The contemporary world

The third of eight required core courses in the new General Education Curriculum (GEC) for all Philippine colleges and universities is “The Contemporary World / Ang Kasalukuyang Daigdig.”

This particular course best exemplifies the interdisciplinary character of the new GEC. No one particular discipline or specialization can claim to be the most appropriate for the course. Look at the course description: “Globalization and its impact on individuals, communities and nations, challenges and responses. / Globalisasyon at ang epekto nito sa mga indibiduwal, mga komunidad, at mga nasyon; mga hamon at mga tugon.”

We cannot say that social scientists can teach this course best, because it is not only society that has been globalized, but everything else (such as literature, art, culture, technology, business, politics, food, and education). By the same token, what can an internationally-published poet teach students about the globalized stock market (which one cannot play without knowing what the markets in other countries are doing)? Neither can business teachers teach students about stem cell treatment, which a number of wealthy Filipinos are going to Germany for. We cannot even imagine having a computer teacher helping students understand what Wikileaks has to do with our current word war with China or with the latest prizewinning creative nonfiction text.

In other words, the teacher who teaches this course has to be a generalist, not a specialist. The teacher has to have insatiable curiosity. Moreover, because the present cannot be understood without a solid knowledge of the past, the teacher must have the history of civilization at his or her fingertips.

Fortunately, in today’s classroom, the teacher is no longer expected to be a fount of information and wisdom. Instead, the teacher is expected to be an excellent facilitator, able to bring out of students what Plato once theorized to be already in each and every human being at birth.

Now, the question obviously is this: who will teach this course?

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Each Higher Education Institution (HEI) has one or two teachers who have a broad grasp of several fields of knowledge. (Sadly, such teachers are looked down upon by most administrators because they appear to be jacks of all disciplines and masters of none.)

Of course, there are HEIs where there are no such teachers. What shall we do with these HEIs? Fortunately, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is now working on a program to train GEC teachers. All that HEIs have to do is to identify the teachers of this particular course and then send them to the training seminars that will be held sometime next year.

Most HEIs, I predict, will recommend teachers in the social sciences. This is probably the easiest, though not the ideal way to solve the staffing problem, if we take into account the detailed description of the course. Appendix A to CMO 20, series of 2013, says:

“The course aims to introduce students to the state of the world today and the new global order. What does globalization mean both theoretically and from the perspectives of individuals and societies affected by global firms, processes, and movements? The phenomenon of globalization is thus examined from a variety of perspectives as well as its effects on traditional cultures and communities, nations and political institutions, and local, national and regional economies.

“Students will be asked to identify the challenges posed by globalization and consider responses to these challenges as demonstrated by experiences on the ground. For this purpose, students will produce case studies of communities (in the Philippines and other countries) experiencing the impact of globalization and their respective responses to issues that arise. There are global civil societies engaged in advocacies relating to climate and environmental protection, for example, human trafficking across borders, the application of advances in science and technology to serve some of the world’s poorest communities, and so on. There are, too, communities that have managed, with varying degrees of success, to deal with the effects, good and bad, of globalization.

“The course will focus on contemporary global conditions from a Filipino perspective primarily and also as a member of the global community. Through a combination of readings, class discussions, writing, and group presentations, the students are expected to formulate an understanding of globalization that is theoretically informed and rooted in the experiences of communities and nations.”

From the general pedagogical principle that you cannot teach what you do not know, it is clear that the teacher of this course must be familiar with the major issues confronting environmental protection, human trafficking, technological solutions to poverty, the diaspora, the Philippine economy, and so on. Even if the teacher need not be a walking encyclopedia or fast Googler, s/he still needs to know what the students are talking about.

The new GEC has raised the bar on college teaching. (To be continued) –Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star)