Student’s Manners: Reimplementing Gmrc Now Matters

In the present time, the topic of GMRC has been making the rounds of social media as Congress seeks to institutionalize values education, including Good Manners and Right Conduct (GMRC), as a core subject in the K to 12 curriculum. As a brief background, Good Manners and Right Conduct (GMRC) is used to teach the student how to gain self-respect, respect for the elderly, patience, perseverance, honesty and learn how to socialize with others. However, it was removed in the current K to 12 curriculum believing that this subject is not really needed and the values of it can be integrated into other subjects such as social studies or any related subject in the curriculum. With the intention of reviving the subject once again, the Senate has done its job and approved the third and final reading of the bill that seeks to institutionalize values education. Under Senate Bill No. 1224 or the Comprehensive Values Education Act, elementary and high school students in public and private schools would be required to take a mandatory GMRC subject for an hour daily. Now that the bill has been approved, the public has been going with the discussion whether employing values education in the education curriculum would be effective or not in cultivating a more morally stand people.

Some people argue that teaching Good Moral and Right Conduct (GMRC) is not an effective solution to alleviate the immoral deeds of the youth because they believe that moral development in its natural way, involves interaction between the environment and the individual. According to Piaget’s theory of moral reasoning, the idea that children learn and internalize the rules and morals of society by being given the rules and forced to adhere to them is invalid. Through his research on how children formed a judgement about moral behavior, he found out that children learn morality best by having to deal with other groups. It means that the values children have are due to their interaction with their environment and the result of how they were affected by their actions. Another thing is people believe that values education is not the responsibility of the educational institution but the responsibility of the parents. Good manners are acquired more by observation than formal teaching, hence, parents should serve a good role model as children imitate their parents. As a Mother or Father, a Parent has to practice what she/he preaches to expect the child to follow it. As technology evolves rapidly in our society, the advantages that it provides to people overweigh the damages that it can take to the well-being of the people. The problem is that the consequence of innovation is often neglected. Due to the technology that surrounds us, children tend to spend their time most on their smartphones that prevents them to socialize which considered by psychologists detrimental to their moral formation. Technology can take a toll on the moral formation of the youth but proper guidance by their parent’s damages can be prevented.

Good Moral and Right Conduct (GMRC) has been successful in inculcating right manners in the youth, however, after it was removed a sudden decline in morality, honesty, discipline, respect, civility and responsibility in our midst – in the family, in society, in government, even in schools has been evident. According to the Philippine National Police, there is 8,076 children ranges from 12-17 years old who are involved in serious crime in 2018. Thus, an immediate step must be taken in order to alleviate the worsening case of the misdeed of the youth, especially, now that youth involved in crimes become more rampant. Some may say that values education is the parent’s responsibility but for the case of parent’s imprudence, the moral formation of children is challenging. In contrary to Piaget’s theory of moral reasoning, Carol Gilligan’s Morality of Care debunked the findings of Piaget and deemed that its research is biased because of using male subjects to his findings. She conducted her research and found out that women and men learn values differently since women's experiences in the world differ from men's in every culture, it would stand to reason that women's moral development might differ from men's, perhaps in significant ways. In addition, she also concludes that formal teaching and the environment assume a vital part of moral formation. With that, we can conclude that teaching Good Moral and Right Conduct and proper guidance can guarantee us upright civilians and their lesser involvement in crimes. According to Otilia Clipa and Anca Mirela Lorgra (2012) in their study entitled “The Role of School-Family Partnership on Moral Development”, the involvement of family and school is crucial in conduct formation of a pupil, their study reveals that it has a positive effect when school gets involved in forming the moral standards by action involving pupils’ families. Thus, we can conclude that educational interventions on pupils and their parents led to a significant improvement in the perceived moral development.

Now that the revival of the Good Moral and Right Conduct has been approved, we see this as an absolute win for the public. Although, some people may believe that approval of this bill would not be beneficial. It is evidently true that this would take us to our goal to obtain a more upright citizen in the future. This may seem like an improbable solution to youth involvement on crimes for the moment, but with the proper implementation we can guarantee the future generation with proper manners and right conduct. But this would be challenging without our support, let us not forget that our involvement in the process of moral formation of our children is crucial. The reimplementation of GMRC matters to the formation of student’s manners, this would allow all education institution to do its obligation in inculcating patriotism, nationalism, love for humanity, respect for human rights, appreciation for national heroes, the rights and duties of citizenship, to strengthen ethical and spiritual values, develop moral character and personal discipline to the younger generation. Let us support GMRC, but let us not forget that while schools have the obligation to educate the youth on the best values of society, inculcating the right values is the job of all of society.

References

• Clipa, O., & Lorga, A. M. (2013.). The Role of school-family partnership on Moral Development. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042813006411/pdf?md5=b43284400f041f7ee3379e1aea3f51cb&pid=1-s2.0-S1877042813006411-main.pdf&_valck=1
• Legaspi, A. (2020). Senate approves GMRC bill on third and final reading. GMA News. Retrieved from https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/726286/senate-approves-gmrc-bill-on-third-and-final-reading/story/
• Mary, J. (2016). ROLE OF PARENTS IN INCULCATING VALUES. Retrieved from http://ijariie.com/AdminUploadPdf/ROLE_OF_PARENTS_IN_INCULCATING_VALUES_c1264.pdf
• Moral Development. (n.d.). Encyclopedia of Children's Health. Retrieved from http://www.healthofchildren.com/M/Moral-Development.html
• Senators seek the return of GMRC in basic education. (2019). Manila Bulletin. Retrieved from https://news.mb.com.ph/2019/10/29/senators-seek-the-return-of-gmrc-in-basic-education/
• The Relationship of Morality and Technology. (n.d.). Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/all-about-ethics/the-relationship-of-morality-and-technology/