VACATIONING MINDS

by Wilhelmina S. Orozco

It's vacation time. What will schooling children do now that they have nothing to look forward to everyday? I pity the parents who cannot afford to send them to workshops or even to tour them locally or internationally. The children are idle mentally and physically. Emotionally they could even get stunted.

I think that all school libraries should be open all year round, including Sundays and holidays. We should also make the barangay require all children to read one book a month in order to make them attuned to seeing letters. Literacy, meaning being able to read and write is still the best way to educate and raise the IQ of children. 

I was at a kiosk and heard the conversations between internet game players: "Patayin mo na. O palitan mo yung armas. Oops. " And all the while their eyes are focused on guys in military uniforms, with long arms shooting at targets -- human enemies of course. 

No, there should be a better way of raising kids. All kids below 20 years old must have a must reading list of books before they enter the next school year. The schools should require them to submit a summary, and undergo interviews if they have really read the books. One book a month during vacation, or even two should be a requirement. 

I really miss my high school days when we were required to go to the library almost everyday just to research on this and that author. Actually, I came to love the library more when I was in college. There the books were categorized in a very logical way. Social science books on the right side of the building, upon entrance, that is, and arts and humanities on the left, at UP. But now, the library for the latter have been transferred near the faculty center, away from the main library. So if students were researching on humanities and suddenly decided to seek a philosopher's book they would have to negotiate that long walk. 

I really cannot fathom how that thing of segregating books in this manner has come about. Building by building? Wow. And if it is raining, you have to withstand the eeky side of getting your feet wet, apart from your things. Schooling should not be this way at all. 

By the UP, the bureaucratic thinking in UP is becoming or has become a disease really. Instead of being a school advanced in education, and handling of educational materials, it is just merely following a formulaic method: for the arts, one building. for social sciences, another. etcetera, etcetera. 

Then at the college of music, it used to have a great expert who knew where each opera disc was, or a compilation of this and that composer. The last time I went there last year, it took sometime for a book that I requested to be retrieved. Moreover, when I would request for a duplication of my CD, Himig Bata, he could readily do it. But now, no one can do it anymore. I really do not know why UP does not insure that there would be second liners who could take over the jobs of those leaving their posts. 

When the mentors of the educational foundations in the college of education were retired, someone was asked to apply for one of the posts. But instead of filling up the vacant positions, they put in someone from guidance and counselling. How in heaven's name could the latter take over the functions of educating the students, not only undergrads but also master's and doctoral students on educational theories, philosophies, on methods of writing highly theoretical dissertations on education, etcetera? 

Do you know where the music expert had gone? To Canada, to join his wife and to bring his family. Our loss, Canada's gain.

How funny. I went to meet a friend in one of the colleges. Now I am very popular or unpopular, whichever as a critical writer. Did you know that after my talk with her, I was "greeted" by a janitor with a sweeper and a dustpan, doing his thing at the very hall where I was going to pass by. A month ago, I also visited that friend. Did you know also that two janitors were there by the entrance of the college sweeping and sweeping even when there were no scattered dirt around. Then when I went to the comfort room, a janitress followed me?

That is how "praning" UP is in terms of critics, instead of confronting the issues that we or I raise all the time -- the petrified bureaucracy of UP. 

Hay naku. Look, the UP College of Law failed to make any student land in the top ten. And what is now the ranking of UP in the whole world? Way, way below. It's not even in the top 100. 

Philippines' Number 1 is the University of the Philippines, which ranked 62nd in Asia, according to a newspaper report. It was followed by the Ateneo de Manila University (No. 68 in Asia), University of Santo Tomas (No. 104 in Asia), and De La Salle University (No. 107 in Asia). It's 332nd worldwide according to topuniversities ranking; a bit higher  than Ewha Woman's University in Korea (ranking 344). lower than Beijing Normal University (rank 300). De la Salle University ranked 551-600.

Why so? Aren't students studying or excelling anymore? What environment creates geniuses? At the rate computer shops proliferate with the youth focused on violent games and not those that challenge their creativity of intellect, it would not be long when this country will be run under questionable standards.

I was riding an "ikot" jeep in UP and watched the eyes of the male students inside. They were looking outside, most of them trying to avoid the sight of female students in very short shorts. But then outside, also the same sights greeted them. And I could see their eyes turned "malamlam." What is that in English, I can't translate anymore. It is a kind of look that has seen something that titillates their insides. 

How could students study in that kind of atmosphere? I appreciate the nuns of a Catholic school who prevented their students to march with the others for having posted their bikini shots and alcoholic ways in facebook. If I were the administrator I would have done the same, no matter if I was just handed over the material by someone else. 

You see Folks, there is a displaced aggression among the young. The women are rebelling against the image of St. Mary and are aping Madonna instead who had appeared in her concerts in her very barest -- costumes that are meant for the bedroom where sado-masochistic sex is conducted. 

No, A liberated Christian woman should exhibit her learnings of Christian tenets whether in or out of the school. Knowing the Bible and Christ's teachings should not end inside the classroom, but should reach as far as one's public exposures. Unfortunately, right now, there is a misguided sense of academic freedom -- freedom to do what? Not just to think but to bare as much flesh as possible. Is that the right academic standard for encouraging creative and critical thinking?

I really maintain that those women who blindly follow fashion are bringing down the image of other women. Check now: even grandmothers and young girls  below ten are being raped and murdered. There is something very, very wrong culturally in our country. 

Universities are not helping at all by encouraging the current style of fashion that drives away the attention from books. 

What do the League of Filipino Students and women's groups say about these? Where are their posters, streamers condemning the sliding down of educational achievements in the country? It's time that these organizations raise their voices and tell us: are you for or against these issues?