The ultimate ambition of all educating

Micah Stefan Dagaerag

Honest Engagements

I was one of three pioneering members of when the Philosophy program in Silliman was
relaunched in 2006 – one had shifted from Political Science, the other from a Catholic
seminary, and I from the College of Nursing during Dr. Teresita Sinda’s great era as dean of
the latter. Although only one of us ultimately stayed in the program, during my brief three
semesters as a Philosophy major, I found myself cross-enrolling in, and adding subjects from,
the College of Education. And it had a lot to do with how two of our most influential
professors in Philosophy had enlightened us about the whole enterprise of education.

These professors were Dr. Reynaldo Rivera, who handled Ancient Philosophy, and Dr. Ben
Malayang III, who was our teacher in Philosophy of Science class. And in their own separate
and personal ways, they both argued that the goal of every teacher should be to make their
students better than themselves. Otherwise, as I remember Dr. Rivera said, what is the point?

I’ve had the privilege to have gone to college with some of the brightest and most brilliant
fellow students I can imagine. Names like Robert Jed “RJ” Malayang, Anthony “Odie” Odtohan,
Noel Valente, Primy Cane, Rod Bolivar were known for their sharpness, wit, and courage to
ask questions that didn’t “need” to be asked, and to share insights that “shouldn’t” have been
said. And because most of these intellectual firebrands came from the College of Mass
Communication of Silliman University, us Philosophy majors frequented the haunts of
MassComm students such as the Weekly Sillimanian and the Debate Society, if only to keep
a finger on the pulse of free and critical thought in the campus. Moreover, the fact that these
were still the days before the advent of Wikipedia and social media on the shores of
Dumaguete, meant that to be a student intellectual one had to have actually read (and better
if critiqued) a healthy number of respected books, articles, and journals.

It might have also helped that at around the same time, more than 10 years ago, Dr. Ben
Malayang III gave his first ever address to Silliman University as its President, wherein he
emphasized how education was to espouse more critical and free thinking. Having heard this
paradigm of education from the perspective and interest of being a student, then, it was, of
course, much easier to receive and accept. And it helped that they were charitable teachers
when we had questions or points that might have been given in disagreement or
contradiction to theirs. But now, as a college teacher for a few years already in Foundation
University, I reflect on their view of education less like philosophical pablum, and more like
professional principle. I now know more fully the temptation and the tendency for teachers
and educators to drift and swirl inward into self-importance and self-entitlement.

Yet, looking around, most teachers in both public and private education in the Philippines
seem to be limited as practitioners, mere perpetuators of knowledge. We are not experts,
developers, or innovators of learning. We teachers are the sellers, and the students are the
consumers of economized education.

Maybe this has to do with the Philippines being a third world country. As long as the general
rule for jobs in the Philippines is that they are scarce, and underpaying, the diploma mills
remain the more accurate ideation of Philippine education. Napoleon once said that armies
march on their stomachs. It might be fair enough to say that empty minds likewise follow
empty bellies.

Moreover, this kind of free, honest, relentless thought tends to be distrusted and discouraged
in the typical Philippine school, by all – students, teachers, and administrators. Worse, in
recent times, such pursuits may prove politically and physically costlier than before. Yet, as
things stand, we must try to remember that teachers have to be prepared to be challenged,
even to be humbled, by students. And that in the long run, with a little encouragement, we
will all be better off for it.