What are we teaching?

A few weeks ago, my column “Like real angels” (12/20/23) generated a variety of reactions online.

Teachers and students reported that indeed, students were being made to read summaries of books, then later quizzed on the author’s life and what the book is said to be about—in both high school Filipino and English literature classes. Students are not given the chance to read the complete texts, debate what the author is trying to say, or talk about what the characters feel. The students are not given the space to critique or interpret work and are instead graded on how well they repeat what they are told.

Many parents and teachers agreed with the column’s sentiments (at least from my end of the social media algorithms). One or two, however, responded, in general: “Why don’t you come over and teach here so you can find out how hard it is to teach teenagers?”

This kind of response assumes that we at the university level are simply sitting around, whining from our soft armchairs, and complaining about students without doing any hard work ourselves. Our knee-jerk reaction to that comment would be, “Why don’t you come over and teach our students, who don’t like being challenged, can’t write well, don’t understand instructions, and keep forgetting their lessons every semester—while working on research for submission to peer-reviewed journals plus administrative work plus public engagements?”

To post such a reply would have reduced the debate to an eternal pissing contest on who has the more challenging job for the lowest salary. It reduces the vocation of teaching to a mere task of suffering to which one is resigned, with nothing further to be learned.

The issue here, more central than what teachers are doing, is the formation and molding of our students’ character. To post such a comment would be to do exactly what we educators preached against in the previous administration and in the last election: avoid any line of argument that stigmatizes people calling attention to an issue (which often takes the online format of “If you’re so smart, then why don’t you be the …?”).

There is a more pressing question, therefore, that I now pose to educators. It’s something that the former chair of our department (and also former Inquirer sports columnist) Dr. Severino Sarmenta Jr., asks us whenever we agonize over decisions on what to teach, how to grade substandard work, or how to deal with problematic students.

“What are we teaching?”

The question might sound simple, but its ramifications are quite deep, and its implications far-reaching.

The question works at all levels of teaching. If we give a passing grade out of “compassion” to a student who didn’t submit over half of the class requirements, then aren’t we also teaching the student that bad behavior and mediocrity are acceptable, even rewarded? If we quiz our students using multiple-choice tests all because we’re fed up with checking essays, then aren’t we also teaching them that complicated issues can be reduced to mere bits and pieces that could be judged right or wrong, automatically polarized, without debate or argument? If we tell students to believe in a single interpretation of a text all because we’ve been so accustomed to doing so in our school environment, then aren’t we also teaching them that they don’t have to think for themselves and simply need to search for an authority to tell them what to think?

In making things easier for our students, aren’t we also telling them that we don’t believe in their capacity to do better? To be better?

So: what are we teaching?

This question expands farther outward, beyond the classroom. Every move we make, every word we speak, every example we set also teaches someone else what is right, what is required, what is acceptable.

The question then repeats itself. What do we teach when we vote people into power because of their name, and not their credentials (if any)? What do we teach when we condone indecency in our public officials, when we simply sit back and let the government get away with corruption? What do we teach when we do nothing in the face of injustice because we’re too callous, too indifferent, too afraid?

We get irritated when we’re told, “Why don’t you be the police officer? The senator? The president?” after we raise a legitimate complaint.

That irritation is understandable. We’re angry because people should do their jobs, as described, regardless of the difficulty. We’re angry because when corrected, people should find ways to ask for help, improve themselves, ask to be trained to do things better—because all jobs are vocations, and all of life is constant learning.

All jobs are difficult, but a difficult job never justifies shortcuts; and, when the shortcuts are called out, a difficult job is not a defense. The difficulties are something we have to meet head-on so that we can truly teach the next generation to find its own strength in the adversities yet to come.

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