THE PHILIPPINE COLLEGE ENVIRONMENT

GroundReport | Author: Marciano Paroy
Filed Under: Opinion | Posted: 07/08/2007 at 5:20AM
Comments | Region: Philippines

BACK-TO-SCHOOL WOES FOR THE COLLEGE ENVIRONMENT

By MARCIANO A. PAROY JR.

The month of June ushers in the school-year, and with it are the hard-hitting realities.

One: college is for a large number of teenagers who are working hard to finish a course so that they can land jobs that will no longer be available by the time they graduate.

Two: college is an environment filled by the growing maturity of the youth, coupled with a strong desire for independence exhibited by rebellion against on-campus rules and by involvement in off-campus causes that try to nail down the problems of the society, and indoctrinate the youth with a plethora of solutions.

“Education” seems to be the answer to all problems today, but what kind of education, and for whom? An automatic advocate to this are the adults – most of whom never had the chance to go to college. To elicit motivation, they always automatically explain the Second World War, the turbulent Marshall Law years (which are golden years for others), and what nationalism once meant. And so the youth listen politely to this tale often told, yet finding no meaning in it at all.

But, conversely, even the adults cannot find meaning in the activities of the youth precipitated by the college environment, like their predisposition to challenge authority, on-campus and off.

Which leaves for inspection the instructor by the blackboard dispensing a badly sorted set of information to cover a rambling, pointless hour. But really, it is under the instructor’s deft manipulation of ideas, opinions and cold hard facts will the students attain that “Ahh-now-I-know” stance.

Since it is impossible to underplay the potent role of the instructor to ram down a whole new perspective into the throats of his hungry students, it is best to look into the measurable and observable qualifications of the instructor. If he cannot send out his students out of the classroom with newer insights, the students may well raise their hands and say “That’s not what it says in page 59 of the book you insist on using year-in year-out.”

In which case, the youth posing challenge inside the college environment becomes acceptable.

Filed Under:Opinion

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