THE RH BILL HULLABALOO

From Mad as a Politician

(I took this from a Yahoo comment on Pnoy's stand on the RH Bill http://ph.news.yahoo.com/aquino-risks-church-ire-reproductive-health-bill-20110417-053849-671.html)

I was born and reared a Catholic. I have not abandoned my faith in the God that Christianity has been proclaiming and has been worshipping. That, despite what I have learned studying church history, despite Yallop's "In God's Name" or Dan Brown's novels (if you please), and even despite my clear knowledge that my religion is by virtue of a historical accident, that is, due to the mistake of Magellan's navigator.

What has made me keep my faith is the true message of the Christ regarding the true nature and end of man, the world, the teachings about humility, kindness, sacrifice, compassion, etc. All these have made me keep my faith--not and never the doctrinal teachings, dogmas and prejudices of the Church.

In fact, what we see all around us, the corruption, cruelty, greed, dishonesty and apathy, all these to me are signs of the failure of the Church to truly influence the Filipinos to be good and honest men. The scandals inside the Church have not also been good examples. Many times, the acts of the Church have been geared towards preserving its wealth and power. Very far from Christ's teachings.

For me, what the Church should instead do, is to look inwards, search itself and try to find out honestly where they have gone wrong. Its vaunted stand on issues of government often times becomes a smoke screen for unthinking Filipinos and not a fair position considering that religion can be a strong bias for untrained and less-than-critical minds. In other words, that the Church sometimes openly play upon and use the ignorance of men to uphold its own biases. Sometimes, I really wonder if this could be the work of the Devil. Surely, infiltration is a potent weapon and could even be the weapon of choice by the Other Side.

SYLLABUS, SYLLABI, ALIBI...GOOD BYE

Praise the Good Teachers

We are on the second day of re-engineering our curricular offerings both in grade school and high school. We have been doing this for quite a while. It was however only this school year that we have become zealous of it. I believe that a good teacher should come with a functional discipline curriculum which is manifested tangibly by the syllabus. Most of the seasoned teachers have understood the necessity of good planning and well-thought syllabi. The younger teachers also thought the same. Sadly, others feel otherwise.

Some new teachers did not join us for this morning's brain-wracking curriculum re-engineering exercise. I appreciated those who arrived earlier than 8 - I arrived 5 minutes later. The air conditioning system was on its way humming cold when I entered the computer laboratory. Some teachers were already in front the computers coding their new syllabi. I was happy. As minutes passed by, I have come to conclusion that other teachers would not be coming. I was disappointed because these were the teachers who have not done anything yet nor were serious of what we were doing. During the yearend evaluation, they did not get a good rating from me. The school was compassionate though to give them one more year. However, good bye would have been better.

Saying it is hard to prepare the syllabus because the process was only partly taught in college is not even an alibi. It is downright self-denial of one's authentic self. When a teacher does not know who he is, what his duties are, that person does not belong in school, and actually cannot claim to be a teacher. There are so many teacher graduates who were trained to become teachers but lack the attitude of a real teacher. I have seen so many, and this has more than saddened me. I was alarmed that there are people who are like them, and are actually in school supposed to be mentoring young minds. No wonder education in our country is going down the drain. The only consolation I had later today was when three of my former students visited us. They were not the best minds we had, but they turned out to be excellent in their chosen degree programs. We have had prepared excellent syllabi before, therefore.

"GOOD BYE, SMA!"

The Imprudent Prude from Prudence

Communication technology has never been faster or more accessible than today. Gone were the days of snail mails that took almost a month to reach their final lonesome destinations. Teenagers today have never been burdened by telephones heavier than a two-pound dumb bell. The youngest of the young today have the cell phone in one hand and the face glued to the Internet. They may be communicating…in more ways than one and in whatever reasons for that matter. The world has changed and shrunk immensely because of technology.

It is this same technology also that blew our top this week – our prefect of discipline’s, the student activity coordinator’s and mine. Some imprudent seniors from Section Prudence took incriminating pictures and uploaded them to the Internet all in senseless glory for the world to see. I have been cautioning our students that though the Internet may be as important as man’s discovery of fire, it could also douse us all to cold for simply being insensitive and insensible.

Students should understand that the Internet is for all people of all ages. What pictures they uploaded that to them were saintly glorious may be obscenely absurd to senior netizens. Ours is a case of wrong judgment. We may be partly to blame; however, I would like to believe that our CL teachers have never missed setting good examples for our students. Our computer curriculum explicitly warns them of the dangers of technology too. Could it be that ours is a case far deeper than what the school can fathom?

HUNGRY FOR WHAT REALLY?

Values Education: Corruption in Education

Early this week I was blown away by the news that the Food for School program of the DepEd purchased a pack of noodles for Php18 last year and would be distributing improved packs next year at a staggering Php54 per pack of noodles. Whoa! There are much better instant noodles in the market and more nutritious at that. This is blatant corruption, so well in good that some Senators are now investigating this uneducated blunder. Unfortunately, the DepEd is very myopic when they came up with this program. Indeed poor health and malnutrition contribute to poor school performance. However, in Philippine education there are far more devastating reasons why students fare poorly in school and it is not primarily because of malnutrition. When the government allocated Php500 million for the program, it was all for good intentions, but unfortunately the department is one of the most corrupt in the country. I can just imagine how many pesos were wasted and stolen for a program that did not serve any purpose at all.

For learning to take place, three things are considered: the learner, the teacher and the instruction. Students arrive in school for formal education bringing with them unstructured learning only. This may include first hand experiences while growing up and exploring the surrounding and those taught by adults other than a school teacher. The importance of the teacher cannot be underestimated. The most important factor for better learning in fact is the teacher. It is nice to remember that one cannot give what one does not have. If the teacher does not know the content of the subject matter, then there will be nothing to teach. Of course, the teacher must also be well-equipped with the tools of the trade – instruction. He must have been trained and equipped with the various fundamental teaching strategies. All these three must come into a complex interplay to make learning successful and produce educated students.

The Food for School program addresses the students. A lot of school age children in the country are, sadly, malnourished. Studies conducted here and abroad have proven how adverse the effect of malnutrition is in knowledge acquisition. The poorer the health status of the learner, the poorer is his academic performance. This is the fact that pushes the DepEd to launch the program. How was the program implemented? To my knowledge, last year, the first graders were given two kilos of rice. I don’t know if all the elementary schools nationwide did something else than just distribute rice. Obviously, a couple kilos of carbohydrates cannot change the nutritional status of the child. This is thinking the first grader child alone consumed every grain of the two kilo rice which I think is impossible to happen. Most of these children have brothers and sisters too that need to be fed. The DepEd does not even know whether the rice was really cooked or was even sold to buy something else. Was there any follow up done? Was the program of distributing rice continued?

If besides the distribution of rice the department also distributed packs of instant noodles, then this is good news only, not better. According to one of the Senators investigating the anomalous noodles, each pack “contains fresh egg”. How can it contain fresh egg when it is packed? Should the label be “enriched with egg” not the former one? However, a fresh egg costs only Php5 at the most, so the good senator was surprised why each pack of instant noodles costs the government Php18 when the same costs only about Php10 in the market. For next year, the department has awarded the same project to the same bidder but this time each pack will cost Php54 already. According to some foolish DepEd officials, each pack costs more because the noodles do not need boiling anymore. The students just have to pour hot water and wallah! There is the cup of hot noodles like magic. How pathetic! First, the rice and now enriched noodles. Both are carbohydrates and Filipino children have never been lacking of carbohydrates. What they need are essential amino acids – protein, protein and protein. Well, the egg might have been the answer.

The Department of Education, however, does not see the bigger picture. The students are not primarily the problem. The problem lies on the teachers and instruction. There are just so many teachers, who are actually teaching, that are not at all competent. In order for a teacher to be competent, one must be good in both instruction and evaluation. Sadly, because most teachers do not know how to teach, they are afraid to fail students lest parents will complain. Most incompetent teachers do not know how to evaluate learning. They just pass students even if the latter are not really able to master the competences that prepare them to the next higher level. There is also the problem of overcrowding. How can a teacher teach well if he has 60 to 70 students to contend with inside a classroom that can only accommodate 45 students maximum? Another problem is the lack of textbooks. The student to textbook ratio is not one to one. How will a student study for his lessons? No wonder when they get to high school, they do not even have a trace amount of study habit? There are more pressing problems in the department and the students are not the major ones. Should the DepEd officials be eating too the fortified noodles to make them more intelligent decision makers?

BASER INSTINCTS, RATIONAL SELF & TRANSCENDENT BEING

Id, Ego, Superego and What Will You Do, Where Will You Go?

Humans are purportedly the most intelligent animals. They are endowed with a brain more complex than the rest of all the vertebrates. Theirs is a complex thinking cap that is very much capable of abstract functions, such as analysis and judgment. Man's brain may not be the biggest nor the heaviest but its capabilities are beyond what he himself can imagine. Man's brain is capable of complex calculations. It is capable of total recall of events that have happened long in the past. It is capable of making a choice, deciding which action to pursue for his own safety and survival. Sadly, it is also this same brain that gives man most of his problems today.

One of the most fascinating study of the brain and its function is Sigmund Freud's psychosexual theory of human development. Although this theory has been fraught with too much controversy, some even bordering into the absurd, it is indeed able to explain man's very peculiar psychosexual behavior. His ideas of id, ego and superego that were landmarks of the different psychosexual stages of development-oral, phallic and anal-can very well explain most of man's adult sexual behavior. Lack of knowledge of this highly controversial theory explains some of man's sexual deviancies.

Two of the most challenging problems I faced today is brought about by ignorance to Freud's psychosexual theory of human development. One of our senior graduating students got pregnant by another graduating student. This is a very sad case of penis envy gone awry. Another problem is the case of a young freshman whose misplaced Electra complex caused a school bus driver his future, the future of his children and the future of our young student. All these two cases are tainted with much ignorance to man's sexuality, his sexual development and how his sexuality affects his behavior as he grows to adulthood.

Our senior student who got pregnant was, sadly before, a very promising student. She was born out of wedlock. Freud said that she must have been longing for a father figure. Her penis envy intensified so much and blamed her mother for her father's absence. She would have thought that her only source of happiness and security, which is the father, was purposely taken away from her as a punishment for the father leaving the mother. The boy is troubled by his helplessness in fending off his father from his mother. He is the eldest in a brood of four, and felt it was his duty to protect the mother (Oedipal complex) from the onslaught of the father who is the main cause of his castration anxiety. Both their needs complement each other. Both their unresolved conflicts find ultimate resolution in each other's company.

I do not expect for a school bus driver to know his Freudian psychosexual theory of development. This is the very mistake for his ruining everyone's future-his own, his children's and our student's. She is a beautiful girl, more mature than her age. She is the third in a brood of five consisting of two older brothers and two younger sisters. She is the proverbial middle child-confused of where she stands and what is supposed to be her role. Her father works abroad. When the older brothers was still studying in high school, the mother was often with them, preparing usually their lunch. When both boys went to the city to pursue college studies, the mother's attention got divided, and unfortunately was mistaken by the middle sister as the mother more favoring, loving the older boys. This second case sadly portrays how life may suddenly be overturned simply by a misperceived Electra complex that has intensified so much penis envy.

The damage has been done. It can no longer be repaired like brand new. Worse, emotional collapse has had happened simply but sadly because of the lack of understanding of how we, humans, behave based on the dictates of our baser instincts, our rational self and our transcendent being. Unfortunately, the Freudian theory cannot be taught with much understanding among high school students nor can it be taught among grade schoolers without sounding so sexually perverted. One still has to go to college to know Freud, but if only one listened well to his Psychology professor. A lot has not finished high school. A lot has not gone to college. Will there still be a lot of future and hopes to be broken? So sad...sadly...so sad...

FREUDIAN SLIP FROM JOCELLE'S LIP

Of Inverted Nipples, Breastfeeding and Hernia

I don't know but I feel happy today. Was it because I finished all our graduation papers to be submitted to the DepEd? Partly, because indeed that was one hell of a feat. I think it was more because I finished my final exam for computer programming. I was very happy because I was sure it would be very difficult for my students. Remember what I told you - that I enjoy tormenting people. I love to see my students suffer. I know I am unkind and I don't deserve to be a teacher. Sadly, I have been awarded thrice already as an outstanding teacher and one more is coming come March 25. See, I am not just sadistic. I am also egomaniac...but you have been warned, so don't blame me.

I had a speaking engagement today among Grade VI graduating students. I was invited by their principal who happens to be a close friend. Before I left, I dropped by one of my junior classes to remind them to submit their compilation of programming problems. As my parting message to the group, I reminded the girls not to get their bubbles busted this school break. I knew this would open more questions of the bees, the birds and how both sting. I always treat questions of this nature clinically without hint of malice. Why should I? There is nothing supposed to be malicious with life and how it all began.

Somebody asked a question about self breast examination which I gamely answered with all demonstration obviously to myself. No, don't get me wrong. I did not get naked. I just demonstrated the arm position and the movement of the examining hand. I am good at this and if you ask why? I am a medical doctor too and I must have been the most egotist teacher from hell you've ever heard of. How can a mother with inverted nipples breastfeed her baby? I answered that the mother should have prepared well both nipples during her pregnancy. As I finished with my answer, I heard a most likely comment coming from the most unlikely student at the back.

Then it would have been so arousing on the mother for the father to prepare well the inverted nipple - so went the comment from a small boy who according to his classmates has a hearty appetite for Internet pornography. I told him, it was not the intention of the father to arouse the mother and the mother has no intention whatsoever of being aroused. I told the class that the father indeed can suckle the mother to bring out the inverted nipple - a very clinical advice which was sadly taken out of context because of Freudian slip. Well, I have so much fun taunting, tormenting Jocelle for good reasons. Sadly, he learned human sexuality wrongly from the Internet.

I am in favor of teaching reproductive health and sex education among students. There is a great need for this information among many teenagers today. However, the teaching of this subject should be done by somebody who can be very clinical in his approach; therefore, he is comfortable with talking about the penis (not the bird), the clitoris (the flower?) and coitus (the mighty bubble sting). But these should not be all. Human sexuality goes beyond the copulatory organs but also encompasses the healthy relationship that exists between men and women, husbands and wives.

I left for my speaking enagagement with the Grade VI students very sad. I cannot just imagine (for the second time) how naive teeagers are today regarding human sexuality and sex. If not for the Freudian slip from Jocelle's tight lip, I could not have even imagined that not only the ladies are so uninformed about the bees, the birds and how both sting (again?) but the gentlemen too. Unfortunately, the men always learn it from the wrong source; thus, they are usually misinformed, misguided and grew up to be less than perfect husbands and fathers. So pathetic that I was tempted to talk about sex with the Grade VI pupils when I arrived. Ironically, I was to talk about modesty and sexual reservation. What a life! I even forgot somebody asked about inguinal hernia.

CUT OR UNCUT...THIS IS NOT THE QUESTION, SADLY

The Birds and the Bees and the Stinger

After my last class today, with the seniors, our conversation has veered to something taboo to most people. We talked about the biology of human sexuality. With my medical background, conversations about the birds and the bees and how they sting are so ordinary. The topic is but factual and should be treated as such - a fact - without any hint of malice or prudish modesty. The conversation was met with hilarious uproar, obviously trying to mask the uneasiness that always comes with topics like sex and sexuality. I just pity these students who are already sixteen or seventeen year olds and still with no healthy concept of sex and sexuality. When S-E-X makes one uncomfortable, then clearly it is both psychologically and socially unhealthy.

We are not prudish by birth but by influence from our religion and the elderly who profess that sex is evil. Sexuality, sex and all that come with it are one of God's greater gifts to humankind. Sex and sexuality are not supposed to be equated to the mere organs of copulation and the act consonant to them but to the deeper and more complex relationship inherent to it which goes beyond physical contact. Sex and the sexual act is the ultimate expression of one's undying profession of faith and trust to somebody one loves. However, it must be done within the grace of marriage.

But humans are culpable to sin. In as much as we try not to venture into the unknown, man has no power over his frailties. The more sex has been viewed lewdly by many, the more it has become enticing to all. Nothing sells today without a hint of sex. Nothing we read interesting today has no innocent streak of sex. We see sex in the morning, live with sex the whole day, retire with sex in our minds and dream of sex in the deepest of our slumbers. Sex and sexuality permeate man's being. And this is by default, by design of the Supreme Architecture. It is not accidental nor chance encounter with the unknown. We are so programmed to it and re-circuiting algorithms just won't do us any good.

Because sex has not been openly discussed within the family nor in school with professionals, a lot is left to one's imagination regarding the birds and the bees. When I jokingly told my class today that I am uncut, the class bellowed their hearts out that I told them my prepuce had just regenerated. Two more students - both serious guys - added that they were also uncircumcised and the whole class fell silent. They just cannot believe that indeed there are uncut men. How sadly naive! When a girl asked how was it for us to pee, I nearly peed in my pants, I though I would die with my schlong out of my throat. Can uncut men get girls pregnant? I was bitterly disappointed of how little these students knew of real life.

Can uncut men get girls pregnant? This rhetorical question which seemingly is very innocent must have been one of the reasons of so many teenage pregnancies. This ignorantly came from a girl who is supposed to have known this long before she had her first menstruation, otherwise her bubble could have been burst and nine months later a new life would have been born out of utter guilelessness. When we view sex lewdly as something only married people have the right to talk about, then we are putting the younger unmarried generation in the most compromised situation. We have withheld from them the beauty of sex and sexuality which the Supreme Architect has so designed for all of us to marvel, to appreciate with awe and thus for people of all ages to give the respect due it.

I am uncut, jokingly. Two of my students are uncut, seriously. However, much of humanity is ignorant, sadly!