of the process as well as the curriculum content.

Other sources of data were the focused interviews that were conducted after the curriculum development process. Three students, three administrators and four teachers were interviewed. They were the participants who attended all the curriculum meetings. The following areas were covered in the interview with questions slightly modified to suit their position as an administrator, faculty or student teacher: Personal, professional background and organisational culture, thoughts and feelings about the curriculum development experience and the collaborative participatory process, including benefits and difficulties as a team member.

Individual interviews were conducted in English although interviewees were able to express their views using Filipino (national language) and Cebuano (dialect) when it related to their personal background. Interviews were audio taped and later transcribed with the help of the local faculty translator. Interviews usually lasted for an hour.

20

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

Data Analysis NVivo qualitative data analysis software (qsrinternational.com) was used to code the transcripted texts gathered from the curriculum meetings, and individual interviews. Grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008) procedures were applied to the analysis of data which proceeded according to stages of open, axial and selective coding. Each curriculum meeting transcript was first coded. Axial coding was employed by way of conceptual mapping of the concepts and categories. Each conceptual map was used as a mini-framework to guide further analysis.

Selective coding for each conceptual map was aided by writing the analytic memo for interpreting the data.

Results of these analyses led to the building up of themes, sub-themes and several indicators of these themes. Participants’ empowerment as a result of being given ‘voice’ through the collaborative participatory process emerged from the analysis as a particularly strong theme. It is the ‘voice’ of curriculum stakeholders which will be discussed in the next section.

Results and Discussion Administrators’ Voice The administrators’voice in the curriculum development is obviously an indicator of individual empowerment by virtue of their legitimate power and position being administrators of a certain university. Given the designation in the organisational structure of a university system, for example, as an academic director in the Agusan campus, this administrator usually takes the leadership role of crafting the curriculum for the local campus. She is supposed to take the responsibility to coordinate and move teacher subordinates as a collective body. In a hierarchical and bureaucratic system of education in the local campuses of a university, it was the academic director who led the way for the feasibility of revisiting their curriculum and making a revision in order to accommodate the needs of the local communities.

The exposure, training and experience in the field inside and outside the local campus are important sources of the administrators’ voice to curriculum planning and development.

Initially, I did not have the authoritative influence as a researcher for the administrator and faculty participants to follow me. I would say that the visionary leadership of the academic director was an official instrument for the members of the curriculum team who decided to be part of the collaborative project.

The exposure, training and experience in the field inside and outside the local campus are important sources of the administrators’ voice to curriculum planning and development. It enhances their individual capability to share information, to exercise professional judgment about the content and pedagogy, as well as assessment of the curriculum. In most of the curriculum meetings where the content and technical knowledge, such as policy making, is the much-needed input, it was the administrator who did the greater and final share of decision-making. Analysing the proceedings of the curriculum meetings revealed that the administrator contributed most in terms of sharing ideas and information throughout the process of curriculum development. One valuable response taken from curriculum meeting transcripts is cited below to indicate the empowerment of the administrator to decide over the academic matters of curriculum planning. This was part of the discussion regarding the critiquing of topic for inclusion and exclusion in the proposed syllabus with multicultural infusion:

I would like to ask about the infusion of the topic letter C regarding parent-teacher in students’ learning. Because it’s already part of curriculum development, there is a separate topic for that, yes, I think that can also be found in the models of curriculum development, parent-teacher It was the leadership effort of the academic director to involvement in students’ learning, yes, so, I don’t recommend people to compose the curriculum think we have to include that, it’s already a part development team and it was also her coordination to of the existing syllabus. (Excerpt from CDM 6) find a way by which the curriculum team could regularly meet. I noticed during the first few meetings that the Yes, I agree with Prof. X in the sense that there is curriculum team members were attending only because no separate course for BEE (Bachelor of the academic director requested them to do so.

Elementary Education) as regards preparation 21

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

and evaluation of instructional materials so there’s no other course where you are going to have this topic except for PED [Professional Education] 4 which is educational technology. (Excerpt from CDM 6) Aside from the voice of the administrators in terms of mastery of content and professional experience as policy makers, the administrators acted out their role as mediators specifically when there were clashes of opinions in curriculum making. In one of the curriculum meetings, it was the administrator who took the mediating role when emotional tensions were building up amongst the participants. No one had the courage to mediate except for the administrator with a higher position in the campus. The realisation of this mediating role for an administrator that was triggered by the incident was encapsulated during the interview:

Even if we have clashes in opinions and ideas, I still believe that our colleagues are knowledgeable about diplomacy, what to do under these difficult circumstances because it has never happened in my experience in the meetings because of clashes of opinions. I think the administrator really should have a hand when things like this occur. So that even if there are clashes of opinions there should be somebody who is going to mediate, who is going to let them feel that something should be done. And resolve the issue rather than left the issue hanging. It is what we did during our session. When we get out of the session room, we did not have any question unanswered. Even if we have questions during discussions, but with the proper way of dealing these things, we were able to go out of the session room with no questions left unanswered. I mean, that is speaking for me. (A3, Interview) Apart from the mediating role of the administrators, they also contributed to facilitation. Although every member of the curriculum team was given an equal opportunity to facilitate a meeting, all the administrators accepted the opportunity to facilitate.

It was an administrator who served as a facilitator at the presentation of the multicultural curriculum to the general faculty, nominated by the team members for this task.

The exposure, training and experience in the field inside and outside the local campus are important sources of the administrators’ voice to curriculum planning and development.

Faculty Voice The faculty voice in terms of decision-making was clearly evident as an important aspect of the curriculum development process. Empowerment is integral in the decision making process (Lieberman, 1989). This study shows that when curriculum decisions are made at the local level involving the faculty in the university and the teachers from the field, they can become more empowered.

According to one faculty participant (T1), the teachers should be at the ‘front line’ in designing the curriculum. Since they will be the ones to utilise and implement it then they should be given the primary decision making role in the curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment. Feedback from the faculty members confirmed that they were not previously involved in designing the curriculum. This collaborative project gave them a real experience of being heard in making curriculum decisions through their involvement in the collaborative process. This is emphasised by one faculty member:

It made me realize that there are things in my life as a teacher that for me it was very impossible to accomplish. But then with this activity it has happened unexpectedly, just like making multicultural education as part of the curriculum. I don’t know what to do. I am happy with the accomplishment, with this experience. (T3, Interview) The expression of sense of accomplishment as a curriculum team member formed a ‘ripple effect’(Atweh, 2007) to the prospective teachers, in-service teachers and faculty members in higher learning who are teaching outside the PNU Mindanao campus when the Agusan faculty would be invited as guest lecturers. This is a very strong indication of the empowered voice of the faculty as a result of an unexpected experience. These thoughts were further revealed by one faculty member:

22

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

From time to time some faculty members from the university are invited as lecturers so if they are given freedom to present topics, they can always fall back on this new idea and in a sense enlightening other members of the teaching profession to give attention to these people who are members of our society who had probably been left out in terms of the culture that they have. (T3, Interview) The faculty members’ confidence through being heard could be gleaned from their expertise in the areas of specialisation and pedagogy. All the faculty participants contributed and shared ideas and opinions when the topic was concerned about the content of their discipline. Faculty members also shared when it came to the pedagogy where they could contribute according to the specific courses they teach:

There is a certain topic studying the culture of the specific ethnic groups in the local community. So, for example, culture...ahh...of course, we are going to have first the history of the Manobo. After the history, then culture. The culture that is really specific to the Manobo.

The question is, “Is it only the Manobos who reside in Prosperidad? (T1, Excerpt from CDM 4) Faculty participants also did a lot of sharing when it came to pedagogy or other technical courses where they could contribute according to the specific courses that they teach:

I would like to suggest before we go to the details of infusion, can the group suggest also models as to how to infuse? We are now in the details of competencies but we do not have something like models for infusion. What are we going to follow? What model? I mean, how are we going to infuse multicultural content? Can we create models first? (T1, Excerpt from CDM4) The competencies of faculty in the course content and pedagogy are associated with their professional experiences outside the local campus. As a matter of fact, the faculty members who did most of the sharing of ideas were those who had exposure to some training, and conferences outside the local campus. These faculty members were also selected to represent the local campus at meetings in the main campus. Their professional background also indicates that they were achievers in their area of specialisation.

The exposure, training and experience in the field inside and outside the local campus are important sources of the administrators’ voice to curriculum planning and development.

The competency of the faculty to make teaching materials such as modules to teach a specific course gave them voice to curriculum making.

The development of their teaching materials also made the faculty participants feel empowered.

As one faculty member emphatically put it during the workshop on syllabus making:

For me, it’s still necessary Ma’am because in Professional Education, there are areas which are very important. For example, developing and using instructional materials is a very important topic in curriculum development. (T1, Excerpt from CDM6) Another faculty also had a similar experience of having the feeling of empowerment in terms of material making related to multiculturalism that she introduced to her students in research. This is in fact one measure of empowerment that she expressed during the interview:

....so the time of empowerment that I felt is when we enjoyed working with trying to give a sort of spotlight with one of the cultures of Filipinos. So when my students and I were looking for topics in research, I told them, we can do material making. I introduced or enlightened them about multiculturalism so they are also convinced of the importance of giving equal recognition of their co-tribe and they got excited with having identified or having familiarised themselves with inputs or inventions of other cultures. (T3, Interview) The ability to give critical comments during discussions on curriculum content is also indicative of teachers’ voice in curriculum making. For instance, the comments and reactions provided by the faculty in the discussion about curriculum standards, syllabus making, and pedagogy were relevant inputs to the successful achievement of a multicultural curriculum.

23

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

Faculty members demonstrated empowerment through their direct, critical verbal comments even in the presence of all the team members, exemplified by one faculty member who showed courage in sharing course content and asserting personal beliefs during the small group workshops. This result could be attested by Haas (2010) who cited the important role of teachers to stand for what they believe and be able to present recommendations for curriculum improvement.

Hearing a previously ‘silent’ faculty voice was noted by the administrators. Her voice figuratively was not “too loud” to be heard by the members of the team because she rarely verbalised her ideas with confidence. The opportunity given to her to be part of this collaborative project made her ‘stick her neck out’ in order to contribute something to the group. She felt shy sitting there as a team member without contributing something to the team. She gained a little confidence towards the end of the curriculum process when she made a point to share and fight for her ideas in her small group. When she was able to do it, she contributed further by deciding to change a part of the syllabus outside the small group session. She felt elated when her ideas during the syllabus making were accepted as part of the syllabus output of her group.

She narrated her experience during the interview:

In our group, Ma’am (T3), she likes to dominate her ideas. If you give questions, she gets angry. But one time, I told her, Maám wait, it should be like this, I will explain to her. Maybe this is what we should use. She said, ok, ok, thanks (laughing), she accepted my suggestion. It only happened that she accepted because it’s Economics, and that is my area of specialisation. (T4, Interview translated) As a whole, the faculty voice in the curriculum could be summed up in their competency and expertise in the area of specialisation, pedagogy and assessment that gave them confidence and contributed to the successful creation of a multicultural curriculum. Current studies in US could support this study giving importance to the preparation of teachers’ in having expertise on multicultural content and pedagogies to foster multicultural awareness in response to the growing cultural and linguistic diversity in US schools (Assaf, 2010; Yuan, 2018).

The exposure, training and experience in the field inside and outside the local campus are important sources of the administrators’ voice to curriculum planning and development.

A similar study by (Hahl, 2016) in Finland pointed out the importance of teacher educators having provided with content of interculturality to guide the student teachers in reflecting on theirs.Giving the faculty members a voice to curriculum decisions such as expressing their critical reactions further enhanced their competence and skills and provided an opportunity for the previously less involved to be heard and experience empowerment through the CPAR process.

Student Teachers Voice Student teachers should be given an opportunity to be heard in curriculum development. This innovation was explored in the collaborative participatory process of curriculum development.

The students are the end users of the curriculum so they should really be involved in curricular decisions that will affect them; in this context, curriculum issues that would affect them as future teachers. More importantly, the curriculum should be tailored to fit their needs and the needs of the community that they will serve when they teach the children in the local communities. The results of this research show positive outcomes in terms of student teachers’ involvement. Although there were limitations to the extent of their participation, nonetheless, the student teachers’ participation contributed in significant ways to the collaborative curriculum process.

In common with the faculty, the student teachers shared more about the curriculum content than the technical knowledge of the courses. They also contributed ideas particularly related to their experiences from their local community culture.

They were observed (in video recording) to be more confident when talking about their beliefs, values and rituals. The indigenous student teacher was the most active, especially talking about her beliefs and rituals in her community.

24

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

She held beliefs and had experienced rituals she shared with the team which contributed to the assessment of local community needs and the infusion of multicultural content in selected courses:

Yes, when my grandma gets sick, she told me, The diwatas are angry with me because I do not give what they want. We will make offer to the diwatas such as killing pig, white hen, or white rooster...like that.(S2, Excerpt from CDM2, translated) ...because that buya system could not be abolished as a tradition to preserve the culture of the Manobos. Buya System is a marriage practice where the parents of both parties arrange the marriage of their children. A minor or a woman as young as 11 or 12 years of age can marry as approved by the parents. Marriage can be tribal, civil, or church wedding. Church marriage is to be officiated by a priest or pastor. Civil can be done through a licensed datu [tribe chieftain], meaning, authorised by the Supreme to conduct the wedding ceremony. Tribal marriage is also through a datu. It is a very lengthy ceremony with the purpose of developing several values like patience, understanding, cooperation, respect, and loyalty.(S2, Excerpt from CDM5, translated) Similarly, the other student teachers shared their views on personally experienced events in their own local community. For instance, they talked about family clannishness, celebration of festivals or fiestas in their barangays, [smallest unit of community or political organisation in the Philippines] or indigenous issues such as land grabbing and family feuds.

I can cite some examples, ma’am. Ahm...in our community, there is a land grabbing because... ahm...the dumuduong [settlers] of that place will exchange the land with just one bottle of Kulafu or Tanduay [beer]. (S2, Excerpt from CDM2, translated) In addition to what Ma’am (T4) said, it is really true in our barangay that Manobos are fond of asking for food because I observed that whenever there is a fiesta, [feast in celebration of patron or saint] they always go there and they are fond of bringing food from the fiesta to their house or ‘bring house’. (S4, Excerpt from CDM2, translated)

The exposure, training and experience in the field inside and outside the local campus are important sources of the administrators’ voice to curriculum planning and development.

Manobos...ahh...the natives are fond of asking something. This is very true in our community also but as what I’ve observed, though it’s negative, but they are very family-oriented. (S3, Excerpt from CDM2) This sharing of experiences from their local culture and the local community provided useful feedback for the faculty and administrators in thinking about the curriculum content. In fact, the faculty and administrators during the interviews appreciated the involvement of the student teachers because they validated the perceptions of the faculty members and administrators towards the indigenous peoples.

The student teachers’ experiences confirmed the right perspectives and corrected misconceptions especially for the faculty members who had not experienced mingling with the indigenous groups.The articulation of voices ofstudent teachers about their views and concerns were worthy of consideration. One administrator commented: Even the students have a part in expressing themselves about the content and example of the activity. (A1, Interview) Another faculty participant commented on the participation of the student teachers. This empowered faculty member was observed to work well independently and yet appreciated even the contribution of the student participants in the curriculum team. She verbalised this insightful learning from the process during the interview:

... And then they took initiative in interpreting instructions given to them and then the others also even the student members stood up and express their opinion or become a part of the whole process since they got involved. (T3, Interview) The appreciation of the faculty as well as the administrators about student teachers’ views supported the need to make students’ 25

Faculty

and

Student

Teachers

‘Voices’ ....

involvement a significant part of the curriculum making process. Student teachers are capable of sharing ideas about their local culture and identity. In the process of the collaborative project, one student teacher indicated her sense of empowerment through courage to make reactions during syllabus making in the context of cultural biases to the indigenous community. Again, this is related to the experiences of her cultural community and speaks about her cultural identity.

However, the reaction came out of her learning from the discussion and the collaborative process:

It is not really like that, Ma’am (responding to the facilitator), because my concept is that when the syllabus is read by the mainstream (students), they would say that in course goals as if there is specification. (Student 2, Excerpt from Curriculum Meeting 9) However, there were also limitations in terms of the capacities of the student teachers. They had not been afforded the technical-know-how of curriculum making.

They did not have the technical skills that faculty members have in developing the syllabus or critiquing the content, objectives and pedagogy of the teacher education programmes. When the meetings had something to do with these topics, the students were quiet and listening most of the time. In later meetings, some faculty members also asked the student teachers about their opinions.

Overall, the contribution of the student teachers might not be seen as equal to the work of the faculty and administrators; however, they played their part to make the curriculum useful and realistic for them. Their perspectives provided a good instrument for validating what should be the content of the curriculum and how it should be workable for their utilisation. The positive side of the results is the confidence that they were building for themselves as a result of the process. This confidence could be a starting point to spread their wings of empowerment when they become teachers.

I am so overwhelmed being a part of this curriculum development because I know that I should be equipped with different ideas, and I can use it in the real classroom setting. Now I became aware that as a teacher, I should have a thorough understanding with regards to becoming an effective teacher of different individuals. So this curriculum development activity is a worthy experience I should treasure as a future multicultural teacher. (S1, Interview)

In this research, the change for the curriculum using the collaborative participatory approach was locally and specifically intended for the PNU Mindanao campus. However, the study offers possibilities for future collaborative research arising from the collaborative participatory model.

In this research, the change for the curriculum using the collaborative participatory approach was locally and specifically intended for the PNU Mindanao campus. However, the study offers possibilities for future collaborative research arising from the collaborative participatory model.

Further examination of the usability and generalisability of the collaborative participatory process to other contexts is encouraged. It would be of particular interest for other researchers to test the collaborative participatory approach with other local higher education institutions where faculty and students are not directly involved in curriculum planning. Other higher education institutions might be challenged to initiate a curriculum reform giving ‘voices’ to their faculty and students.

Conclusion and Recommendation In this paper, we have presented the major contributions of the significant stakeholders involved in curriculum planning. The active participation of faculty, student teachers, and the administrators benefitted the creation of the multicultural curriculum for the local campus of Agusan. The collaborative participatory process gave voice to significant people, especially faculty and students in curriculum making. The impact of faculty, and student teacher’s voices showed that a bottom-up model in creating a curriculum for a local context is feasible and desirable. This could be a model for other higher education institutions with local campuses to the possibility of reversing the current curriculum model from top down to bottom up when addressing the needs of their own local community.

Reyes, W. and Harvey, R. (2018). Faculty and Student Teachers ‘Voices’ in Developing a Multicultural Teacher Education Curriculum Using Collaborative Participatory Approach. Retrieved from https://po.pnuresearchportal.org/ejournal/index. php/normallights/article/viewFile/764/298 26