The wrong kind

Except for a few schools, school year 2005-2006 is behind us now. It has, for all intents and purposes, become part of history. And so, for the summer break at least, pupils and most students would be out of school. This being the case, students would have the time of their lives having fun. It is strange of course. Fun should not get in the way of learning, and the other way around. Regardless of whether we are conscious about it or not, every moment is a learning experience. Youths, and even adults, like to learn knew things. If you doubt that, try recalling how engrossed you were when you were learning how to operate your cell phone or the first time you got to use your computer. Indeed, learning is fun when the learner is interested. It seems strange though why most students take to school like they take to the dentist. They go not because they want to but simply because they have to. There are few exceptions, among them who are interested in school for the wrong reasons.

Why is this happening?

In most cases, students resent the training and discipline that school imposes on them. Many children today get the mistaken notion that just because they are paying, they deserve to get away with anything they want. At the same time, many students who genuinely try to be interested in their studies get disappointed by the lack – if not absence – of interest on the part of some teachers. For whatever reason, disinterest is contagious and learning is one of them.

For the most part however, education has become one big money-making enterprise that has taken the luster out of learning. Many schools are in it simply for the money, and the teachers and students take it from there. Of course, the government is not helping. In fact, it is aggravating the situation not only by refusing to give it the priority it deserves but more so by encouraging commercialized education that teaches profit over knowledge. How sad that in a country boasting of the highest proficiency in English among Asians, a nation that ranks high in terms of literacy, there is little to show that education has made Filipinos a better people.

It is not so much because leaders are not leading by example. There is a limit to people's gullibility. One can only take as much indignity that your neighborhood toughie can inflict on you. How sad indeed, but it shows we don't want to learn. All around us, there is an abundance of schooled individuals, but such short supply of the educated, much less the learned. It is education of the wrong kind.