A Classroom for Culture, Not Just Lessons
GENERAL SANTOS CITY - Pao Pao Elementary School in Sitio Pao Pao, Barangay Sinawal, has created a dedicated space where Blaan heritage can become part of students’ learning experience. The Cultural Heritage Learning Center was opened in March 2025 under the Department of Education’s Indigenous Peoples Education program, with about 75.8% of the school’s learners identified as Indigenous Peoples. Its purpose goes beyond displaying cultural objects, focusing instead on Indigenous knowledge systems, traditional crafts, values, customs, and practices. The approach is especially relevant because a 2026 study of Blaan IPED schools in General Santos found that culturally grounded teaching can strengthen learner engagement, cultural identity, and meaningful classroom experiences.
When Elders Become Part of the Lesson
One of the center’s most meaningful features is the role given to community members who carry knowledge through lived experience. Rather than leaving cultural education entirely to textbooks, Pao Pao’s program involves Blaan elders and community leaders as culture bearers and resource persons who can share traditional knowledge directly with children. This approach fits closely with findings from the 2026 General Santos study, which identified community collaboration, cultural immersion, and curriculum adaptation among the ways teachers respond to challenges in integrating Blaan Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices. In this setting, a lesson about heritage can become something students hear, observe, practice, and understand through people who know it firsthand.
Keeping Heritage Moving Into the Next Generation
The work at Pao Pao is also designed to continue beyond the opening of the center. Planned activities include training teachers in Indigenous Peoples Education, creating culturally responsive learning materials, organizing activities with culture bearers, and developing partnerships with DepEd and cultural institutions for documentation and sustainability. DepEd Region XII’s publication likewise identifies the center as a venue for passing Indigenous knowledge and skills to learners while increasing the involvement of elders as resource persons. That combination gives the project a practical direction: culture is not simply remembered as something from the past, but introduced to children as knowledge they can encounter within their own education.
