More Science Education Please...

Some thoughts on science education and national development:

I have always had a hunch that religion by some circuitous means has been an obstacle to development in countries that came late in the capitalist game. In these so-called "post-colonial states," like our country, one finds the language of national development peppered by religious rhetoric.

Pardon, I don't want to sound anti-religion or anti-church here, but consider this. A study shows that the top ten “least religious countries” in the world are Sweden (up to 85% non-believers, atheists, agnostics), Vietnam, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Czech Republic, Finland, France, South Korea and Estonia (up to 49% non-believers, atheists or agnostics). Note how most of these countries are among the most developed and orderly national communities in the world today.

The survey, published by the Cambridge University Press in 2005 as a chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism concluded that “high levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality.”

It further noted that “most nations characterized by high degrees of individual and societal security have the highest rates of organic atheism, and conversely, nations characterized by low degrees of individual and societal security have the lowest rates of organic atheism. In some societies, particularly Europe, atheism is growing. However, throughout much of the world — particularly nations with high birth rates [underscoring ours] — atheism is barely discernable.”

Nations with high birth rates? Is this the reason for the Hierarchy's unrelenting opposition against the Reproductive Health Bill?

I know that religion and politics are a volatile mix, and I may be inviting undue stress by raising some discomfiting questions here and writing on this most delicate of topics, but then again I think no stone must be left unturned in our quest for a solution to our country’s problems. Nothing is so holy in the altar of meaningful change — in our collective effort as a global specie to uplift the human condition in the only planet that we inhabit.

Some learned student of society once argued that a particularly religious attitude — the "Protestant Ethic" (includes hard work and wealth seeking in this world) — could perhaps explain the relative development of certain societies compared to others. What about a "Catholic Ethic" therefore? Is that our key problem in the Philippines?

Now, perhaps a more constructive, precise, and perhaps less controversial way of stating my main point is that communities with a less scientific orientation tend to become less economically developed. This seems a self-evident argument. But exactly how is science then factored into governance and education in a country like the Philippines?

To put it another way, how come, notwithstanding the seeming dominance of the natural sciences in the curriculum of our schools, religion appears more influential in shaping the policy debates in this nation? How do the DOST and DEPED address science education concerns? What roles do they have?

We praise Filipinos students who win in math quizzes and science fairs but our policies on, for instance, population growth, do not seem to be based on sound scientific propositions — how do we explain this country’s cultural schizophrenia? Let's zoom in on the public school system.

I am alarmed at how, in the public school where my two nieces now are studying (pre-school and grade 2), there is a notable lack of science education. The older one told me they had no specific subject on science. Is this now the case really? I have not been too in touch with public elementary school-realities it seems. It is noticeable how she lacks appreciation of the most basic science principles that could be taught in Grade 1, considering that she is supposed to be in a “science section.” We supplement her learning through tutorial and additional materials aside from giving her some access to the Internet (yes, the Net) to satiate her thirst for knowledge.

But how about the nameless others of her cohort who must make do with what is offered to them in the public schools? No wonder we get the lowest marks in international tests on science and math achievement.

When my nieces started going to that public school, I learned that the “Panatang Makabayan” (Oath of Nationalism) has already been rewritten to in fact include the word “dasal” (pray). They make you memorize this. Mildly amused, I was thinking how I don't suppose I turned out so bad without a very prayerful life and a more secular Panatang Makabayan.

Given my primary education in another public school, I attribute the high quality of our learning to persevering teachers like Mrs. Asperas-Sabado (my Grade 1 mentor who introduced me to the beauty of Science) and not to any forced memorization of canticles. Are we now so overly concerned with values and prayers that we have forgotten that science is the base of formal knowledge? If we are, what values are these anyway? Should we not have a sustained concern for national development and not just “prayers”?

But hope springs eternal, indeed. Like my nieces, most school age Filipino youth in developing countries want to learn more science.

Through a 2006 study, “Science-Related Attitudes and Interests of Students” by Talisayon, de Guzman, and Balbin of U.P., the Philippines took part in an international research project, the Relevance of Science Education (ROSE), based in the University of Oslo and funded by the Norwegian government. The study found out that among eleven countries including Egypt, England, Estonia, Ghana, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Norway, Philippines, Russia, and Sweden, the Philippines ranked first on viewing “the importance of Science and Technology for society, and new technologies making work more interesting.” The country ranked second in perceiving “greater opportunities for future generation due to Science and Technology, greater benefits of science than harmful effects it could have, having as much science as possible in school, liking to get technology job, and important for future jobs – working people rather than things and working with machines as tools.” In sum, the Philippine results showed more than 90% of students indicating positive science related interests and experiences. Our students are thirsting for more science.

I have nothing against religious or values education. Definitely, we need more leaders with not just knowledge but integrity and patriotism for this country. However, there is much space for such learning in the private and non-formal sphere, especially in our families where such education truly begins. I am not too keen in spending precious state funds on religious education in public schools. In the public domain, through the formal school system and beyond, what we need to do is to bring science to the mainstream of people's lives.

Let us invest more into science education. I pray for a more scientific and development-oriented education in this country. Thy youth's will be done.

Education and Social Change: Where have all the flowers gone?

March, the start of graduation season, has marched on...

...Those who are privileged enough to pass through the halls of the academe are now asking the proverbial question: where do we go from here?

Worried and hopeful, some of them ask me for advice and what I usually give is an optimistic and yet tempered look at what life is after graduation. I try not to dampen their hopes, in spite of the current financial state of, not just the country, but the rest of the world.

But for those who enjoyed scholarship grants, I usually discuss with them the role that education plays in society. I feel I have to make them realize that as scholars, they are in fact a privileged but probably over-hyped bunch who can do a lot, but not so much. Much is expected of them but then, historically, their being beacons of hope has been wanting, at the very least. These scholars see education as promoting national development. How this works, however, is something they cannot fully explain.

Education as a social process is all about acquiring or transferring meaningful knowledge, attitudes, values and skills among social actors: the teachers and students. Education could be informal, formal or non-formal. Informal education involves learning in the course of day-to-day activities in order for a community to reproduce itself in succeeding generations. It is unstructured and learner-led.

Non-formal education is relatively structured, undertaken through, for instance, training-workshops in firms or even in community organizations. It is often mainly concerned with addressing the immediate educational needs of particular learners. It is not sequenced or structured compared to formal education.

For the more familiar formal set-up, the process takes on a certain form distinguished by the organization of learners into classes. Formal learners sequentially go through levels of education and follow a pre-determined schedule. Knowledge here is transmitted primarily through pre-determined curricula and is systematized into discipline areas. What is also evident is the professionalization of the lead knowledge-transmitters, the teachers, according to these areas of specialization.

When people therefore talk of education, what they often refer to is the formal type, which in the Philippines is mainly realized through the public schools. Tragically, the public school system has been described as perennially in a state of crisis even as education continues to be popularly seen as a key factor in national development.

Education could partially contribute to societal development in two ways. First is by producing a labor force with particular skills, competencies and distribution. Second and perhaps more importantly is that it produces the people’s general ways of perceiving, thinking about and acting upon the world.

Beyond the issue of Filipino children’s low achievement scores in international tests is how the public school system has actually produced people with a “neo-colonial identity and consciousness,” carrying values supportive of personalistic and authoritarian political structures and a “non-critical, fatalistic, non-analytic outlook manifested in a curious readiness to attribute felicitous political events due to miraculous causes.” It no longer wonders why Philippine politics remains to be as it is today, uninspiring at best.

Education is an agency with but a supportive role in social transformation. Indeed, formal education itself “cannot effect thoroughgoing social structural changes,” as the late Dr. Maria Luisa Canieso-Doronilla of the University of the Philippine exquisitely pointed out. “Well meaning individuals who place total fate in the transforming power of education” need to be “reminded that issues of distributive justice when premised only on a more equitable distribution of educational opportunities are immediately translated by the logic of educational processes (such as teaching, learning and grading) into simple matters of individual ability, effort, values, attitudes and grading) without significantly weakening the structure of inequitable relations in society at large.” In other words, Dr. Doronilla succinctly argues that “a program of scholarships to ‘poor but deserving students’ such as is at present provided in the 1986 Constitution will merely co-opt these students if successful, into the elite.”

So, still care to sing and ask “where have all the flowers gone?” One simply needs to look up to the social apex and see. Still students of mine continue to inspire and hope. Hope indeed springs eternal.

Literacy and 2010

The signs are ominous: Illiteracy is growing.

What can we expect from a government whose leaders:

1. Cannot read the people's pulse? They keep pushing for Charter Change even as many public opinion polls show its high unpopularity as a policy option;

2. Cannot count properly? They cannot count the growing numbers of people who are going hungry and poorer every day;

3. Cannot write properly? They cannot write the laws demanded by the people like on the extension of the Agrarian Reform Program; and,

4. Cannot comprehend basic rules? They keep on offering various modes to change the Constitution when the Charter clearly sets very specific modes for amendment.

Illiterate leaders can only breed further illiteracy. The strategic solution? A literate electorate who can write on their ballots to vote away the non-literates.

3,275 : 0

Before Nicole found the courage to face her rapist in court, the record stood at 3,274 : 0, in favor of the Super Power. Dehado tayo. We thought a trend breaking 3,274 : 1 was about to be inscribed on the historical scoreboard.

Now, it's final. 3,275 : 0. The Champion retains the title on an extended game.

At least no one could say it was a hometown decision.

The judges have spoken. And they were all women.

Lady Justice was never so cruel, nor gender blind. Simply blind...

GMA News TV has pointed out that the Philippines has many ‘Nicoles’:

The Philippines has many “Nicoles," but only Suzette Nicolas was served justice when the Makati Regional Trial Court convicted Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith of rape on December 4, 2006.

From 1981 to 1988, when the US military bases were in the Philippines, 3,274 cases of abuse of women and children were filed against US servicemen in Subic and Clark. However, not one of the US servicemen was convicted.

Data from the Olongapo City prosecutor's office showed that during the same period, cases of rape and sexual abuse involving children ages 11 to 16 were filed against US servicemen. Another 82 cases of sexual abuse involving young women were also recorded. All of these cases were dismissed.

Ninety-seven of these cases, in which 15 children were involved, were filed by the non-government Bikolana Gabriela against American soldiers in Clark and Subic.

Smith was the first-ever American military personnel who was convicted of committing a crime on Philippine soil since the establishment of the US military bases in Subic, Zambales and Clark in Angeles, Pampanga and the passage of the Visiting Forces Agreement in 1999. - GMANews.TV

Earth Day and Some Parochial Concerns Somewhere on Earth

Yesterday was Earth Day. Global warming continues. Species are becoming extinct. The earth is dying.

Meanwhile, in a small corner of the globe called the Philippines, members of Congress are still adamantly pursuing their parochial dream of Charter change as their constituents suffer and die in the face of unjustifiable oil price hikes, failed agrarian reform, and police brutality.

In an even smaller corner of that world, friends are starting to ask: Who should we support in 2010? In the past, I had ready answers for such a question, or at least there was a popular pick. Today, things are messier and people are even more cynical given what GMA has done and failed to do.

After days of reflection on that question, and inspired by rains sent down to wet Gaia on her day, I realized that it is not enough that we pose such query and seek answers to it through casual discussion with friends and family.

In the Philippine political forest, one fauna has yet to fully evolve, and that is the political party. I realized that because we don't have real parties that recruit, shape and offer to us their leaders and issue advocates in a sustained manner, and much less, that recruit regular members for solid party machinery building down to the grassroots, this country's typical voter is largely clueless come election season.

I have always been loyal to one particular party in this country (which shall remain nameless forevermore). So when time comes to choose leaders, I go by my party's choice or at least see how my party's principles apply to the necessarily limited choices offered to me.

I suggest that all of us, wherever we are in this archipelago, reach out to our political parties. If they cannot reach out to us, let us reach out to them and force them by our membership and participation to be more mature in handling themselves and our public affairs. Perhaps we should stop asking others and start asking ourselves. Ask this question: what have I done to help shape a better polity in this country? Why don't I belong to any political party? Not even a party list group for the environment? What do I stand for? Citizenship, after all, is not just about following the rules. Even more importantly, citizenship must mean shaping the rules as necessary and providing the leadership that enforces such rules in a fair and meaningful way.

Global citizenship requires even more. As the globe spins and slowly dies, let us ask ourselves, what am I doing with the short life that i have in this sphere called the Earth? Am I like those creatures and cretins in Congress who are wasting days left to them by pushing charter change in the face of the terrible poverty and despair of our people?

Some say that storms are nature's way of cleansing the earth. By 2010 we need a political typhoon to cleanse Congress of all dead and dying fauna. What will you do?

Feel earth's anguish. Belated Happy Earth Day everyone.

To Our Majors

This is an 'open letter' that I crafted some years ago for my students at DLSU-Manila.

To Our Political Science and Development Studies Majors...

At the heart of the science of politics are words. In algebra there are numbers and other algebraic symbols. In the social sciences, there are words and other memes.

Just like words, languages, and the ideas that they convey, government is a social construct. People create governments. The structure of modern governments is a product of the time, ideas, and actions of multitudes of peoples. They are patterns of relationships of power -- and some of these, unfortunately, are more equitable than others. Some individuals, groups, or sectors have been more influential in the design and development of their governments. However, there stands the democratic ideal that government is for everybody, including and specially those who have less in life. Anyone can, theoretically, be a part of government and everyone should benefit from its policies and actions. The magnificent political lesson is this: we can and we need to make government respond to our needs. Remember the character V (in V for Vendetta)? He quipped: People shouldn't fear their governments, governments should fear their people.

We need government or some form of government because many of our problems have taken on forms or dimensions which can not be handled merely by individuals thinking and acting separately or discreetly. These problems have become social problems. They have become “issues.” As such they require a social response -– a collective response. Such a response necessarily implies dealing with an “organization,” a “political formation,” or a “political structure”, i.e. a state or a government.

To illustrate, we may desire or need development given the current state of things in Philippine society. It can be argued that we would have to have, among others, agrarian reform. But then a comprehensive agrarian reform program would affect or involve various socio-economic groups or classes, if you will, which constitute Philippine society. Given such, a group or class could very well dominate the others and have its way. Or it is also possible that an arrangement may be forged to the virtual satisfaction of the potentially contending interests represented by these groups. At any rate, failure is a very real possibility. At worst, the threat of internal and armed conflict could not be discounted given the sensitivity and urgency of such an issue area. Now, therefore, a government has at least two choices. One, to take side with a particular class interest; or two, to facilitate the forging of, if there be any, a course of action mutually acceptable to the contending groups. The bottomline is that government would have to do something about it -– whether for or against its people’s interest.

We need to make government respond to our needs and there are various ways of effecting this. Our collective and individual experiences, capacities, skills, and resources will guide us and ultimately determine our most probable political recourse. Among others, we can tap the available legal or 'legitimate' channels to lobby for governmental action. If government is however invariably and generally unresponsive to our demands as a people, something extra-legal could take shape to the consternation of the more peace loving among us -- Satyagraha has its limits. The point is, as already noted, governments are created. Governments are made. They can be unmade.

The 1896 Philippine Revolution and 1986 Manila Uprising (better known by the pretentious label "Edsa Revolution") and the nationalist and democratic efforts directly leading to and from them have shown us certain ways of doing it.

Closer to our homes, we can involve ourselves in local government and community activities. But then, as the dynamics of our Sangguniang Kabataan and other community bodies would tend to show, it seems the youth are lacking interest, knowledge, and skills in handling local affairs. There is a need for us to reflect on this... for if we can not make our immediate communities happy and healthy, if we can not even make peace with our neighbors or help them to help themselves, how can we even begin to imagine and consider the interests of a broader community and, moreover, to identify ourselves with such?

How can we dare dream of a better national community -– of nation building and national development if we do not even know the name of our barangay and key local officials? (How many of you do know the name of your chief barangay leader?)

The Sesame Street characters once sang: "Who are the people in your neighborhoud?" Can you answer that question?

For our Dev Stud majors, the local development planning officer is supposed to be a person in your neigborhood? Is there one in your community?

More pointedly, for the Christians among us, what have you done for the least of your neigbours as the Christ queries?

To our majors, do you even know who your organization’s officers are?

As someone once said, home is where the heart is. Let me borrow from that fine line and put it this way:

Community is where the political heart is.

Please care for your nation AND your local community… your organization.

Be part of government if you can. Be part of an organization.

Be politically active as you must.

Dare to dream. Dare to imagine.

Dare to use words.

BE POLISCY.

Pattaya and Patayan

From Patayya with love, GMA's Easter message to us: "Risk all for Truth!"

What audacious hypocrisy. What callousness.

Easter is supposed to be about Hope and Redemption. With statements like that from GMA in Patayya, Thailand, we only become more hopeless. GMA could have said something else like, 'I am now stepping down, forgive me...'

May we remind GMA, your rule is tainted with so much political killings but your administration’s police, military, legal, and forensic work have been very wanting. Even Ninoy Aquino’s assassination has yet to be fully resolved but then perhaps it’s best that those soldiers are already out. But then again, as for the other murderers and the rapists whose sentences your regime has cut short, well... are you, GMA, simply being more Christian than the Christ?

Moreover, may we also remind you how many times you have been called to risk all for the truth through the impeachment process. What have you and your minions done? Risk all for whose truth? For whom? For yours and for you?

We need two S’s it seems in this country. Science and Sincerity. A more “science-informed” system of governance and a more sincere set of national leaders.

Patayan ng patayan dito habang nasa Patayya ka. Sabado de Gloria yata talaga ang favourite day mo.

Moral Farce Movement

The Moralists, like zombies, never really die.

After all, who can ever really defeat and kill their arguments? Who can breach the logic of their glittering generalities? Who wouldn't really have a MORALITY?

But wait, what is “morality”? Is there a science behind morality? It seems. “Mores”--the stuff of morality--would seem to have material origins.

It is said that morality can be seen either...

1.descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or, some other group, such as a religion, or accepted by an individual for her own behavior; or,
2.normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

In short, morality is constituted by “guides to behavior that involve, at least in part, avoiding and preventing harm to some others.” Morality as a “code of conduct” is informed by one's Philosophy. It requires or presupposes answers to certain basic questions about the world and the life in it. In other words, morality embodies these basic concerns in Philosophy:
Metaphysics-->Study of Existence->What's out there?
Epistemology->Study of Knowledge->How do I know about it?
Ethics------->Study of Action---->What should I do?
Politics-->Study of Force-->What actions are permissible?
Esthetics---->Study of Art------->What can life be like?

For the so-called Moral Force Movement, there is a need to identify a national “transformational leader” for the 2010 elections given Corruption in Philippine society. But how did they arrive at such brilliant analyses? Who can really argue with them on that?

Every election in this country has included Corruption as a top issue. Who does not want to battle corruption? But what is corrupt? Who is corrupt? How do we 'measure' all these? Who is to measure all these? Who is to tell us what we should do and how we should vote?

Who are the people behind the Moral Force Movement aside from Chief Justice Puno? Are they all truly “moral” people as their movement suggests? By the way, what is a “movement”? How many have to be involved in actions for actions to be called a movement?

Are the 8 personalities at the core of the Moral Force Movement to tell us what is “Moral”?

I hope not. Otherwise, we will have nothing but another Moral Farce Movement.

Beware. The march of social zombies with glittering generalities!

Measures and meaningfulness

Someone had the grand idea of making a photo collage with Gloria Arroyo's face on it. The photo is reportedly to be proposed as a Guinness book entry on being the largest photo collage. What Napoleonic complex. Oh, but then we also note how the President reportedly lambasted government offices that used taxpayers money to publish birthday ads for her in newspapers. Perhaps the photo collage idea wasn't hers. Still, thousands of pesos wasted.

Imelda is One of the Greediest Persons in the world. What an understatement.

It was reported that when one Supreme Court justice retired last January, he left 1,159 unresolved cases. A month later, another judge retired and left 1,008 cases hanging. This as 1,310 new lawyers troop to the Court led by their Number One — the Bar Topnotcher, with an exam rating of 87.50%. Vice Prexy Noli has called on them to serve the poor. We wonder how many of them prayed to pass so that they can SERVE the PEOPLE.

The country has been blacklisted for being an uncooperative tax haven. Taxation is another numbers game.

By the way, who among you have ever been given by your lawyers an official receipt for their services? So, how does government know how to tax them for their “professional” service? Just asking.

Numbers, numbers, numbers. Measures, measures, measures. Science is built on measurement. Objectively verifiable measurement requires the concept of numbers.

Many Filipinos are very good at numbers. We need to develop this. This is where we start to create a more scientific culture. But science and measurement, or quantification, are not enough. It is even more important to ask, what should we quantify and why? For whom? For what purpose? What is the meaning of all these numbers?

Is it any good that we have the largest photo collage of our supposed leader? So what if someone even gets 100% in the bar exams? In the end, the question is: Who benefits from all these measures and measurements?

In the final analysis, the measure that must matter most in a democracy are the people in their numbers.