RECENTLY, my manuscript for a Philippine senior high school textbook was unfairly evaluated.
Of course, I threw a fit.
So I wrote a letter.
I’m on an extended vacation, so I’m sharing my incendiary letter.
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Dear Textbook Development Editors:
I am a little disappointed with your evaluation of my Contemporary Arts from the Regions of the Philippines manuscript. I feel that you made the comments para lang mema — as in, may ma-comment.
First point, you said I have covered all the competencies. And that is my greatest pride. That I understand the DepEd curriculum, and I covered all the competencies.
But in the same sentence you also were looking for more information input or “discussion in a resource book” because you said that I relied mostly online. Do you understand what you are saying?
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We call this a textbook, but this is really a module. I do not have to define ‘art’, ‘contemporary’, ‘regional’ in a module. All I need to do is to point to the learners where they can get the information.
In fact, there is no reason for me to repeat the discussion of ‘art’, ‘contemporary’, ‘regional’ that my sources could explain so very well or even better than I could. (Hint sa textbook editors, at maging sa DepEd wannabe authors: Sa 2020s, module writers should be more like museum curators rather than Picasso or Rembrandt themselves.)
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I hope that you checked out the web links that I have provided, listened to every YouTube video, and read each article, and performed my assessment questions (as if you were a student). Because you know what? They are the ‘missing text’ that you are looking for. This is also called hypertext learning approach or discovery learning approach. Please Google for yourself the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) kasi parang hindi n’yo alam ito. At para sa akin, nobody can criticize my manuscript if they do not know UDL! Pakisabi rin n’yan sa consultant at reviewers ninyo!
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If you performed everything I asked the students to do in my manuscript, you would also know that you may not have enough time in the semester to finish the book. One-half page of instructions from me can take 3 or 5 days to do. Please don’t tell me they need to read more text/discussion. Level 1 learning lang sa Depth of Knowledge ‘yang Information upload. Doon ako nag-concentrate sa Levels 3-4 Application and Evaluation, which is commonly missed or not prioritized by teachers or even other textbooks. But are definitely needed by learners to survive in the real world.
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I think you are crazy for criticizing that I relied mostly on the web. Remember that this is 21st century learning, with Gen Z learners, and their world is the web. Why do you insist on your Jurassic textbook format in a world running on computers? During the pandemic, even the remotest Philippine barangay had internet. There was online learning even among the poorest of the poor.
If the learners can afford our textbook/module, I assure you that they can afford Internet and WiFi. Bakit pa kayo nagmalaki ng online resource feature ninyo kung may problema pala sa internet ang book users natin?
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If I already covered the competencies, can you tell me what exactly do you want me to discuss further? What exactly is the ‘missing information/discussion’ that you need? Am I allowed to write more things that are outside the curriculum? And do you promise that you will not rate this as irrelevant?
Because I’m thinking of relevant things (for the 21st century students/citizens of the world) that may be considered irrelevant based on the limited/poorly-made DepEd curriculum (na hinahabol ninyo in your completeness evaluation.) (To be continued)/PN
