Dear Mr Calipjo-Go
I say “Well done Mr Antonio Calipjo-Go”! The Philippine Daily Inquirer has felt that a whole editorial on your “demise” is needed.
Since I am an educator myself, I have seen and read how bad the textbook situation is. But the PDI respectfully called the Innuendo by our Dear DJB doesn’t provide the solution to the problem. A national blurb is a public trust and must present possible solutions to pressing problems.
But this seems to be not the case. I feel the Inquirer’s editorial is a sort of Stalinist funeral wreath to the purged. Stalin attended each and every funeral and at times acted as pallbearer to the partymen he executed.
The Inquirer published your ads but also the op ed comments that were the thousand knives stuck to your body. But then again a newspaper has to present all sides of the story.
We now ask who wielded the murder weapon? Those with ”fearless views” that were knives to your cause? Newspaper editorials often lay at the reader’s eye the gross mistakes the editors have committed. How much errors in editorial judgement should readers allow to get away with?
The Inquirer at least for civility, should have provided the editorial bright lining that is fitting for a eulogy. At least we readers would have reason for hope that while you are “dead” your ideas will live.
But that isn’t what was printed. I feel that the Inquirer has conveniently washed its hands of your “murder” in its editorial. The Inquirer’s lame lament may be its final say. But having said that, that is one of the perks of Press Freedom!
Sincerely yours
Blackshama
Popularity: 3% [?]
Why was his criminal case dismissed then? Why are the civic groups supportive of him that the DepED has to change its Textbook Policy.
If he is really an extortionist and the errors he found are not substantial, why did the DepEd issued memos for correction of the already distributed books?
And why did he speak again? Because the reprints bear the same mistakes.
Will the Deped issue another erratum memo?
The C at,
Don’t you think the principals, nuns and priests mostly, to which the private publishers sell exclusively care the most and are competent to judge, or are in the best position to do so?
Or are you for setting up some kind of central censorship authority to check all the books??
You can’t just wring your hands and say, look Go has found this one book with all these funny errors, and leave it at that. By the way, he cites hundreds of errors in one series, but 90% were disputed by the publisher. Have you actually looked at all his claims. Who will check the checkers??
No school was forced to buy the books Go targeted and I doubt they were a bestseller among the publisher’s thousands of titles on catalogue.
It would be as if we went on a Crusade against PDI because of the drivel somebody like Jimmy Licauco writes, or any of the tsismis columnists.
Of course we care about textbooks and the kids! But what are we really willing to do to give them quality education materials? Quality costs you know and at forty pesos per textbook, it’s wishful thinking. Qualified authors are working for McGraw HIll and other foreign publishing houses. But we can’t just use foreign textbooks because we have our own curriculum.
In other words, as a product, education, both instruction and materials, shares all the imperfections of any other product or service in the Philippines.
Education is not “special” in some mystical way. The solutions won’t come by giving up our freedoms and principles, by allowing fascist tendencies to grip us out of frustration at the snail’s pace of reform.
The evaluators must have come from the same university. :)
The Cat,
I’m not sure what you are talking about anymore because it sounds like you are quoting and stitching conclusions together from news reports of PDI. All Publishers and Deped continuously and eternally are issuing corrections, errata, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions of their titles. There is nothing unusual about such corrections, even in the industry you claim the public can choose to ignore if it wishes, even if right now that is the industry driving this very debate!
Textbooks, like newspapers, are not exactly in inerrant Word of Jehovah. My question to you is, who is to police ALL the books, and at what cost? Who is to police all the schools? They might be “molding the minds of the youth” the wrong way? Who is to police all those misinforming channels of mass media. Oh, but you want to exempt them from regulation even if they contain a worse kind of error: the intentional kinds!
No.
The principals do not decide. It is the school board or a textbook comittee.
Nuns and priests? Not unless they have degrees in the expertise needed in the evaluation of the book.
Even a PhD in Management, Marketing and Economics would not be able to evaluate and edit my instructional materials in Accounting.
The Cat,
No really, that was my scoop when this first came out in 2005. The authors of the book Go/PDI skewered this year were from the best elementary school (kuno) in the country, the Ateneo de Manila! Hahaha. Ouch. What a belly laugh I had at that. But I am defending them now because I love struggling young writers, like the bloggers right here at FV. They deserve a break from the torpedoes and extortionist gang bangers like GO/PDI and moral impersonators like Benign0. But I had no idea how HARD it is to actually write a textbook for our grade schools (you can’t just cut and paste from google y’know) Also, I just checked with someone who knows, it was never marketed or sold to Deped because the publisher has done zero business with Deped –by strict policy.
It’s PDI that really wants the Deped’s business.
The Cat,
I think we are only talking about textbooks for grade schools here with Go. Accounting? That sounds like College instructional materials. So how many tens of thousands of people do you think we have who are qualified to do this Strict Quality Control on Mind Forming Textbooks at Forty Pesos each?
And uhmm, the Nuns and Priests, well, they happen to be THE customers of these publishers for those questioned books. But I guess Antonio Calipje Go knows better than the clients of that publisher (which includes all the top private schools, mind you) for all their other books, eh?
Unfortunately Dean, I was involved in this discussion for several years now, in fact I am looking for the list of those errors which were published (not only in PDI )among the news compilations that I gathered and saved.Would you care if I tell you that some of the information came from UP, from researches about textbooks, corruption in textbook procurement and how they can be minimized and from scholarly publications not only in the Philippines but also in other countries.
And did you not read, I also was involved in textbook and instructional materials writing which were reviewed by the college peers and by the university textbook committee.
As I have been saying, I do not make “sawsaw” in topics not familiar to me.
And I conducted management audit in publishing companies.
You are hurting my feelings DJB. As a research-trained person, I do not use one source only otherwise my professors in DPA, PhD in Economics and DBA would have asked me for my footnotes and endnotes in the papers I submitted.
The university would not have approved my syllabi which should include a list of book references aside from the standard textbook adopted by the university for a particular subject.
True, but this still answers your take on freedom of expression and free enterrpise.
Who will stop us from selling erroneous books which are not covered by DepED? So why the need for evaluation when we are already experts in our field of expertise.
But we’re humans. Someone has to point to us the errors we have missed. And also to protect our reputation as authors.
So that’s what you suspect. You are entitled to your suspicion. But can they beat the low quotation of the international publisher for the printing and delivery of the books? If they can, why not join the bid?
Will they get their own group of authors for the textbook titles?
The most read in the newspaper is the entertainment section. The most read columnist is Dolly Carvajal.
Why remove the feature which bring in readers. BRian Gorrel’s website recorded billion hits because of gossip. Chill out DJB. It is not the end of the world.
BTW, you do not need an evaluator to recommend the ousting of Jimmy Licauco. All you have to do is skip the column. You can not do that in the textbook for children by skipping the chapter.
The Cat,
You have to know a lot of science to know why Jimmy Licauco is a dangerous influence. Most people don’t know enough to avoid him.
But that is hardly the point. There IS real market choice in the textbook market, at least in the private schools, and the customers make good choices for the most part. It is the job of the educators, not the students to select the textbooks.
That is where your analogy fails. It is in fact the people who select the textbooks that are analogous to newspaper readers.
You seem to think that PDI isn’t used for education purposes too. It is the most widely used outside source, I would expect, for example in social studies and current events classes.
So there’s that common denominator again.
Do you really think there is a difference in principle?
The Cat,
You admit yourself there is a lot of drivel in the newspapers, as well as all the same kind of errors that are found in the textbooks, wouldn’t you agree? So, would you now support removing all those newspapers that are on the Deped’s “Approved Reading List” for Makabayan, English and Pilipino? And why shouldn’t every single issue be evaluated for accuracy if the newspapers and newsmagazines are considered a prime source of educational material and information fo rsuch social studies?
No disrespect mean for your expertise, Cat, but I think you may be giving people the impression that textbook writing is merely a recitation or regurgitation of well known facts and concepts, and so why can these authors and publishers get all those dates, names and places right.
I claim it is every bit a creative and technical struggle, especially in the maths and sciences, a true literary effort that is ten times harder than journalism. And of course there is competition with others. So textbook writing is just like column writing or blogging. It is the attempt to express things better, simpler, more understandably. Some authors are better than others. Textbooks are not encyclopedic compendia of verified truths.
Textbooks are attempts to ignite minds with ideas, just like journalism. Some succeed, some don’t. But if we demand a uniform quality centrally imposed, we can only fail.
Denying this leads to fascism and authoritarianism, or at least grim, politically correct society that actually doesn’t know how to learn.
they are just references not textbooks that are must-read for children.
Besides, no grade school students would read Licauco. The readers of Carvajal are not the grade school students. They are the professionals, the society matrons, the people who prefer to be seen with Inquirer rather than Abante or Bulgar.
Teeners get their entertainment news from PEP, which is GMA entertainment column and from TFC the BUZZ and the Startalk of GMA. :)
An MBA from AIM? So what? Jimmy Licauco is a complete fruitcake, with his New Age crystals and spirit elementals of earth and water, but you don’t seem to think so. Psychic is okay on the Lifestyle pages, eh? This really scares me! Okay, never mind him. What about all those entertainment columnists and gay f*cks with their subliminal lasciviousness and swardspeak? Or Shall we discuss the utterly hilarious Science columns of Queena Lee Chua, or the other crap on the weekly science page when they aren’t cutting and pasting from Popular Science? What about all the communist propaganda (they’ve had a three year old story about joma dancing with some sexpot actress on the main oped index running forever).
None of this could possibly be mind-forming, do you suppose?
Ask yourself this question: Why are new textbooks being written everyday, every week, every year? If the information in them is so obvious and simple and well known, why does it even have to change? Why do publishers and authors have to explain and re-explain the same simple well known facts? Why can’t they get it right once, print it and reprint it and never change it. For example arithmetic and mathematics. Why are new textbooks on these subjects the most plentiful?? Do the laws of addition and multiplication change every year to necessitate it?
Or is there something about even math that challenges our creativity beyond the level you have painted for our readers: as if it’s all so simple and obvious, so why can’t these damn authors and publishers get it right, like all us smart people?
In the same manner that the date of Jesus Christ is still being debated upon.
Because authors are also political persons. They may have their own prejudices which are reflected in the books.
Or errors have been perpetuated that they have been accepted as fact until someone proved that they are merely urban legends or myths.
I remember a history teacher of mine who despised one author which last name started with Z because he claimed that there were several errors in his history books.
In the same manner that the world believed the monks, the scientists and scholars that the world is round until the circumnavigation of the world proved them otherwise. :(
In other words: even textbook authors are allowed to be wrong!
They are allowed to be wrong, but they probably won’t get rich. But they don’t deserve to be treated like child molesters or the intentional mental discombobulators like Jimmy Licauco!
I believe that textbooks when adopted are good for as many three years.
Because new knowledge come to us every minute, very hour, every day.
A history book which says that Bush is the president of the US is obsolete. It has to be revised.
Our vocabulary is growing.
What I just do not want in some books are the translations of some names which ought to be left as it is like The Great Wall of China translated as Dakilang Pader. Hohoho. When a Filipino would look for the wonders of the world, will he look for Dakilang Pader or like Tatsulok for Pyramid.
:)
Don’t worry about me DJB. I am enjoying our exchange of opinions. It is not my purpose to brag when I mention about the degrees because if I meant to boast. If I do, I should have cited that in every argument I had in several forums.
I am secured in my expertise which I do not make use in my inane blog Now What, Cat?
The can commit mistake because they are not perfect. But that is why there is the mechanism to review, evaluate and corrrect.
I think the problem is in the correction because it entails additional expenses.
Writing a textbook is just like writing an editorial, only much harder. But authors are allowed to fail in their objectives at both crafts. I think it is wrong to suggest that somehow the moral responsibility of one to avoid errors or malinfo is greater than the other because of the difference in the age of the audience. At least students do have their schools and teachers to “vet” their textbooks before they are forced to study them. But the public is exposed to mass media just living in their skin, right through the aether!
A newspaper is merely the organized expression of the freedom of speech called Press Freedom, and the commercial right to sell such expression for money. An academic publisher organizes textbook writing and selling on precisely one and the same Constitutional and moral basis.
Do you still think there is a real difference, then?
Can you defend the moral consistency of PDI in this case considering their staunch, almost hysterical defense of Press Freedom and its alleged right to lie to get at the truth?
editorial is an expression of an opinion which could be very subjective. it is not a teaching instrument
like a texbook.
it does not need various materials as references.
An author of the textbook can not just write whatever he feels is right.
Do you find any bibliography, appendices in the editorial?
a textbook market is different from the newspaper or media market.
in the textbook market, the end-users are not the decision-makers–the students. The decision-makers which may be the school boards or the textbook committes do not pay for the textbook. The ones that pay for the books are neither the end users and the decision-makers. for private schools, it is the parents. for the public, it is the Deped from the budget allotted from the taxpayers’ money.
in the newspaper, the end user is the buyer, the decision-maker and the one that pays.
textbooks are not being censored because of the opinion of the authors because the opinions should not be reflected in the book.
Opinions of the columnists are censored by the editors of they think they are libelous.
The Cat,
There is this expression: “History begins with the daily news.” So have you ever read a Makabayan textbook? Social Studies is not exactly an exact science, and Makabayan is nearly 40% of the curriculum and teaching time. These textbooks are full of opinion , ideology, history, etc., much of it reflective of what authors and publishers read in newspapers and hear on television. There most certainly is a LOT of opinion in such textbooks. It is completely unavoidable!
As for the buying decision, newspapers have a greater “pass-on” audience than the number who actually choose and buy them. For example, in most households, the father or mother decides what paper to subscribe. Then up to ten others will read that paper, which they neither chose nor paid for! Just like textbooks in a school.
Ahem. it’s looking more and more like these two genres of writing and commerce are TWINS.
If we cannot resolve this important matter of principle, I honestly believe we are going down a fascist road that will eventually affect even journalism.
@DJB
This has been an interesting thread. i’d like to chime in.
after reading whats come before, you’ve posed several questions.
The first set deals with regulation (if any) of the PRIVATE GRADE SCHOOL market. (i can only assume that u think the public school market should be regulated, but i could be wrong)
You say:
“Now I ask you, WHO, HOW, WHEN and on what basis are “defects” to be detected?
First, what is a ‘defect’? I say that we expect kids to learn a basic set of facts at each grade level. This is a curriculum. Not all topics are subject to a curriculum, religion being one of them. [also, we can debate about the contents of the curriculum, as i've read ur posts on that...]
I think, generally, private school texts have more material, better written material. Probably coz they can afford better books. Here, better quality means that they offer materials beyond than the absolute minimum needed. This is one of the reasons why more talented/richer kids gravitate toward private schools (others would be religious educ, low pupil-teacher ratio, etc…)
WHO should do it?HOW? Under the current system, aren’t all books looked at for compliance with the curriculum? IF NOT, then we should. I think that there should be a wide pool of experts, educators from different fields who should be willing to pitch in. [This is what Blackshama what talking about when he averred that there aren't enough experts... but really? Even if you look at the top 40 univerisities in the country?]
ALSO, when someone like GO comes out and says THIS and THAT are wrong, then the publishers should come out and defend their work. I’ll all for that. But as educators, shouldn’t we be mindful of the fact that we are not fallible, and that from honest, dispassionate discussion and debate comes truth? I know its hard to be corrected, but we need to engage each other to develop knowledge. And when we realize we are wrong, just correct it and move on. No fault in that. Do it for the kids, coz they need models to look at, how to discuss stuff, and love learning… DIBA?
WHEN? before the book comes out :) A system must be made to regularly look at new books and their contents…
Then you say:
“Of course we care about textbooks and the kids! But what are we really willing to do to give them quality education materials? Quality costs you know and at forty pesos per textbook, it’s wishful thinking. … Qualified authors are working for McGraw HIll and other foreign publishing houses. But we can’t just use foreign textbooks because we have our own curriculum.”
Indeed, this is a question of resources. It takes money to fund a review process like this. There should be money for this. Right now, i’m thinking the private publishing companies should pay for this certification (that the book teaches the basic information needed for this course/grade level).
My question is, Why can’t we import books? It can’t just be coz of subject matter — if it is then we should change our subject matter to teach what kids from other countries are learning.
So, to summarize:
1) YES, we should make sure the content is consistent with what we should teach our kids, at the very least. If books can provide more, better material, all the better!
2) ITS GOOD that private publishers put more material and thought to their products. They benefit from a better product, so they should pay for peer review (generally speaking… some sort of subsidy may be important too)
3) CONSTRUCTIVE DEBATE should be welcome. Publishers should present their work, if its good the consumers (educators) reward them by buying even at higher prices. If people complain, thats great too! Better books will be the result, and the kids will be better off for it…
@DJB
The next series of questions deals with the nature of textbooks…
you say:
“But I had no idea how HARD it is to actually write a textbook for our grade schools (you can’t just cut and paste from google y’know)…”
“I claim it is every bit a creative and technical struggle, especially in the maths and sciences, a true literary effort that is ten times harder than journalism. And of course there is competition with others. So textbook writing is just like column writing or blogging. It is the attempt to express things better, simpler, more understandably. Some authors are better than others. Textbooks are not encyclopedic compendia of verified truths.”
Totally agree with the notion that writing textbooks is hard. NOT because the material is complex; the characteristic that sets books apart is pedagogy; does it help teachers teach better and students learn better? That requires Talent! :) I also assume this is what you mean by textbooks are not encyclopedias… they could be, but they would be rotten textbooks…
Lets compare the kind of writing you’d see in the newspaper and in textbooks. I agree, textbooks are much harder. Hence i DO NOT understand when u write that “its like” column writing or blogging… Some columns/blogs are GREAT, but one can easily write a poor one, because blogs/columns are basically opinion pieces so their quality is directly tied to the quality of the opinion — given the uhmm ‘diversity’ (wink!) of opinions out there, its literally a crapshoot…
Correct me if i am wrong, do i get the impression that writing an event that happens based on news is expressing an opinion.
It is more of presenting secondary data for me. do the authors of the book editorialize the contents of the textbook? Nah.
@ DJB
Lastly, you opine about the difference between newspapers and textbooks:
“Writing a textbook is just like writing an editorial, only much harder. But authors are allowed to fail in their objectives at both crafts. I think it is wrong to suggest that somehow the moral responsibility of one to avoid errors or malinfo is greater than the other because of the difference in the age of the audience. At least students do have their schools and teachers to “vet” their textbooks before they are forced to study them. But the public is exposed to mass media just living in their skin, right through the aether!”
I wonder what “failing in editorial” writing means here. Do you fail when you fail to convince someone of something? Or if you don’t communicate your point well? i’ve agreed with your statement that textbook writing is hard…
Ah moral responsibility to correct errors! I think that, generally, people should be equally zealous about truth. IT is especially important with grade school kids:
1) KIDS are fed this stuff, and MADE to learn/memorize it. It becomes part of you. You cannot disagree with and say “Ayokong matututnan ang kuwento na ito! Baduy!” Try it, and you will fail in the class. With newspapers, you are never tested (unless the teacher forces you too! but as far as i know , they do not force you to EXCLUSIVELY use PDI or whatever news source… As long as its a broadsheet/reputable, each is a perfect substitute). You can read it and forget it the next minute. NEWS is disposable. Everything in a newspaper becomes trash the next day.
2) Also, as an adult, hopefully with a good education, you separate the wheat from the chaff. As a kid, you are expected to be shown what ‘wheat’ looks like, so you can recognize it outside of school.
i read with some amusement your loathing of the lifestyle and showbiz pages. I understand that YOU may not like to read this stuff, but LOTS (including me and CAT!) do, coz its FUN! It is entertainment. We all know it, heck, even kids know its fluff; if they dont, set them straight! Same with the paranormal, which despite being serious fun, cannot be called science anymore than creationism.
3) Other people vet these books because of the presumption that kids cannot do it themselves — this is the presumption of mass basic education… Typically, we let educators judge what to teach/read. We do not allow kids this same liberty.
When other people (other than us for ourselves!) censor what we read/learn, then we (as a society) should be watchful. This is one more reason to make sure what they teach is at least the basic minimum of math, science, reading, and (a bit of) history. Why? Its coz kids are FORCED to learn this. As adults, we are never forced to learn whats in newspapers. We can decide for ourselves, based on preferences, and hopefully, what we learn in school.
This ‘censorship’ issue is especially important because what we learn as kids has such long-lived effects,
Then you say:
“A newspaper is merely the organized expression of the freedom of speech called Press Freedom, and the commercial right to sell such expression for money. An academic publisher organizes textbook writing and selling on precisely one and the same Constitutional and moral basis.”
Free press? do you mean freedom of expression? i agree that there is such a thing, and both are covered by it. However, this is largely about freedom to express opinions and views… Can I legitimately say that my opinion is 1+1=3? Can you say everything in a curriculum is an opinion? Aren’t most of these things under the heading of fact? If not objective (say, mathematical) fact, then it under the heading of scientific consensus, no?
Newspapers are about freedom of expression. YES. Textbooks are about freedoms too, freedoms to talk about stuff and to exploit it for profit. But they can’t MAKE STUFF UP, both for newspapers or textbooks. Textbooks have a greater responsibility, coz kids study and regurgitate them…
“Can you defend the moral consistency of PDI in this case considering their staunch, almost hysterical defense of Press Freedom and its alleged right to lie to get at the truth?” –> Now, this last piece i can’t get a handle on. I ask: when did it LIE to get at the truth? Any actual news stories?
“They can’t make stuff up”???
Well then what do you say to all that RELIGIOUS education that goes on??
Yet we allow it don’t we? Because of freedom!
As for the newspapers, even PDI has been forced to apologize for lying and misinformation, such as when they accused that consultant this year of being a ZTENBN witness and participant, and countless other times.
Yes they do make stuff up in the newspapers, in news and opinion columns.
No matter how you cut it, these genres of publishing and writing are truly indistinguishable.
As I said, unless we resolve this principle, we are supporting fascism.
Cat,
Yes writing the news is a form of freedom of expression. And even newspapers admit they have a “point of view” it’s called editorial policy. The mere choice of WHAT to report and what attention to give it is a form of opinion writing too. That is why people know “what to expect” from PDI or Star or Bulletin or ABSCBN News, even BEFORE they look at the front page or turn the TV on.
Yes indeed, and even textbook writing, for example in social studies and values education classes requires some form of opinion be expressed.
Education is not like filling up with gasoline. Knowledge, even in the elementary levels, is not acut and dried affair of delivering some known quantity of goods.
It is actually a form of ignition or inspiration, much like editorial writing or even entertainment writing.
But all forms of expression must be protected equally. I would question the motives and methods of mass Media much quicker than book authors.
Adults are just as vulnerable to miseducation and misinformation as kids.
Bottom line is that both journalism and academic publishing must deal with both FACTS and OPINION, with observation and reflection, with data and values, with information and judgment, with form and substance, style and utility.
It is wrong to think that education is just about FACTS and no opinion, or that NEWS is just pure information with no editorial bias built in. How we teach even a straighforward subject like arithmetic is a free choice, just as how we write an editorial or explain an issue is a matter of free choice for both writer and reader.
Both are about trying to change people’s minds with ideas and knowledge. Both ought to be governed by the same democratic principles.
In both, it is the market and the customers that primarily decide on price and quality.
If you try to legislate some uniform high quality in such intellectual property products, you cannot but warp the natural economic and academic marketplace for them.
We should of course stand for the highest quality possible in these products, but elemental fairness demands moral consistency.
Aptly enough, the constitution itself makes no distinction in the forms expression it protects. The most ludicrous of Licauco’s ululations is just as sacrosanct as the most serious editorial or front page news story, and I claim, of even the most mediocre and error-filled of textbooks! So if we insist on policing textbooks, I would advise Jimmy Licauco to head for the hills.
OK. i guess we agree that writing textbooks is hard coz of pedagogy. cool! consensus!
@ DJB on December 9th, 2008 7:07 am
History as Opinion
Do you really honestly believe that the study of history is based solely on opinion without argument? As i understand it, social science can be judged based on the quality of the arguments/analysis it presents. Textbooks present the prevailing consensus (based on analysis). You don’t believe in scientific consensus?
If smart, honest people can’t take a look at the world, make the best assessment possible, then wither science…
@DJB on December 9th, 2008 8:55 am
I said: We should not allow media in general (textbooks especially) to make stuff up — in reply you said:
“Well then what do you say to all that RELIGIOUS education that goes on?? Yet we allow it don’t we? Because of freedom!”
Are you equating Religion to making stuff up? I understand you may be an atheist, but at least recognize for some of us, religious education has structure, and you can’t just say stuff about it. Yes, we can have religious schools coz of freedom. But that doesn’t mean you can make stuff up about religion. If a textbook in school says “Catholic priests eat babies” — then that would be pure fabrication…
@DJB on December 9th, 2008 9:08 am
“Bottom line is that both journalism and academic publishing must deal with both FACTS and OPINION, with observation and reflection, with data and values, with information and judgment, with form and substance, style and utility.”
i guess here u mean makabayan, not math. I have no doubt, that at some point, social science will have unsettled debates. Having said that, lemme repeat, do you think all OPINION has the same status? If i say the moon is made of cheese and this other person says its not and presents the best possible evidence to the contrary, are both our statements the same?
Moreover, don’t we want to teach kids about what makes for a good argument in the social sciences?
actually i agree with you about the danger of propaganda in schools. Thats why i’m eager for people to look at what our kids are learning in school and voice our complaints (if any). BUT that is an argument for MORE oversight, not less.
@DJB on December 9th, 2008 9:13 am
Yes he is protected. but we dont teach paranormal studies to grade schoolers…
i think i see the difference in our positions. It isn’t freedom of expression. let me write it out here. you think that we should let individual schools decide what to teach their kids. We shouldn’t bother with content regulation at all. If a nun wants to teach “the moon: cheddar or swiss?” in a science class, as long as there are parents willing to pay for that, it should be fine. In fact you are something something further: there is no difference between types of arguments at all — they are all opinions.
is that fair?
I think that a higher standard should be put into place for kids and education. i’m no constitutional scholar, but i think freedom of expression allows for standard setting and parameters around freedom of expression. For example, we don’t let porn be sold directly to kids (in practice this may be different, but thats an argument to improve regulation, not to remove it). Don’t we have the freedom to market cigarettes to children? No. Even for adults, there are standards. We don’t let people walk around naked. if you feel attacked in the newspaper without evidence, then there are legal remedies like libel.
An interesting further discussion would be: does nation building/values education have a place in the curriculum at all? thats off topic na tho… maybe someone can blog about that…
i have a question too:
“If you try to legislate some uniform high quality in such intellectual property products, you cannot but warp the natural economic and academic marketplace for them.
We should of course stand for the highest quality possible in these products, but elemental fairness demands moral consistency”
first you say quality ‘warps’ the marketplace (how?), and in the next sentence, you agree that quality is good. You seem to be saying that quality is good ONLY if there is ‘fairness’. Isn’t quality always good, unconditionally? Second, if moral consistency here means, being zealous about accuracy in the media, i am all for it.
Gabby,
Ask a Catholic theologian thinks thinks of Protestantism, Muslims about Christians, Buddhists about Sikhs, Shintoists about animists, you will find they ALL agree with me about the others: that they are making stuff up and teaching infernal apostasies!
Should we “regulate” them? Correct their “errors” of fact and opinion?
But I don’t have to be atheist to have these opinions about MOST other religions!
For every devout believer is as atheistic as I am, except one God less.
Gabby,
It’s not quality that warps the marketplace (that is the ideal), but futile and unconstitutional regulation. I am not standing up for bad textbooks, only the right of people to make them and try to sell them. For if we do not defend that right, then we shall be denying it to the good authors and publishers as well, far away from the academic publishing field.
Textbooks are like anything else: you get what you pay for. So, caveat emptor!
On Jimmy Licauco:
The scientist in me believes he is a crank. Crank he may be, he is entitled to his opinions.
The problem with PDI is that it has no science editor or even a columnist. You have all sorts of pundits, a poltical columnist whose recent columns would put Herr Doktor Goebbles to shame, an anthropologist, a “chismis” orientated historian, a feminist, and a paranormalist.
Thus we get ludicrous statements that end up on the front page such as “the tamaraw is a cross between a carabao and a deer”.
Science is one of the most important achievements of humans and yet the newspaper does not give proper recognition to that!
Today the PDI celebrates its 23rd year.
The yellow blurb has a science section but it is located deep in the business pages.
@blackshama
i read that CNN also got rid of its science team, including miles obrien…
Agree, because all these columnists fall under the category, Opinion.
If he is a crank believing in supernatural, then the Police authorities who use psychics in solving crimes are also crank.
But because we are talking about textbooks, there is no danger of pupils getting to believe what he is writing about.
In the textbooks, the fairies, the elves are just fairy tales and that’s how they stay in the minds of the young people.
The aswangs, the kapres, the nuno sa punso are taught as superstitions and or myths but they are included in the textbooks for Filipino folklore.
So Bernardo Carpio and Lam-ang are folk heroes who have supernatural powers.
An author expressing an opinion that he believes in those things would earn the outrage of parents.
The Cat,
Try applying the above reasoning to Makabayan textbooks on precisely the same subjects, issues and topics as are discussed by those opinion writers. Makabayan is 40% of the teaching time under the Basic Ed Curriculum and therefore more Makabayan textbooks are produced than any other.
We would definitely put textbooks on Social Studies in the same category are News and Views writing, dont ya think? Or are you holding them up to different standards of truth, accuracy and utility?
What about Bibles, what category do you put them in where private schools (big ones like the Christian Chinese schools) use them as textbooks?
What do you mean there is no danger of students believing Licauco. You do!
The Ca’t
Police investigators have to use logic in order to solve crimes. The criminal justice system lies on the proper application of logic. Thus police who use psychics to solve crimes are real cranks. After all, is that kind of evidence admissable in court? The whole concept of our criminal justice system is based on logic.
It is like going to a soothsayer for a diagnosis of a health problem. This is even worse that traditional healers. At least traditional healers have their own system of empirical differential diagnosis.
As for the social sciences, there hasn’t been any robust theory to account for everything that social scientists propose. The convenient catch all is “constructivism”,which can be reduced to “news and views”!
Example: Gender construction.It may be explanatory but Darwinian theory can explain parsimoniously why sex is more determinant than gender!
The whole structure of biological sciences lies on Darwinism that explains the major themes very coherently. It’s the details that have to be worked out.
I would not argue about science. That is not my turf.
For someone who has “near death experience” not only once but twice (i hate to use this cliche), I am a crank too. :)
@DJB
so, you really don’t think there is a difference between opinions and reasoned arguments in the social sciences/history? all have the same status?
@Blackshama
he is a crank to a scientist, but his statements should be judged (its truth value) by a different audience, other experts in the paranormal. moreover, he is not claiming science is a sham right? that would require correcting. (in the same way perhaps he would want to correct any wrong interpretation of paranormal studies that he sees…)
For someone who has “near death experience” not only once but twice (i hate to use this cliche), I am a crank too.
Youre not a crank, C at. Near-death experience is a legitimate area of scientific study. The problem scientists are trying to answer is how come people who have NDEs report conscious thoughts and images despite the fact that instruments cannot detect brain activity in that time span. Those who dismiss NDEs on ideological grounds despite the tons of testimonial evidence and hard evidence (flat EEG scans) to support it are doing science a disservice.
(Sorry to be OT. I’d just like to reassure Ms. C’at that she aint no crank.)