I can understand public school educators brainwashing their students to become dependent on the government for free lunch.
However, I didn’t realize how far gone into the collectivist rabbit hole the Philippine educational system finds itself in, until I learned that a private school such as the Ateneo de Davao, shoves Marxism and nationalism into the throats of students.
In one instance, my college freshman son approached me that he was a bit upset about their teacher drip feeding Marxism in their Sociology class. The teacher he said was promoting hatred of the rich and the victim mentality of the poor. He further said that nearly all his classmates where scholars – and he was among the few whose education was paid for by a parent.
My quick reply was that their teacher should not be promoting hatred of the wealthy, and instead motivate the children to learn how to become wealthy themselves. After all, if you imbibe an attitude of hatred towards wealth – you in effect mire yourself in poverty because you will hate the mere thought of becoming wealthy! If you hate the wealthy – then you will hate the wealthy version of you – and that ensures you will NEVER become wealthy. But then, what good is poverty really?
Being wealthy allows you to do the things you want – you become independent and empower yourself to do whatever you want – to travel, to have a comfortable life, to help yourself – and even help the poor by providing them with jobs and scholarships!
As a parent, I advised my son that the goal of education (as far as am concerned) is to nurture critical thinking- and not just to swallow what the teacher says.
At that point, I introduced him to a book by French economist Bastiat called “The Law” and a youtube playlist of video clips from Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman’s – Economics 101. I also advised him to debate the teacher in a respectful manner but without compromising his beliefs.
The second instance was when my daughter, a high school sophomore, reached out to me and said she was piqued at their English class project which was built around the theme – “How good nationalism is”.
Frankly, in my time, the teacher would have instead left it to the student to determine whether nationalism is good or not. The student will do the research and provide pros and cons of nationalism. What the teacher will do is to evaluate how well written the piece is.
Nudging students towards nationalism, in my view, miseducates the students to perpetuate a greatly flawed concept because history has shown that there is NOTHING GOOD ABOUT NATIONALISM.
As pointed out by George Orwell:
“All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by “our” side.The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them” – George Orwell
In our daily lives, economic nationalism has not done us any good too.
What good has a Filipino only telecom market done for us? Nothing but high phone bills for slow and dropped calls from PLDT and Glove.
What good has a Filipino only media market done for us? Nothing but moronic variety shows, tacky soap operas, and knock offs of foreign artists. Why the hell should we be limited to watching Ai-Ai de las Alas doing a cover of Lady Gaga? Why settle for a horrorific copycat when you can have the real deal instead?
What good has a Filipino only electric power market done for us? Nothing but high electric bills for chronic power outages – year in and year out.
What good has a Filipino only infrastructure market done for us? Nothing but bloated government budgets awarded to Filipino cronies, decrepit substandard infrastructure, and overtaxed Philippine citizens!
If anything at all, nationalism is a GOOD EXAMPLE OF WHAT NOT TO DO to the economy!
My daughter also narrated a time when her classmates – Ateneans at that! – were saying buy Filipino items only. I am glad that my hija pointed out that people buy goods for their perceived values such as durability and wearability – not just because it was made in the Philippines.
Think about it – you work your ass out, you spend it on cheap Pinoy shoes that conk out after a couple of months. In contrast, you can get a more expensive Clarks shoes that will last you for YEARS! When you add up all that money spent on replacing the cheapo shoes – it will be bigger than the amount you spent on your longer lasting “expensive” shoes.
I am sure there are lots more stories to tell.
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But here’s the point to my fellow parents – be engaged in your child’s education because everything the school teaches is not necessarily correct. After all, Philippine schools are stuffed with teachers who only became teachers as a LAST RESORT.
Or as the saying goes, those who can’t do, teach. People who are able to do something well can do that thing for a living, while people who are not able to do anything that well make a living by teaching.
Now don’t get me wrong – as there are really AWESOME teachers. These are the teachers who can inspire students to think for themselves, and motivate them to reach their full potential. But these teachers are a rarity in the Philippines – more so today than yesterday.
Teachers can only do so much, and parents have to pick up the ball if they don’t want their children to end up as LOSERS feeling entitled to a government subsidy like Pantawid Pamilya.
Teach your children to become WINNERS by showing them the ropes on what it takes to win – hard work, working smart, perseverance, sacrifice, passion, discipline – not government.
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