The Philippine's Reach is Too Short to Grasp

My news feed pick up science articles. It has been an interesting week. A probe to Jupiter launched; it will take years to get there. Solar flares putting sensitive electronics like satellites and electricity grids at risk; activity will peak in 2013. Boeing showing off its private spaceship capable of ferrying seven people to the International Space Station. Evidence showing that the DNA requirements for life exist on meteors. Evidence showing that Texas and Antarctica were once joined. Hints that briny water may flow on the surface of Mars, giving hope for life there. A ring of antimatter particles discovered circling the earth.

America plays a lead role in discovery. It's many top-quality universities push knowledge inexorably forward. The military plots and plans for new ways to be powerful. American companies seek new ways to compete.  Germany also pushes innovation. Russia is there. Japan rode on the backs of American discovery, and improved upon it. China is now trying to catch up by stealing the discoveries of the rest of the world and blustering about how important the Chinese are in the New World Order.

Scientists share passions with the great explorers in history, the sailors who set off to go around the world on small wooden ships, the determined men who scaled Everest [recommended reading: "Paths of Glory" by Jeffrey Archer] and trekked across Antarctica, the spacemen who risked getting blown to bits or stranded in space to walk on the moon, the men and women who built and run the experiments on the International Space Station, deep sea explorations . . . solo this, a first at that, higher, faster, deeper; new understandings of life and tragic ways to find death.

A passion for knowledge. That is what drives scientists and explorers.

Cast that against the Philippines. A broad-based public educational platform that teaches by rote and demands order and obedience, not innovation and ambition and discovery. A relentless drain of brains to other lands. Careers determined by favor, not accomplishment. A clear view that introspection is shameful; look around town and see if you can find a psychiatrist or therapist.  Criticism directed toward those who do seek knowledge; a youngster with a book is disparaged by his peers as a "librarian". Jealousy of the success of others and an unending tear-down mentality to level the playing field at the absolute lowest common denominator.

The nation is a cat bound tight in a tangle of yarn, a trap of its own making.

The richest seas in the world are not a platform for discovery or production. They are a platform for plunder.

The richest soil and climate in the universe is not a platform for agricultural might. It is a platform for abuse. For bickering. For giving to the poor. For self-advantage, not stewardship.

Where is the flame?

Pride is a boxer, a singer, a Miss Universe contestant. Artistic expression is found in an obscene rendition of Jesus.

Where is the passion for knowledge, for discovery, for risk, for growth?

I don't see it.

"Joe, we are a poor country. You cannot expect us to keep pace with the US. Many Filipinos are engaged in cutting-edge technology and science around the world. Cut us some slack."

No.

Here is my "far-out" curriculum for grades 7 through 12, under a 12 grade school system:

Track 1: Trade

Track 2: College

• Mathematics
• English and Chinese (Mandarin)
• Discovery
• Aspiration
• Computers

I'll deal with the trade track, as well as real-time curriculum administration and teacher development, in separate blogs.

For the college track:

Forget Tagalog, except in the home. It is not a language of national unity or discovery or global competition. Imposing it on Visayans is as artificial as imposing French. Students who attend private schools that teach in English are leaving public school graduates behind. Forget history, other than as a footnote to discovery.  Forget memorizing Rizal; let kids write their own wisdom. Forget PE; kids are naturally active. Offer extra-curricular sports and intellectual competitions.

Within the Discovery subjects include self awareness and sex education (tell the priests of the Catholic Church to kindly sit down; this is a secular school dealing with the mind, not spirit). Also the rudiments of oceanography, geology, astronomy, agronomy, sociology, biology, chemistry and physics. Give kids an understanding of what practical jobs are available in these areas. Give them a grasp of areas of new exploration as the foundation for career planning. Teach them how to think outside the box while understanding the limits of real life (budgets). Don't make them memorize species or the elements table or even multiplication tables. In the Math subjects, give them a calculator and move on to algebra. Assign them to a shared computer.

Within Aspiration subjects include self awareness and confidence building, public speaking, debate, competing within the law, problem solving, government structure and business fundamentals.

Within Computers include word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, internet research,  rudimentary programming, and call center fundamentals (both operator and management perspectives).

Look at students critically and help them find subjects that they are passionate about. In the 12th grade, focus their energies on a self-study program aimed at their anticipated college major.

In 20 years, Filipinos will compete at the leading edges of knowledge. In 50, they will be hauling in Nobels and Pulitzers . . .

Think AHEAD of other countries. LEAD, for chrissakes. Stop trailing behind like a beat-down beggar kid pleading for handouts.

Or what's a heaven for?

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Amendments to Curriculum: 

(1) Within Aspiration, add "Values".

(2) Within Discovery, add "The Relevance of our Roots."

(3) Strike "self awareness" from the Discovery subjects as it is properly addressed within Aspiration

(4) Within Discovery add "The Professions (Legal, Medical, Financial, Business, Technology)"

"Well Jerk My Eyeballs Out with a Fork"

Have you ever had the experience of finding a long missing tool, gleefully picking it up, then tossing it in horror as a deadly black widow spider creeps out from underneath?

Or opening a box of candy to have a small lizard scramble out?

Or reaching for a tomato and instead grabbing one of those huge, green-gutted, slimy tomato worms?

Or going to sit down on a park bench and have a snake slither off right from where you were going to plop your butt?

We spend the better part of our lives in innocence. Expecting good. Living the good life. Absent war and strife and horror. Cruising.

Then it up and hits us between the eyes. Horror. And we have to deal with it.

The examples I cite are trivial. But they convey the shock of the unexpected, when something good turns somehow extraordinarily bad.

Sometimes we are happy because we are simply ignorant. Or we shade truths to fit our happy time disposition. Our lives truly are built on deceits, and we are the biggest liars ourselves.

In the US, people cringe in horror with each American death in the war in Afghanistan. They count each one. List the names on the front page of the Daily Rag. The list of names is long when a helicopter is shot down. Over thirty. It is short when a Humvee gets IED'ed and five Americans die. The total so far after, what, eight years or so, is around 3,000 deaths? And people are outraged. "Get out now!" 

Meanwhile, out on the interstates and country lanes and city streets, Americans slaughter Americans by the carload. Literally. Some 40,000 deaths a year. That is 110 deaths each and every day. Crushed skulls and mangled bones. Blood on the pavement. The old and the young, the sober and the drunk. Car accidents.

We read the number and it is irrelevant to us. It is the ink on the paper, the fleeting burst of color on the TV screen, here then gone. It is not attached to anything important. Driving to the grocery store is not Afghanistan where crazy-eyed murders in turbans try daily to kill our sweet boys and girls. There is no drama, no pathos, no dirt attached to a family of five plowed under by a semi on the 5 Freeway outside of Bakersfield.

Shit happens.

Well, let me tell you, I picked up a tool this morning and found the spider. The lizard was there too, and the worm, and the snake.

I'm always on the prowl for a favorable story about the Philippines. Something to balance against the relentless discouragement thrown at Filipinos by erudite hypocrites like Anti-Pinoy and Get Real Post. So this morning I leapt at the headline touting how the Philippines was complimented by WHO for the work being done to improve newborn nutrition (click here for story). A three-month old project to encourage breast feeding and good nutrition was cited with raves.

But then the spider popped out. The worm. The snake. The lizard. Halfway through the rave . . . the horror emerged . . .

• "Over 40,000 Filipino newborns die every year, with the majority of them dying in the first two days after birth. Newborn deaths account for 37 percent of the 82,000 Filipino children that die annually."

Do you know how much grief is attached to the death of a child?

82,000 Filipino children die annually.

My God. No wonder Filipinos are callous toward corruption or rule-breaking or unkind treatment of others. How can you have a heart and bear the death of 82,000 kids a year? Almost a million kids in 10 years? You have got to set your grief aside, bury it, deny it. Your heart? You cover it with iron.

You turn on the TV and watch Willie toy with innocent people. Anything but grasp the horror.

You cheer a boxer and get drunk under the mango tree.

You toddle off to the Church and pray . . .

And listen to the wizards of the Catholic Church tell you how much the truly faithful value life, and that we must suffer to appreciate God.

The right to life.

The right to life.

This kind of life? That ends in two days?

And the poor, uneducated masses keep on giving. And birthing.

And the priests keep on preaching.

And we commoners amble on in denial, because that particular horror is just too terrifying to deal with.

There Are No Jeepneys in the US of A

I came to the Philippines in 2005. It was a fluke of fate, a left turn out of Hong Kong rather than right.

Before that I roamed the planet whenever I could afford it, which wasn't often enough, but, hey, alimony does crimp one's style. This ramblin' started courtesy of Uncle Sam's traveling circus, the US Army, which saw fit to give me an all expense paid tour of Saigon and its nearby environs, most of which were duly padded in sandbags to keep the shrapnel at bay. But after R&R in Hong Kong and vacation in Sydney, I was hooked. I liked the differences between other places and my home country.

Now my home country has the most varied scenery known to mankind, from the glaciers of Alaska to the sand dunes of Death Valley, endless rolling plains, some of the deepest ditches in the world painted red in the sunset, those elegant Rocky Mountains where I grew up, snakeland swamps, mighty rivers, gorgeous beaches. But the culture is pretty pat. By that, I mean ordered and proper and kind. People drive between the lines and generally follow the laws. It is hard to find exotica unless you like the kind represented in a stripper slipping up and down a silver pole at a gentleman's club out in South El Monte. Oh, and there is New Orleans.

"See Julie do something that no other woman has done before in public!" You can wander the streets of "N'awlins" with a beer in hand as the barkers fairly drag you in to the strip joints and clubs.

Well, Julie was pretty good, balancing that glass of champagne on her ample left boob.

Her right was ample, too, now that I think about it.

I've been to all those places. River rafting and hitchhiking, mountain climbing and body surfing, skiing and cross-country cycling. Camping. Ogling Julie. Luxury hotels and smoke infested dives with lumpy mattresses from all the prior action thereupon. I drunkenly pissed once from the terrace of the Morro Bay Inn into the mighty Pacific, and on another excursion got potted up whilst watching the whales swim south toward Mexico. That was in Clint Eastwood's town, lovely, artsy Carmel, California. Trust me, Mayor Clint would not allow any obscene painting of Jesus to be posted in an art gallery in his town. He has class. And a .44 magnum.

But you see, there are no tricycles in the USA for a 5 peso ride downtown. No outrigger boats for a quick jaunt over to that island off in the distance. No local wild fiestas where everyone feeds everyone else and half naked dancers bong their way through town vying in street dance competitions.  Only in Hawaii can you drive between the sea and green tropical forests dissolving into the misty clouds high up the mountainside. And there, a cut-rate hotel room runs you $100. And everyone stays between the lines.

There are no drunken cock-fights with every motorcycle in town jammed aside the National Highway so the riders can foolishly bet away the family's money that they sweated so hard to earn. There is no tuba in the USA. Oh, the south has its moonshine and some people brew beer in their basement. But there is no mango tree to drink it under, where you can slobber happily with your drunken pals whilst the women fiddle with the food and kids.

There are no Jeepneys in the US of A. If you don't own a car, you have a headache.

Juices, I can hardly remember all the countries I've visited. Viet Nam, Hong Kong, Australia , Canada, Mexico, Chile, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, Israel, England, Spain, Portugal, France. Aargh. I'm forgetting some, I know.

I would strike half those countries from my list of feasible  retirement places because you can't live year-round in shorts and a t-shirt, wander about speaking English and be quite confident that people may try to scam some pesos, but not do anything really nasty; just avoid Mindanao. Some of those countries, like Singapore and Japan, live too much between the lines, if you catch my drift. Egypt is the best place to visit if you want to look at really old architecture, but the Sahara sand stings and I don't trust Muslims (no offense intended). Israel? Way too many guns hanging around on the shoulders of very young soldiers. England? Snooty, cold and between the lines. Spain? I don't trust Catholics. Hahahahaha, whooo, wheeeooo. (No offense intended.)

No, I like a place with character. It doesn't have to be rich. It has to be authentic.

The Philippines is authentic, even though the authenticity occasionally drives me nuts. I'd rather be nuts than bored.

My home is on a gently sloping mountainside just below the cloud line. If I look one direction, I see green volcanic mountains draped in wispy cotton veils, if I look the other, I see the West Philippine Sea with a Chinese aircraft carrier somewhere off in the distance. My kid speaks two languages at the age of three, he runs around naked half the time, like the locals, and he loves books, an obvious cultural contradiction. But hey, like his Pop, he believes in marching to the beat of his own drum.

Also, living here is a fine joke on those stuck between the lines. The Philippines is going up. They are going down.

"The Road"

Okay, literary arts aficionados, here is one for those of you who aspire to be Buddhists of the mind and spirit:

"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, 2006, Random House, Inc.

I have about 50 pages left in my re-read and I've had wild dreams every night since picking up the book again. There is something about trekking with a man and his son through the cannibalistic horrors of a destroyed, burning, oppressively gray, ash-covered earth that tips the psyche into preservation mode, which I consider dreams to be. Steam from the id. Escape valves for emotions deeper than we know.

When I picked up the book, I asked myself, "do you really want to go on that relentlessly dark hike again?"

I got to the bottom of page one and was sucked in. This kind of writing is rare, indeed. The man awoke with a vision of their life now:

"Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours of the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders."

Because the story is so dark, the light that emerges is bright, even when depressing. How can that make sense, eh?

It just does. The book is a series of passages, rather like a diary. Here is an entire passage:

"In those first years the roads were peopled with refugees shrouded up in their clothing. Wearing masks and goggles, sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators. Their barrows heaped with shoddy. Towing wagons or carts. Their eyes bright in their skulls. Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland. The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all."

That passage took 10 minutes to read and reread and guess at all the meanings contained therein.

The light comes from appreciating that, in our contentious and trouble-strewn lives,  we have it so well. So very, very well.

I won't go into the plot. You have to hike that hike yourself.

Don’t expect it to be easy.

But expect to grow somehow richer.

State Sponsored Child Abuse

It is good to see the Philippine Government push social legislation such as the divorce, health and reproduction, and child abuse bills.  It is the sign of a refined sense of caretaking that would appear to reside outside the vision of the Catholic Church. And an awareness that, on occasion, the State must insert itself to protect its citizens from themselves.

Indeed, the concept of nationhood is just that, an agreement that individuals are better off banded together following rules aimed at preserving the well-being of the collective.

The House of Representatives has passed a piece of legislation called “An Act Promoting Positive and Non-violent Discipline of Children” . This is a fine bill with good intentions, but I wonder if it will fall into the trash heap of well-intended regulations that are emasculated because they are not enforced. Who will enforce this one? Certainly not the courts, which are jammed full to bursting with backlogged cases. I suppose some agency of the government. I wonder what the penalties will be? A slap on the wrist?

The United Nations defines corporal punishment of a child as any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light.

By definition, I have to stop using my technique of disciplining my child by flicking him on the wrist for persistent bad behavior, because it would be illegal. I use the technique because it allows the child to associated bad behavior with bad outcomes. Immediately and clearly. It avoids what might be the soft, unknown kind of psychological abuse caused by relegating a child to the corner for a "time out". A "time out" causes no physical pain, but the kid can concoct all kinds of angers and excuses and villains, other than himself, whilst parked on a stool for five minutes.

• Charging exam fees, incidental fees, and requiring costly uniforms, thus consigning the poorest citizens of the land to an eternal cycle of no education, no job, no money. No education for their own kids. Talk about abusive.

• Permitting parents who overbirth to consume the State's resources, resulting in poor education for the children of parents who are not so demanding on the government's wealth. That is roundabout unfair, and abusive.

• Forcing kids to learn in schools with inadequate facilities and mediocre teachers, effectively banning kids from being the best that they can be. This is a part of the cycle imposed by overbirthing and lousy tax policy.

A flick on the wrist provides all the agony of a mosquito bite. The cynical me would argue for a plank in the law outlawing mosquitoes, too. For comprehensive protection of the child. But I told the cynical me to sit down and shut up.

But it is this notion of "soft abuse", like consigning the child to a time out, that I want to pursue.

It struck me during my primary thinking time, which is about 2 o'clock in the morning, that the Philippine educational system operates on a different construct than the American system.

In the US, it is a crime for parents to keep kids out of school, which is free. In the Philippines, parents have to pay fees to get their kids to go to school.

The US follows what I suppose could be termed a socialistic model, with the State mandating education for the child, and seeing lack thereof as abusive. Truancy officers roam the streets in some communities looking for kids that are not in school. Parents are held to account.

The Philippines follows the royal model, with the State holding education as a prize to be gifted if the parents pay money to the State. No one cares if kids are on the streets, or, alternatively, out working the seas to find fish.

I consider the withholding of education to be infinitely more abusive than a flick on the wrist. It does not come and go. It stays . . . for a lifetime.

The Philippine State permits child abuse in three ways:

So, although I support the good intentions of this new piece of legislation, I wish Philippine congressional leaders would come to grips with how abusive it is to withhold education from a child.

The damages are severe and they are physical: underdeveloped brains.

The hurt is lifelong.

There is no healing process available; a missed opportunity is gone forever.