Revisiting the Philippine archaic measurement system: cultural integration with science literacy and education

Integrating cultural knowledge into science literacy and education is at the forefront of understanding human ingenuity that shaped the totality of cognitive interactions in communities and civilizations, leading to the establishment of core principles that guide every society - past, present, and future. The dilution of cultural and historical perspectives in teaching the sciences has severely impacted the mindset of learners. In contrast, knowledge from early societies has become trivial rather than contributory to existing frameworks of science education. In this article, cultural integration into science literacy and education is highlighted by revisiting the archaic Philippine measurement systems. Driven by the metrification of the Philippines, indigenous knowledge of measurement, firmly embedded in the geographical, historical, and cultural aspects of early societies, has been eroded and was lost to time, while some traditional units and jargon of measurement have survived and were incorporated into the local vernacular but without the original context and the intended numeracy. An exploration of how the basic archaic units for mass, length, volume, time, and other related quantities can be incorporated into class discussions is presented herein. Classroom observations reveal that efforts to reconcile the old with the present-day systems of measurement gave learners a new paradigm of integrating cultural knowledge into science education, providing avenues for the more concrete appreciation of the concepts while addressing the divide between the humanities and the sciences toward integrated thinking and synchronizing with the world.