Critical thinking on historical revisionism
The Yellowidiots are one mixed bag of emotions since their devastating loss on May 9. They have been flailing and wailing at anything that has to do with either Marcos or Duterte. They continue to insist that fake news, networked disinformation and historical revisionism won the election for the Marcos-Duterte tandem. The obsession with martial law continues even if the country has been under the 1987 Constitution which they authored and makes it impossible to declare martial law without the consent of Congress and over an extended period of time.
Vice-President-elect Sara Duterte has been nominated as the Secretary of the Department of Education. Questions have been raised about her qualifications and absent the requisite post-graduate degrees, the opposition claims that she is not qualified to head the department at a time when the sector is in a crisis because of declining test scores of Filipino learners.
We can only build knowledge by learning from past events. Candidate Sara benefitted from the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. campaign, pushing the line that martial law represented the country’s “golden age.” She inherits the slight and slanted coverage of martial law in the DepEd curriculum and teaching. But this manifestation of the larger problem of the disinformation pandemic undermines not just the disciplines of history and political science. What is to stop the falsification of scientific research on ecological damage from open-pit mining or on health hazards from new pharmaceutical products — when it reveals truths inconvenient for those in power?
The question of the collective mental health of the opposition comes into play because the priority is still about Marcos and martial law and not the more pressing problems the country confronts in the midst of the global political and economic turmoil which has an immense impact on our economic recovery. They do not even bother to be responsible for the consequences of their actions while in power like how nothing came out of the thirty years they controlled the government. Imagine how Vietnam has been able to overtake us when their war for independence only ended in 1975 while we have been independent since 1946.
Our population doubled since 1986. We now face the consequences of the lack of a long-term economic development plan and population control which now has the government being overburdened by the needs of the public educational system. While we have free education from primary to tertiary levels, the quality of education leaves much to be desired as evidenced by our low test scores in the PISA index.
We are also not producing the ideal mix of graduates as there are more graduates destined for white-collar jobs when there is a shortage of blue-collar workers needed for the BBB program and the construction industry. While we do have the advantage of a plentiful and young labor force, we are not able to maximize the opportunities available because most of the graduates are looking to work abroad for the better pay.
Edilberto De Jesus was in government before with the Presidential Management Staff during the Cory Aquino administration. He knows that government reform is more of political will backed up by excellent technical staff if it is to be successful. Sara Duterte has the political will and determination so her success or failure largely depends on how she approaches the challenges she needs to overcome at DepEd in order to institutionalize reforms in the public education sector.
Edilberto De Jesus
The problem with Yellowidiots like De Jesus is they do not think of what is good for the greater majority of Filipinos but only that which suits their agenda. Their worst nightmare of the Marcos’ getting back power has come true and they only have themselves to blame. But as you can see, their focus is still on Marcos and martial law, bereft of any forward vision for the Philippines and Filipinos.
The new paradigm in learning is Education 4.0 as the answer to the demands of Industry 4.0. It is designed to prepare graduates to be multi-skilled, critical thinking individuals ready to meet the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The focus should be on Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM).
The public education system is rote-based. It follows a pattern which does not develop critical and analytical thinking. We need to teach how to think outside of the box instead of the present thinking within the box paradigm.
By far the biggest stumbling block to education reform is those who make up its bureaucracy. How can you upgrade the quality of education when those who make up its bureaucracy are also poorly educated or do not have the initiative to strive for excellence?
How can learners perform better when some of them are not properly nourished? When they have less than ideal home environments? What of those children whose parents do not even have jobs or they are homeless outright and just scavenge for a living?
De Jesus fails to realize that this is the product of EDSA. In thirty years, the country and its people did not actually do better as the economy grew. It does not speak much of De Jesus’ priorities when he is more concerned about how history might be revised by Marcos and Duterte.
The truth is, it has actually begun with the President’s performance during his term. Duterte took the bureaucracy by the horns and squeezed what he can from it. The daughter will likely do the same at DepEd. We just have to wait and see how she will go about it. But what she is up against is a Godzilla of an elephant in the conference room.
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