2023-04-08

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

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#EDUC101i #education #philosophy #history

• Issue Sources
  • The Philippines’ Dangerous Dependence on the Exploitation of its People
    • “Filipinos are the cockroaches of the world due to our ability to adapt to other lands and external pressure. He said this with utmost respect and love for our countrymen. And given the weight of this article, it is the best time to shed light on possible issues that could come from our go-getter attitude (see: martyrdom) to prove ourselves worthy of the opportunities we have, despite these being exploitative and ==inhumane.==”
    • Labor Export, OFWs
      • Indeed, it is safe to say that ==the Philippines’ main export now is its people==…Many observers would easily agree with the observation that “no other phenomenon has paved the way for such deep and pervasive changes within the Philippine economic and social landscape”
      • Going on since the Spanish colonization
        • Push factors: poverty and unemployment
        • Pull factors: labor needs and labor rights in other countries
      • Effects
        • Individual de-skilling and national “brain drain”
          • OFWs’ educational and work attainments contrast sharply with the ==“elementary occupations”== in which they are employed, especially in their first jobs abroad. Doctors become nurses; teachers become domestic workers; college graduates become construction workers. As such, ==overseas work often results in de-skilling== (Pertierra, 1994). At the national level, concerns have been raised that the “invisible hand has not been able to solve” problems in the “supply of [skilled and technical] manpower” in the country (Gonzalez, 1992, p. 30). In other words, ==skills, knowledge and labour that could be utilised for the country’s development are going out of the country.==
        • Questionable impacts on development
          • Aside from debt payments, OFWs’ remittances are mostly spent meeting their families’ needs for food, education, and healthcare—in short, ==what a decent job and government services should provide citizens with.== This has fuelled an economy that is “consumption-driven”, with household consumption accounting for 70% of the GDP, and “service-oriented”, with the service sector contributing a majority share and employing many Filipinos (Batalla, 2018, pp. 217-220).
          • Half a century after the start of the labour export policy, the main reason for the migration of Filipinos—the lack of domestic employment opportunities—continues. The vast majority of OFWs cite gaining employment, changing jobs, or relocating for jobs as reasons for leaving the country (PSA & UPPI, 2019). The labour export policy traps Filipinos, and the Philippines economy as a whole, in ==underdevelopment and subservient neocolonialism.==
        • Distorted education priorities
          • Even before labour export, domestic education generally failed in ==“fostering or promoting engaged, participatory notions of citizenship that might lead to searching social or political critique”==, and thus expectations of the state are correspondingly “minimised”.
          • At the same time, global labour demands result in ==education being consciously reshaped to support out-migration== by ==producing skilled and semi-skilled labour== for overseas work.
          • In this context, progressives and nationalists describe Philippine education as ==“colonial,”== serving the interests of ==global powers== and other ==foreign countries and employers.==
          • Education also devalues local knowledge and raises students’ dissatisfaction with local conditions, while the provision of knowledge of outside communities and raised expectations in life to suggest the inescapability of migrating outside of the community—all anchored in “colonial roots, including the powerful symbols of democracy, education, and modernity implanted by the Americans” (Pertierra, 1994, pp. 61-63). Thus, ==“[s]tudents are systematically being prepared to participate in the global arena as highly-trained, English-speaking, cheap and docile labour force catering to the demands of the international market in line with the neoliberal project”== (del Rosario-Malonzo, 2007, p. 94).
        • Aspects of culture
          • Desire to support families
          • Deep religosity
          • ^ The last two, in particular, are insidious. Filipinos are being trained into an attitude of finding a way or “pakikipagsapalaran (destiny-playing or adventure) and pagbabakasakali (chance-taking)” (Tadiar, 2004, p. 244) in a framework of subservience and inferiority. ==The education system teaches them that their country is in bad shape, that they are suited for jobs abroad, and that the only way to a better life for them and their country is to leave and be exploited by foreigners.== Socially, there are those who deal with the trauma of exploitation and suffering in narratives of triumph and self-sufficiency, glorifying their subservience and exploitation. In the long term, what does this do to the psyche of a country and a people?
      • Takeaways: Decolonizing the Philippine Economy
        • We can support measures and struggles upholding the various rights of OFWs, even as we recognise that these ==only address the symptoms== of the problem.
        • We can also support measures and struggles that seek to change the ==root causes of labour migration.==
          • Since OFWs are everywhere, every call for improving migrants’ working and living conditions anywhere would most likely be to their benefit. The easiest step and bare minimum step is supporting calls for ==living and fair wages, minimum rest days, and non-discrimination,== among others.
          • Support migrant workers’ efforts to ==form organisations at the grassroots== level to lay claim to their rights, bearing in mind that in some contexts, even citizens are denied such freedoms. While the national migration survey states that a small minority of OFWs belong to organisations, there are efforts among OFWs in most migrant-receiving countries in this direction.
          • Supporting calls directed by OFWs to the Philippine government. These include creating decent jobs at home, providing immediate support, removing government exactions, and expanding the range of services provided by embassies and consulates.
          • Filipinos, talk to your friends and family. Ask yourself what working abroad does for your country and your people. What country do you want? How can you collectively change it?
          • ==Demand that your government take responsibility.== Send this article to politicians. Tell them about the damage the labour export policy does to the nation and the people. Support calls for an end to the labour export policy in favour of increased domestic economic growth and job creation. We recognise that this is difficult to achieve. However, it is only by ==generating genuine agricultural and industrial development== to create decent jobs at home and provide for the basic needs of Filipinos that a significant solution can emerge.
  • The Miseducation of the Filipino
    • Summary
      • In brief, the thesis of Constantino is that ==the growth and progress of the country lie in an emancipatory educational system.== This is an educational system capable of graduating students possessing the knowledge and skills to decipher the problems and development challenges facing the country in various fields of human endeavor—social, scientific, economic, cultural, political and so on—and to find the answers to these problems and challenges. Honing these knowledge and skills requires the existence of educational institutions that are fully dedicated to the search for knowledge based on a critical understanding of ourselves, the world we live in and our place within it.
      • We need educational institutions that promote critical thinking, reflected in the free yet rigorous inquiry, discourse, debate and dialogue on the problems haunting the nation. For this to happen, educational institutions, especially those of higher learning, must be able to ==foster an environment of critical and scientific inquiry free from outside interference and censure==, as enunciated by Unesco and great universities worldwide. This is why University ==autonomy== and ==academic freedom== are essential in building this culture of critical thinking, which, in turn, is a key in advancing a nation’s progress in various fields of human endeavor.  Academic freedom is the DNA that fuels debates and discourses on academic ideas, theories and models that eventually ripen into answers and solutions to society’s problems.
        • argument against Constantino
      • the recent abrogation by the Department of National Defense of the 1989 UP-DND Accord (as well as the PUP-DND Accord), which defines the protocols governing police/military incursions on campuses, is a blow to academic freedom and the environment of critical inquiry.
        • some officials of the country equate education to a narrow program of ==skills development, rote learning and even simple indoctrination.== Such educational policy framework is regressive. It is a threat to the development of critical thinking and has no place in the 21st century.
    • Problem: Miseducation of the Filipino; a.k.a. colonial education
      • Context: American architects
        • introduced by the Americans to aid with American conquest
        • “The most effective means of subjugating a people is to capture their minds…the moulding of men’s minds is the best means of conquest. Education, therefore, serves as a weapon in wars of colonial conquest.”
        • “The education of the Filipino under American soverignty was an instrument of colonial policy.”
          • For defeating a truimphant nationalism
        • “In exchange for a smattering of English, we yielded our souls.”
      • Goals: train Filipinos as citizens of an American colony
        • Internationalism > nationalism
      • Methods:
        • General
          • Decision to use English as medium of instruction
          • Fostering economic attitudes - Misconceptions - Philippines is meant to be an agricultural country only -> apathy towards industrialization - Romanticizes life of farm communities, glossing over problems - Shaped consumption
          • Transplantation of political institutions and ideas
        • More concrete
          • Proliferation of private schools; deteoriation of public schools
            • Commercialization of education
            • Foreign owners
          • Supported by foreign media
      • Result: anomalous education system that lags behind urgent economic and political changes
      • Effects: UnFilipino Filipinos
        • No nationalism; we care more about foreigners
        • Language problem
          • the learning process has been disrupted by the imposition of a foreign language
          • Result: Filipinos who lack mastery of both English and native tongue
        • Barrier to democracy
          • perpetuated class gap (new illustrados)
          • leadership that fails to understand needs of masses beause it struggles with communication
          • Due to lack of understanding, citizens leave everything to their leaders….result of apathy/regionalism/parochialism
            • lack of critical and independent thinking
    • Solution: Education as a weapon…Nationalist education
      • Aims:
        • Should first of all assure ==national survival==
          • The object is not merely to produce men and women who can fulfill tasks…the primary object is to produce a citizenry that appreciates and is conscious of its nationhood and has national goals for the betterment of the community, not an anarchic mass of people who know how to take care of themselves only
            • Can link the latter to OFW problem…we only know how to look after ourselves
        • Subobjectives: Economic emancipation, Political independence, Cultural renaissance
      • Nationalist Tasks: Education is not just an acquisition of information…it is also the ==making of man== so that he may function effectively and usefully in his own society. Therefore, education cannot be divorced from the society of a definite country at a definite time.
        • Teaching Language
        • Rewriting history
        • Present economic problems in context of nationalism and independence
      • Agencies: government leaders and workers, educators, private sector
        • Government must supervise curriculum
  • Critical Thinking in Philippine Education: What We Have and What We Need
    • Abstract
      • One of the most prominent effects of globalization and the steady advance of capitalism is the increase in demand for skilled human capital. This is especially true in the Philippines, which relies on labor export in order to keep its economy afloat. Nonetheless, despite the demands of the globalized world, the Filipino children and youth should not only be sent to schools to be taught skills that would make them competent laborers for capitalist markets, but more importantly, ==they should be trained to become critical thinkers so as to be open, sensitive, and understanding of the beliefs and values of others as well as not to be enslaved by their respective belief and value systems.== In this light, this paper discusses how critical thinking can be taught more effectively in education institutions in the Philippines through reconsideration of the Taxonomy of Learning Objectives and a push for Critical Pedagogy. I will argue that the ==Taxonomy is reductive and lacking in terms of developing critical thinking in students, whereas, critical pedagogy brings the children and the youth to the table of dialogue by teaching them how to raise and accept questions without the attitude of hostility, the latter being a characteristic of an uncritical and enslaved mind.==
    • Problem
      • The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and Its Detriments to Philippine Education
        • Philippine education is by and large influenced by ==capitalist interests.== This means that students and graduates are geared toward ==replenishing the country’s labor force.== For this reason, the quality and objectives of education are focused on ==skills training.== Thus, educational objectives are formulated in relation to ==skills development==
        • dangers in viewing thinking skills as stringently hierarchical
          • education may simply be reduced to skills training since skills-based jobs rarely require a level of thinking that goes beyond Bloom’s socalled “lower order”.
          • it may develop the misconception that there are people who are capable of higher order thinking and there are those who are not.
    • Proposed solution: Cards/Critical pedagogy (a.k.a. develop a counter-consciousness)
      • Methods
        • Allowing avenues for dialogue
          • the role of dialogue is to ==break the culture or theme of silence==, which is characteristic of oppression
          • it is the responsibility of teacher education institutions to produce educators that are not afraid to establish a dialogical relationship with their students in order to develop them to become critical thinkers.
      • Examples:
        • Liberal arts universities like Ateneo
        • Educational Discussions? by NDMOs?
      • Benefits
        • critical thinking skills can benefit Filipino students in the globalized world by making them open-minded, sensitive, and understanding of the beliefs and values of others.
        • This is important because in a globalized world, individuals from different cultures and backgrounds interact with each other more frequently. Critical thinking skills can help students navigate these interactions by enabling them to analyze information, evaluate arguments, and make informed decisions based on evidence.
        • Additionally, critical thinking skills can help students become more adaptable to change and better equipped to solve complex problems
      • Challenges
        • Introduction
          • Misconceptions in teaching for thinking
          • The quantity of information given is prioritized over the development of critical thinking
          • Didactic teaching is easier than reflective teaching considering all the other things that a teacher is expected to do (lesson planning, checking and grading of exams, etc.)
          • Many teachers are not used to the reflective approach
          • The government is bent on producing skilled laborers more than critical thinkers
        • “will a nation stand up against oppression and welcome critical pedagogy if they do not feel oppressed at all?”
          • majority of the Filipino people need to overcome their desensitized attitude towards their oppression and not become oppressors, themselves.
          • convince the public that domination is not the key to social transformation.
            • Domination is a product of power struggle wherein the strong overcomes the weak and oppresses them
        • market-driven outlook on education.
          • “Teachers are increasingly reduced to the status of technicians and denied any control over their classrooms or school governance structures” (Giroux, 2011, p. 153).
          • Whereas students are seen as investments for the job market, teachers are regarded as manufacturers of skilled laborers and schools as factories.
  • Hook: Dreamless Pinoys
• Eras
  • Renaissance
    • Humanism: man’s faith is determined by man himself (instead of doctrine)
    • New spirit of inquiry into knowledge brought about by…
      • Scholasticism
      • Explorations and scientific discoveries
    • Italian
      • About:
        • Individual humanism
        • Personal culture, individual freedom, and development
        • Artistocratic
      • Aims:
        • Liberal education
        • Holistic development
        • Individual excellence and personal self-realization
      • Types:
        • Literary education: knowledge and models for new creative literary effort
        • Aesthetic Education
        • Moral Education
      • Content: (can use as inspiration for curriculum)
        • Life of Past
        • World of Emotions
        • World of Nature
      • Agencies & Organization:
      • Methods:
        • Written themes
        • Self-expression and self-activity
        • Adjustment to individual differences
        • ==Development of interest and power to think==
        • Play, Variety, Motivation
    • Northern (we need this more)
      • About:
        • Social and moral reform– means of achieving a full life
        • Religious in spirit
        • Democratic: aimed at rich and full lives for masses as well as for the favored few
      • Aims:
        • Social > individual
        • Objective and moralistic
        • Social reform and improvement of human relationships
        • Rich and full life of society as a whole
      • Types:
        • Religious ed
        • Moral ed
        • Social ed
        • Democratic type
      • Content:
      • Agencies & Organization:
      • Methods:
        • Avoid Ciceronianism
  • Reformation
    • both sides used education as a weapon
    • Protestant
      • Education for everyone
      • Broad & Rich Curriculum with Best Teaching Principles
        • Luther advocated for a broader range of subjects to be taught to students based on ==liberalis study that taught students to contribute to society== rather than ==servilus education that simply taught one skill to keep people in servitude.==
        • He also insisted on teaching being in the vernacular. He believed that students should not be subject to the medieval tradition of harshness, but rather should be dealt with gently and kindly, being ruled by love and not fear so they would find joy in learning.
        • He also began the tradition of ==Academic Freedom== by allowing liberty and opportunity for self-expression and questions within the classroom.
      • Martin Luther advocated tor student-centered ideas (e.g. attractive classrooms, pleasant study, adaptation of subject matter, consideration for disposition)
    • Catholic (Counter)
      • Fighting against rote memorization
      • innovative teaching devices and methods
        • The steps of their teaching method, prelection and repetition, ensured that the process of acquiring knowledge was realistic, progressive, and effective process. What makes this even more appealing to me is how teaching was always adapted to the pupils’ abilities and interests.
        • Another Jesuit method that appeals to me is the development of devices for producing motivation, particularly the stimulation of rivalry and emulation. As a naturally competitive person, I can definitely say that this instinct has constantly pushed me towards pursuing excellence.
        • Jansenists’ prioritization of reason over memory. They insisted that “nothing be memorized except what was understood”; the new textbooks they wrote were based on this idea.

1. Issue: The Philippines’ overreliance on labor export encourages the exploitation of its people.
   1. Effects:
      1. Individual de-skilling and national “brain drain”
      2. Questionable impacts on development
         1. The labor export policy traps Filipinos, and the Philippines economy as a whole, in underdevelopment and subservient neocolonialism.
      3. Aspects of culture
         1. Desire to support families and deep religosity
         2. The education system teaches them that their country is in bad shape, that they are suited for jobs abroad, and that the only way to a better life for them and their country is to leave and be exploited by foreigners.
      4. Distorted education priorities
         1. Global labor demands shape education to support outmigration by producing skilled and semi-skilled labour for overseas work.
         2. Education also devalues local knowledge and raises students’ dissatisfaction with local conditions, while the provision of knowledge of outside communities and raised expectations in life to suggest the inescapability of migrating outside of the community
         3. This is all anchored in “colonial roots, including the powerful symbols of democracy, education, and modernity implanted by the Americans”
   2. Sustained by colonial education
      1. Philippine education can be described as “colonial,” serving the interests of global powers and other foreign countries and employers.
         1. Even before labour export, local education fails to foster engaged, participatory notions of citizenship
2. How was/is this problem dealt with?
   1. Constantino’s thesis: the growth and progress of the country lie in an emancipatory educational system.
      1. Cultivate counter-consciousness through critical pedagogy
   2. Past
      1. Renaissance
         1. Individual Humanism
            1. Aims:
               1. Liberal education
               2. Holistic development
               3. Individual excellence and personal self-realization
            2. Types: (counter saturation of foreign media by centering education around local media and values)
               1. Literary
               2. Aesthetic
               3. Moral
            3. Content: (what)
               1. Life of Past
               2. World of Emotions
               3. World of Nature
            4. Problem: Aristocratic; not accessible to everyone
               1. perpetuation of illustrado class
         2. Northern Humanism
            1. Aims:
               1. Social reform and improvement of human relationships
               2. Rich and full life of society as a whole
            2. Types:
               1. Moral and social ed
               2. Democratic
            3. Problem: ended up not being human-centered
      2. Reformation
         1. Protestant
            1. Broad & Rich Curriculum with Best Teaching Principles
               1. Liberalis > servilus
               2. Academic Freedom
         2. Catholic
            1. Their innovative teaching devices and methods fight against rote learning
         3. both sides used education as a weapon. both good and bad (used for indoctrination)
   3. Present
      1. The good
         1. Liberal arts universities
         2. NDMOs
      2. The bad
         1. The military and the government
            1. some officials of the country equate education to a narrow program of skills development, rote learning and even simple indoctrination.
3. Reflection
   1. What are some personal insights that you can draw from the process?
      1. Questioning my conception of freedom…are we truly free?
   2. What are the benefits and limitations of reviewing the issue/trend’s historical underpinnings?
      1. Benefits
         1. Symptoms treater -> systems thinker
      2. Limitations
         1. Feels theoretical…honestly makes me feel powerless too. How can I take action from this when the problems are so deep? So pervasive?
   3. Looking into the future, what factors or forces might continue to affect the direction of the issue/trend?
      1. Globalization, Economy
         1. Education will always have to adapt to the demands of the market
         2. E.G. Situationer
            1. the emphasis on equity objectives should not be allowed to diminish the pursuit of training that serves cutting-edge technology given the changing labor market needs with the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
            2. Seeking employable skills and protection from labor market changes has encouraged college students and graduates to enroll in TVET.
               1. Those with college degrees and beyond may no longer aim for employment but to add competencies to their repertoire of skills to enhance their employability in the face of changes in the labor market and technologies.
               2. Become “future-proof”

TO-WRITE LIST:

• Eras
  • Past
    • Renaissance
    • Reformation
  • Present
• Reflection
  • Insight
  • Benefits & Limitations
  • Future
• Issue/trend

The Philippines’ best export is considered to be its people: Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). They are deemed modern-day heroes due to the impact of their overseas remittances. On a macro level, these help grow GDP, energizing the economy; on a micro level, these help ensure better lifestyles for their families. However, labor migration’s positive effects are short term; left in their wake are long-term problems for the country’s development, including: individual de-skilling, national “brain drain”, encouragement of endo (contractualization), and scarcity of local jobs. Overall, the Philippines’ labour export policy traps its citizens and economy in underdevelopment and subservient neocolonialism (Marasigan, 2022).

Behind this trap is the Philippines’ colonial education, which is designed to serve the interests of global powers and other foreign countries/employers. Through the use of English as the medium of instruction, the influx of duty-free cheap American goods, and the transplantation of Western institutions/ideas, Filipinos were trained to become the perfect labor force for the international market. But we have also become aliens to ourselves, disconnected from our identities and each other; this lack of nationalism has crippled us in many ways, from preventing critical thinking to barring democratic leadership (Constantino, 2010; Marasigan, 2022). Therefore, unlocking the Philippines’ potential for growth and progress lies in an emancipatory educational system; here, students and teachers alike are not only able to acknowledge and question their current realities, but also able to work towards better futures, free of society’s mental constraints.

This requires environments of critical inquiry This isn’t a new idea; for inspiration, we can take a look at the Renaissance and Reformation movements.

• the same country that lauds/upholds them is the one that condones their exploitation.

Constantino (2010) believed that the country’s potential for growth and progress lies in an emancipatory educational system. ==SENTENCE EXPOUNDING ON WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE FOR STUDENTS.== This isn’t a new idea; for inspiration, we can take a look at the Renaissance and Reformation movements.

Similar to Constantino’s vision, the humanists of the Renaissance saw education as a way to bring out human beings’ full potential. This was driven by a new spirit of inquiry into knowledge, which was brought about by dissatisfaction with intellectually surpressive institutions. Italian humanists aimed to live rich and full lives through the harmonious development of the mind, body, and morals, along with the encouragement of individual excellence and personal self-realization. In line with these objectives, the main skill emphasized by Italian humanists was appreciation of the world. Their main types of education — literary and esthetic — exposed students to the literary, visual, and performing arts; meanwhile, their curriculum highlighted three aspects of life: the life of the past, the world of emotions, and the world of nature (Wilds & Lottich, 1961, pp. 161-166). I believe this humanities-centered approach can be used to create a nationalistic education; this builds strong foundations (a.k.a. knowledge of local culture and history) that make people less prone to the influence of foreign media. However, this is not enough. To assure national survival, education must “…produce a citizenry that [not only] appreciates and is conscious of its nationhood…[but also] has national goals for the betterment of the community [emphasis added]…not an anarchic mass of people who know how to take care of themselves only” (Constantino, 2010, p. 15). Italian humanist education fails to fulfill the latter objective due to its individualistic and aristocratic nature; it has self-centered aims, and is only available to a privileged few. Northern humanists fill this gap by aiming at a rich and full life for society as a whole; they thought that achieving a meaningful life required social and moral reform. This can be seen in their emphasis of religious, moral, and social education, much of which was grounded on classical and Biblical texts. They also worked to provide democratic education, believing that rich and full lives should be possible for the masses too (Wilds & Lottich, 1961, pp. 169-170).

Naturally, the Northern humanists’ zeal for social reform led to criticism of the church, which then propelled the Reformation era. After unjust societal systems were brought to light (e.g. oppressive political and economic conditions; religious and eccleiastical evils), the masses learned to question religion and other aspects of life; this gave them the freedom and power to decide their own fate, freeing them from being dependent on an educated upper class (Wilds & Lottich, 1961, pp. 178-179; National Geographic, 2017). We can trace this paradigm shift to one of the Reformers’ principles: Scripture Alone (sola Scriptura). It demanded that every person must be able to read and understand the Scripture on their own — which discouraged reliance on the church and clergy. This also entailed a need for every person to develop literacy and critical thinking, calling for a reformation of education. Reformers like Luther advocated for this by promoting human-centered ideas, such as universal education, along with broad and rich curriculums. These were based on humanist teaching principles: holistic development, inclusivity (shown by use of the vernacular), Academic Freedom. Luther believed that education must teach students how to contribute to society (liberalis study) instead of skills that simply keep them in servitude (servilus education) (Criss, 2017). To summarize, humanists and reformists alike would be against the Philippines’ colonial education due to its dehumanizing nature. By keeping the country subservient to global powers and other foreign countries/employers, it prevents Filipinos from living rich and full lives.

The influence of these past eras can still be seen in Philippine education. Humanists would be delighted to see the liberal arts education offered by most of our top universities. But they would be saddened to see that the humanities is currently fighting for its place in curricula: Philippine history was removed in high school, Filipino/Panitikan are no longer mandated subjects in college, and general education subjects were proposed to be removed from the tertiary level (Ignacio, 2019; Rey, 2019; Cahiles-Magkilat, 2022). Exacerbating this issue is a prevalent culture of anti-intellectualism, where most Filipinos tend to see high intelligence as a negative trait. This is rooted in longstanding colonialism and classism; it’s difficult for the (typically uneducated and poor) masses to empathize with the intelligent, especially when these people often become their oppressors (Madrazo-Sta. Romana, 2015). Meanwhile, similar to the Reformation, Philippines education is being utilized as a weapon of indoctrination. But instead of the church, I’d’ argue that it’s the state waging war. They want to teach Filipinos what to think, not how to think. Aside from the removal of the humanities, this is also exhibited by the reintroduction of mandatory ROTC and the authorization of police/military to enter campuses; these examples display officials’ limited conception of education as “…a narrow program of skills development, rote learning and even simple indoctrination” (Ofreneo, 2021). But we must remind ourselves that even the state is just a puppet — it’s the international powers that are pulling the strings. How can we claim we’re independent when our schools still nurture colonial mindsets? Because of these minds, we remain enslaved laborers.

The main insight I drew from this process is that Filipinos are deeply embedded in intersecting systems of oppression, particularly capitalism and colonization, which leads to all the various ways we experience domination (Collins, 2000). Thus, solutions that do not acknowledge these underlying systems are likely to be ineffective in the long-term; for instance, measures upholding OFW rights is not enough to stop brain drain. Related to this, reviewing history is helpful for becoming a systems thinker. As a designer, I want to ensure that the solutions I come up with aim to not just treat surface symptoms, but also tackle root causes. However, I admit that this process makes me feel helpless too; seeing how deep and pervasive problems can get makes me wonder if there is actually anything impactful that I can do, especially when it comes to macro forces like the economy.

• End: Martin Luther King on labor and dignity? “No work is significant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity”
• Liberation?

• The Miseducation of the Filipino
• Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
• https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/02/04/the-university-as-a-sanctuary-of-critical-thinking/
• http://blogs.belhaven.edu/asfaculty/2017/10/30/how-the-reformation-reformed-education/
• History 101: The Protestant Reformation | National Geographic
• https://www.rappler.com/voices/ispeak/243058-opinion-slow-death-philippine-history-high-school/
• https://www.rappler.com/nation/231545-supreme-court-filipino-panitikan-not-required-college/
• https://mb.com.ph/2022/09/01/pascual-bats-for-general-education-in-k-to-12/
• The Philippines’ Dangerous Dependence on the Exploitation of its People
• Wilds, E. & Lottich, K. (1961). The foundations of modern education. (3rd ed.). NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.