Is the Special Science Curriculum in the Philippines Right for My Child? A Public School Teacher’s Perspective
The squeaky electric fan in my conference room blows a crumpled division office flyer across the table, and Mia leans forward, her elbows brushing the half-empty paper cup of coffee I poured an hour earlier. Her 9-year-old son Luka is outside, chasing classmates through the dusty school yard after our conference, and she twists her wedding ring as she asks the question I get at least five times a month during enrollment season: should she push him to take the entrance exam for our school’s special science curriculum?
She pulls out a crumpled report card: Luka has a B+ in math, an A- in science, and straight A’s in art (I add the silly comment about recess next to every kid who spends break fixing the class garden). “He collects rocks every time we go home to my mom’s in Nueva Ecija,” she says. “He draws all the bugs he finds in the backyard. But I heard all the kids who get in are geniuses who want to be engineers. I don’t want him to be miserable just because I want a fancy label for his section.”
I’ve been teaching special science sections at this Quezon City public elementary for six years, so I’ve seen every outcome this program can offer. When DepEd rolled out the expanded special science curriculum a decade back, the goal was to spot kids with a natural interest in science and math early, and give them more hands-on learning opportunities than the regular curriculum can fit. My first batch had a 10-year-old girl who aced the entrance exam with the highest score the school had ever seen, but she cried to me every Friday. The curriculum required three extra after-school hours for lab work, which meant she missed the weekly art club she’d joined the year before. Her parents told her art was a waste of time, that she’d worked too hard to get the slot to give it up. By the end of the year, her grades dropped, and she switched to the regular section. She now studies fine arts at UP, and she still sends me Christmas cards.
That story always surprises parents, because most people think the special science curriculum is just a faster track to a high-paying job. It’s not, or at least it doesn’t have to be. The core of the curriculum is more time for doing, not just memorizing. Instead of just memorizing the parts of a seed from a textbook, my kids grow native vegetables in recycled plastic bottles, test how different soil mixes affect growth, and present their findings to the whole school. Instead of just learning about simple machines on a worksheet, they build their own toy cars out of old cardboard and bottle caps. That’s the point of the program – it’s for kids who want to mess around and figure things out, not just kids who get straight A’s.
But the biggest issue I see is that parents treat the slot like a status symbol. I’ve had parents lie about their kid’s grades to get them in, and I’ve seen kids forced to quit soccer, art, or even weekend visits with extended family just to study for the entrance exam. Before you even fill out the application form, there are three small things you can check to see if it’s a good fit, no fancy test prep needed.
First, watch how your kid spends their free time when there’s no homework or screen time. If they’re constantly pulling apart old toys to see how they work, or asking why the sky is gray more days than it’s blue here in Manila, or collecting leaves and rocks on walks, that’s a far better sign than a report card full of A’s. Luka, for example, spends every weekend helping his tito who fixes bikes, and he can name every part of a jeepney engine – that’s the kind of curiosity the curriculum is built for, not just perfect test scores.
Second, talk to at least two parents whose kids are already in the program at your school before you apply. A lot of smaller schools don’t have the budget for extra lab equipment or trained teachers, so they just add three extra homework sheets a week and call it special science. There’s no point in putting your kid through extra stress if the school isn’t actually offering the hands-on learning the curriculum is supposed to have. I always tell parents to ask straight: does your kid do more experiments, or more quizzes? The answer will tell you everything you need to know.
Third, don’t feel like getting in means you have to stay. Last semester, a parent pulled her 10-year-old daughter out of my special science section because the extra after-school hours meant she couldn’t go to her weekly ballet class, which was the thing she looked forward to most all week. It wasn’t a failure, it was the right call for her kid. If your kid comes home every day complaining about all the extra work, and can’t name one activity they enjoyed that month, switching back to regular curriculum doesn’t mean they’re not smart – it just means this track isn’t for them right now.
A month after that first conference with Mia, Luka took the entrance exam and passed. Last month, he brought his first science project to the fair: he tested three different organic fertilizers on pechay, using old milk jugs his mom saved from the grocery. His group got third place, and after the judging, he gave me a leaf of the pechay they’d grown. It was tiny, a little crinkled from the sun, but he was so proud of it he could barely stand still when he handed it over.
Some days I think this is exactly what the curriculum was made for. Other days I get an update from that ballet student’s mom, saying she just won first place in a regional youth competition, and I think her choice was just as good. There’s no one right answer for every kid. The special science curriculum isn’t a prize to win, or a guarantee of success. It’s just a different way to learn, and it only works if it fits what your kid actually cares about.
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