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Ideally, the model provides a very holistic approach towards student’s learning and
achievement. It is supposed to allow learners to “be” and “become” whole persons—functional,
competent, critical, collaborative, and creative citizens who will contribute positive changes in
the society.
A Lacking Curriculum
However, six academic years after, as the first batch of Senior High School students are
about to graduate this midyear, I perceive a lacking among the graduates. This form of lacking is
not only observable among the K-12 graduates, but even among ‘millennials.’ It is no other than
the lack of ‘resilience.’ Dr. Peter Gray (2015) from “Psychology Today” noticed that students are
increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday
life. There is also an increased tendency to see a poor grade as reason to complain rather than
as reason to study more, or more effectively. It is inevitable to say that there has been an
increase in diagnosable mental health problems, but there has also been a decrease in the
ability of many young people to manage the everyday bumps in the road of life. These students
are unavoidably bringing their struggles to their teachers and others on campus who deal with
CALIMBAHIN, Genevie-Abi M. Dr. Bert J. Tuga, Ph.D.
MAEd – Curriculum and Instruction March 03, 2018
Theories and Principles of Curriculum and Instruction
students on a day-to-day basis. The lack of resilience is interfering with the academic mission of
schools and is thwarting the emotional and personal development of students.
As the lack of resilience among young learners persist, it is evident that it will also
disrupt the mission-vision of different companies that accommodate these young graduates. In
fact, David Hill (2018) from “The Australian” posted this question: Any company designed for
success in the 21st century must harness the skills and passion of millennials, the digital natives
born into an era of exponential change and disruption. Why is it then that so many firms are
unable to engage and retain millennials? Why is it that so many millennials are disillusioned and
just as likely to quit in their first two years of work as they are to carry on? He observed that
many millennials who graduate from university and, in a burst of enthusiasm, get their first job,
but within a year or two are left struggling or even worse, quitting.
Hill (2018) continued to state that as young graduates enter at the peak of their
expectations, a belief that they can and will change the world, that they will be what they want
to be, that the rewards will continue to flow and that they will experience the same instant
gratification and affirmation they get through them. Their entry into the workforce is the peak
of their inflated expectations and ideals—far too different from reality has to offer them. Once
reality strikes in, they enter into a trough of disillusionment.
Such a widespread event is happening continuously, every day, around the world. This is
also true with my some of very own former students, who have either entered college, or
started working in different companies. Teaching college and senior high school students for the
past three years, I could see them experience the very same phenomena. I can still recall that
one of my first frustrations as a young teacher was to constantly see, hear, and feel my students’
daily murmuring and complaint even with the smallest issues in their lives, every single day. It
was at first exhausting, and literally drained my energy. I wondered why they could not just
enable themselves to be resilient. I perceive their desire to be so, but they are seemingly
unable.
How ironic is it to realize that although contemporary curriculum frameworks are trying
to be at their best in being ‘holistic,’ in return the results from the companies’ feedbacks reflect
otherwise. People may tell us that this is just a dilemma concerning generational gaps; however,
to me, this speaks something more than just a generational gap—it is more fitting to say that it
is an ‘educational’ or ‘curricular’ gap that modern curriculum developers or executioners have
overlooked or neglected.
II. The Promising Exceptions: Resilient graduates ready to change the world
Nonetheless, such a phenomena cannot be generalized. In the last three years, I have
also been amazed by some of my students who continued to brightly stand tall above the
complacent, discouraged, and mediocre crowd. Looking back at my several conversations and
interviews with them, I can see that the difference lies in the very fact that these students
possessed resilience.
CALIMBAHIN, Genevie-Abi M. Dr. Bert J. Tuga, Ph.D.
MAEd – Curriculum and Instruction March 03, 2018
Theories and Principles of Curriculum and Instruction
Called to teach to ‘the regions beyond’ and to the ‘unreached,’ I have always made
myself available to teach students from different socioeconomic status on my first two years of
teaching. Now on my third year, I have chosen to teach and serve in a small-scale Christian
college that caters foreign students from ASEAN countries like Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia,
Indonesia, and Vietnam, as well as other countries like Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Ghana
and Zambia. Among these students are those who showed resilience—they are the ones who
did not let their socioeconomic status, their ethnic group, their race, their nationality, their
gender, and their personal lives hinder them from setting short-term and long-term goals, and
afterwards putting concrete steps into fulfilling them.
Resilience: Selective or Universal
For quite a time, I wondered if ‘resilience’ could be taught to all or only to some
students, or if it is an innate attribute given to only a few. I heavily protested the latter idea, but
that seems to be common on-going misconception. Resilience seems to be a special gift given to
only a few, and could not be, in any way, universal. After doing a few researches, I furthermore
discovered what ‘resilience’ really is, and thankfully, it is something readily available to
everyone. Resilience is actually universal. Anyone can be resilient. From there, I browsed on
various approaches and models on nurturing resilience that may be further included and
applied to today’s curriculums. On the next few paragraphs, I will be laying the ground on what
true, universal resilience is, why it is needed now more than ever in every curricular program,
how it can be included in today’s curriculum, and lastly, its impact and implications to educators
and to the society.
INDIVIDUAL
COMMUNITIES
and SOCIETIES
CALIMBAHIN, Genevie-Abi M. Dr. Bert J. Tuga, Ph.D.
MAEd – Curriculum and Instruction March 03, 2018
Theories and Principles of Curriculum and Instruction
Above is a model that merges the “8 Principles of Whole School Approach” by the Public
Health of England, together with the levels of an individual’s environment, namely, the
individual, the interpersonal, and the community. For this paper, this will be called as the
“Flower Model for Universal Resilience” for cultivating and nurturing universally resilient
individuals and communities, from the inside out.
Perhaps it is high time for the Philippines to start adapting the Whole School Approach
to all schools and embed its salient features together with the learner’s contexts, and bring it to
the surface of the K-12 Curriculum Framework, similar to the “Flower Model for Universal
Resilience” that I have proposed. By integrating this to the educational system, all students
would be given an environment that develops and nurtures their capability to be resilient. It
provides them the compelling drive to be resilient amidst risky experiences. It will also create
universally-resilient families, communities, and societies, and they will become resilient
graduates, ready to handle the rough realities of the corporate world.
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CALIMBAHIN, Genevie-Abi M. Dr. Bert J. Tuga, Ph.D.
MAEd – Curriculum and Instruction March 03, 2018
Theories and Principles of Curriculum and Instruction
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