Improving Philippine education and tweaking our world view for ‘a better us’

The past few weeks have seen several e-newspaper articles on the thoughts of several stakeholders in Philippine development. Most of the articles are about the challenges, difficulties, and issues on improving Philippine education as a result of our low ranking on creative thinking in a global assessment report.

The ideas on new approaches to development and public management are very good recommendations. American thinker Paul Romer, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics, shares the New Growth Theory or the belief that knowledge contributes to growth and development while creating new services to benefit more individuals. But we need to first improve our fundamental reading comprehension before we can generate and accumulate knowledge.

Improving Philippine education is a continuing concern. An immediate and interesting initiative is to revisit the wisdom of ancient philosophers in Greece, where the practice of reflecting on, and asking related and follow-up questions were ways to learn. These ways are significantly more effective than the conventional way of learning through rote memorization. Such reflection and questions encouraged a sense of inquisitiveness or curiosity, and paved the way to what is considered the first center of learning or school called Akademie.

There are also existing teaching approaches, methods, techniques, and tools from intellectual thinkers in education, psychology, and other learning sciences that are available in most classic literature. Some of the most important ones are the Barett’s and Bloom’s taxonomies or methods for asking higher-order thinking questions.

We can also learn major ideas for Philippine development from David McClelland, a clinical psychologist who conducted an extensive study for an initial work on behavioral economics (psychology as applied to economics), funded by the Ford Foundation. This idea gives importance to “otherness” or caring for others, an important factor needed to create a better society. In relation to “otherness” is the general sentiment that we must also live to serve the greater good rather than celebrate and romanticize our job title or position with its attached fame or popularity.

Another valuable but less known or overlooked idea for Philippine development is the worldview in the social sciences, or how we put into perspective real life and the real world. This idea creates an alternative view of living a modest life focused on spirituality, simplicity, learning, and kindness or caring for others. This way of living allows us to make decisions and actions for the greater good, and do what is good and right even without anyone seeing what we are doing. It keeps us from focusing too much on ourselves and on instant rewards or gratification.

City-states, societies, or countries that demonstrate this view include Bhutan, which focuses its national initiatives on gross national happiness that cares more about the welfare of its people and the environment rather than financial gains. There’s also Finland, which is admired for having the best educational system in the world, being consistent in having a very high ranking in the human development index or quality of life, and is known for its “Sisu” or national character of determination, courage, and resilience.

If we look closely and analyze these ideas, or if we apply the creativity of Steve Jobs which is the ability to see the “patterns and connections” from these ideas, we’d realize that the core or root of development depends on the way people in an environment think (cognitive) and the way people behave and act (affective).

In essence, we must believe that it is important to tweak our worldview so that instead of aiming to achieve a better me or a better you, we’d transcend that goal and would now think, behave, and act for the greater good or “a better us.”

Raymund Sisenando R. Mercado,

raymund_mercado@yahoo.com