Wednesday, August 15, 2007 Arinday: Stop mis-educating the students By G.H. Arinday, Jr. Sunfare
HOW LONG has the so-called textbook errors been mis-educating our students? It is not enough that we blame the law or Rep. Act No. 8047 creating the National Book Industry Development Act that allows the privatization of textbook publications for public schools. Is there no body or agency given the tasks of reviewing the textbooks written by the so-called authorities in their chosen fields? Or is it just a symbol of having authored a book written by somebody for a fee in a deal with those connected with NBID?
If the functions of the Department of Education is limited only to the learning competencies for each grade and year level “and some prototype materials”, how are we certain that those assigned to these particular tasks are really competent with critical analyses of the relevance of the “prototype materials”?
Under the learning process just pointed out, it develops a certain type of mentors to be noncreative and routinely follows the worn-out process to be non-inquisitive as to the validity of such procedure. Under such methodology, except for some more gifted and inquiring minds, the majority of the students become the prototypes of cloned mentality. There was a time when the legend of Malakas and Maganda wore the faces of the conjugal authoritarian in a Nietzschean tradition as super examples of our race.
If the substandard textbooks are continued to be used in instructional processes, we would never achieve the so-called quality education.
Schools, either private or public, must be wary of the textbooks being dished out as references especially in highly-sensitive subjects like science and technology. The worst examples of these textbook are those that catered to select institutions which do not wish to read certain derogatory narration of certain events during the era of frailocracy in this country.
Even the compulsory reading of Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” suffers a lot of deletions or omissions especially the chapters on “Salome” and “Elias” which sectarian schools feel so offensive.
The primary quest of education is truth and beyond such is the metaphysical world where students are trained to be inquisitive and creative. It is only through the correct instructions that we can build the fortress of our intellectual process to enable us to distinguish verified data from mere author’s opinions or expositions.
Competence is a challenging paradigm which can be used in understanding the genesis of set of concepts and its applicability to the grade level of the students. The teaching experience is indeed important but whether there has been progress in discovering other layers of data previously unknown but which could help modify or rectify certain missing factors to complete the terrain of instructions.
Why and how these pupils of the yore could completely grasp the contents of the “Osias Reader” in the elementary level before the outbreak of the World War II is somewhat amazing that the seventh grader can speak fluent English compared with today’s college graduates.
After the war, some of those hired to teach in the secondary level of education were high school graduates and yet they brought out the best in them that they were mistaken as college graduates. It is no wonder that the proficiency of some of our college graduates today could hardly articulate a simple idea. The deficiency may be traced to the substandard material of instructions coupled with the indolence of the mentors who have ceased to inquire and verify the data.
There are certain relevant matters ought to be asked. For instance, is the author of a textbook can ever qualify as a competent teacher? On the reverse, can a teacher qualify to be an effective author of a required textbook?
So what must be done to the errors? Simple! Rectify them, stupid!
