Worldview as Basis for Indigenous Education System in the Philippines

Abstract

For the early Filipino peoples, storytelling was a fundamental mode of knowledge transmission. This is still being done in Indigenous Peoples communities today, particularly those who still have storytelling venues – bedtime talks, evening gatherings of community members, or community meetings. Such is the basis for a particular world view of a people; inasmuch as a worldview is a mental model of reality – a framework of ideas and attitudes about the world, a people’s comprehensive system of beliefs.

This paper hopes to capture the essence of storytelling by narrating of what is being done at the community level within the Episcopal Commission on Indigenous People’s (ECIP) network to articulate, practice and nurture the community’s indigenous education system. How these translate into concrete practices being done in addressing basic literacy needs of the community is also described.