Learning What is Right and Proper

The Department of Education wants to add more subjects in good manners and right conduct in school.

That is putting the cart before the horse. If we want to have true good manners and right conduct, then we should start with having proper values first.

Many people are worried that the world is going to hell. It's as if being a decent, God-loving human being is slowly going out of style. We're not talking only about crime here, but a general breakdown in the core human values that every good person should have.

It used to be that we parents could take care of passing on our values to our children.
 
However, let's be honest: The world isn't giving us much time anymore.
OFW families, for example, bear this pain more than many others do. Children are left with one parent to practically raise them, while the other makes sure there's enough money to give them a good life.
 
The country has become a nation of contract workers. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, there were 2.27 million Filipinos working abroad as of 2017. The figures could have jumped by now, and that's not taking into account those working abroad who are unregistered.

Lack of time with the children, combined with distractions and bad influences, makes for a nation with a youth population with a weak moral fiber.
 
Values such as honesty, integrity, and patriotism should be part of a person's foundation. These values are required components of a person's character.

Over the years, I have seen the evils of the world. It is why I fight against all of them with Isumbong Mo Kay Tulfo. It is why I take up the cudgels for the oppressed and the distressed.
 
What I think is this: many people have grown up without proper values.
 
Many of the crimes that you read, hear, and see in the news are committed by people who grew up with weak moral values, or no values at all.  
 
Important values must be taught in schools.
 
They should already have proper values by the time they reach ten years old. Yes, it is important that they know their reading, writing, and arithmetic. But without proper values, children will not know what is good, what right, and what is just.
 
Let's start at the pre-school level, and learn about honesty and integrity along with the ABC's.
 
Discipline, of course, should form part of the curriculum.

I shouldn't say this, but teachers themselves should have good moral standing. If our educators will teach proper Filipino values to the next generation, then they should have those themselves.

I disagree with the notion that we should take shorten the time for teaching values in order to have more time for math, science and social studies.
 
That's ridiculous.
 
In the formative years of a child,  the shaping of moral values and acquisition of knowledge should go hand and hand.

Our schools must bombard our youth from pre-school to Grade 4 with values. Ages 4 to 10 are formative years.
 
If we want to be a strong nation, let's starts with teaching our children honesty, integrity, discipline and patriotism or love of country.
 
If our future generations don’t believe in anything good, then the world will really go to hell.