The losing battle of general education

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Part of The Philippine Educator

Title: The losing battle of general education
Creator: Laya, J.C.
Language: English
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Fulltext: THE LOSING BATTLE OF GENERAL EDUCATIO N J. C. LAYA Acting Division Supcrinte!tdent o/ Schools /or Bataan We look at the students pat· tering in the shops of the public high schools and contemplate the measly offering of vocational courses - woodworking, horticulture, agronomy, poultry and swine, retail merchandizing, sometimes general metal, electricity and automotive-and we wonder if the loud-mouthed fulmination of the P.T.A. president in behalf of the paying parents or the member of the provincial board in behalf of the paying taxpayers are not more than the biased half of the truth. There is a stunted patch of ground with cabbages and tomatoes; there is a half-hearted poultry where half of the chickens died from pest not so long ago ; there is a lone sow with some suCklings grunting disconsolately in its dusty-smelly corner of the school site; there is a woodworking shop with a few hand tools and a wood-and-sawali shed built by the students and some scrawny furniture all these to show for the vocational work in the small general high school in an ordinary small town. It is not an encouraging affair. Parents look askance at its crude imitation of work. Officials frown at the vocational courses that are eyer in need of subsidy and talk of abolishing the vocational courses so as to reduce the tuition fees to politically feasible levels. Students are depressed by the high-toned classroom lectures on vocational efficiency and self-sufficiency and ~~d ~~~kitr?;>n~;a;~b~ith ai~ei~c~:f. ity of scratching the hard and hostile earth with a bit of sharpened stick or going about begging for feed or practicing retailing on a cooperative "store" that can only ~af~~~l~z:cka~ee~ ~f~~h~ola~~%li~~ The theory and the practice do not quite fit each other. The vision and the dream overmeasure too much the lowly reach of the reality. No wonder parents stand up at open forums where a member of the '{'l'Ovincial board or a school offictal tries to justify the hiking of tuition fees from P60 to P75 or P80 by citing the difference in the ~~~~~~!~~ig~e~~~:ls ~;d f~!~a~£ the public general high school. "To the general curriculum," say the justifiers of higher fees, "there are added the vocational courses which t rain the youth to love labor and appreciate its dignity. Suc h courses would make everybody's child, rich or poor, go down to the basic fundamental of group living -work and fruitfulness rather than lazy dependence and parasitism. Such courses prepare the youth for the impending industrialization of the country.. And so forth and so on. But these are not convincing arguments in the face of inadequate equipment that makes vocational preparation a pale imitation of actual workin~ conditions, in the face of ill-prepared teaching, in the face of f~atu~s%uid~~~~t~fdea~~!~h~tid8 yt,ii~ THE PHILIPPINE EDUCATOR the teeth of the propaganda of competing and often triumphant private schools. The climb has generally been upward, yes, but alas! too slow. Very rare birds are schools that approximate the equipment and the quality of vocational offerings in the Abellana High School of Cebu City. Only !~hool~~~;ble ~~~h~;~n:Chogl~i~~!~ insist on offering courses that have beautiful vocational intentions but fail miserably in making the intentions a reality. And the beautiful ideal and the vision and the dream flop, and there are heard injurious, nay insulting war whoops of !~huo~fsha~~~~P~~f~bc;;nfh~rli~;~: brious groans and lamentations from the afflicted, a despressing mixture of savage joy and cultured sorrow, a reproach by the people to those who have allowed such things to pass. In the meantime, our public high schools die through the simple process of attrition. Every !;~~th~~iJdar~~s, a~ordi:~~e~0~~ schools that offer exclusively academic subjects. The private schools are the heaven of the lovers of easy and abbreviated studies. Only the diehard loyalists, who have public school education in blood and who can afford the higher cost of public education, remain within the public schools. Those who can not pay the higher fees, those who can not appreciate the half-hearted results of illequipped vocational offerings, leave the public secondary schools. The rest remain, only to see it wither on the vine and at last fall, still a bud and a promise, not given a chance to attain its ripe fulfillment. And yet it is really a beautiful idea that is behind the general curriculum. Our country has a group of leaders who have learned the virtues of academic learning :fo~u~;;ee t~:;~~~~efhesh~~~d~~~ the votes of the people. On the other hand, we have the common mass that work with their hands and listen rapt to the oratory and cast the votes. Between these two ~!a~e~~ti~h~~~fn:dej~v;:~~~g·a':ar_ demic ways, without work experience, can hardly sympathize with work and the just demands of labor. On the other hand, the masses grovel in their dust, lean on their hoes, and look askance at their leaders weaned from them with the help of white-collar academic education. Only the general high schools can give leaders that will bridge the gap and help insure a workable democracy. Often, too, the country is all excited about industrialization and the beautiful hope it promises about relieving bankruptcy and deficits and ending forever the inconvenience of import control and the tragedy of unemployment. The manpower potential of the Philippines prepared in the general high schools, by the time such industrialization comes, should be ready to receive the finishing touches of intensive vocational training needed to adapt them to the specific industrial JObs awaiting them. It is the job of the general high schools to give the necessary general training so as to prepare the coming workingmen and the coming technicians for the ft~~sh~no;lJo~~h~~e~ forrepj~bsti~~ come. Thus the general high schools inculcate love of work and appreciation of the place and value of work and labor in the moderR THE PHILIPPINE EDUCATOR world. They are there given the basic and iundamental skills regarding the handling of basic tools and basic materials. The students are given a chance to survey the broad field of human economic endeavor in order to be able to determine for themselves the necessary equipment and aptitudes needed for such work, and then to look inward and determine for themselves their peculiar strengths and weaknesses that would fit or unfit them for specific jobs. The general high schools, in brief, form a vast clearing house for talent and aptitudes. In them, also, the future citizens are given an orientation in efficient, full, and gracious living so that they may not be mere drugdes and drones of industry but rather thinking and enjoying men and women who can understand and appreciate their places in the complicated scheme of things and ap£~~f~~t\~h~h~al~~~f t~~:~r ~fn~~: man happiness. Thus they will be better-satisfied human beings, more efficient participants in social processes, more grateful beneficiaries of public services, more eager helpers of those in need, more active supporters of worthy movements. It is a beautiful idea, and the experiment of years and years in Batangas, Capiz, Tarlac, and other places pointed clearly to the necessity for the generalization of such a curriculum. But the optimistic planning days of 1938-1941 and the years of early liberation could not quite anticipate the new canker of cheap competition that could neither understand nor appreciate the idealism of social service but would bloat itself on pelf and self-aggrandizement, spurn the worthy ideal of gearing whatchamacallit to whatchamacallit. The blight has spread and has ruined much of the anticipated harvest; the tentacles having reached out and are strangling the worthy ideal. And the paf:~~~er~r~~'d t~~e sc~"!\ic of1f~~~ grovel, the honorable elected offi~~Js ~=r~~enns!~~~ f~f st~ceh s:C)fo~J! raise their hands in despair or shrug their shoulders and give up, and while these three entities moan and lament, there is ahead the dance of triumph of those who have achieved victory and all to the accompaniment of the merry jingling of a million silver coins. The whole thing is as surely a dirge to a nation that is missing the bus and for a reason nobody seems to understand just yet. ----oOo-WORK The workers are the saviors of society, the redeemers of the race. -Eugene V. Debs-Speech, 1905 No man is bo1·n into the world whose work Is not born with him; there is always work, And tools to work withal, for those 1vho will; And blessed are the horny hand of toil! LoWELL-A glance Behind the Curtain , ,