The Oblation As The Symbol Of UP Is Correct – And It Is Wrong!

On Facebook, writer Jose Y Dalisay Jr has come out with “The Freedom Of Intelligence[1]” (published 3 years earlier, on 22 October 2018). Wikipediasays, “He has won numerous awards and prizes for fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction and screenwriting, including 16 Palanca Awards[2].”) He was UP Vice President for Public Affairs when he delivered that piece at the “39th Anniversary of Health Sciences Center Autonomy and the 36th UP Manila Day.”

I’m very glad to be here in UP Manila, which I consider to be UP’s historic home, the cradle of its spirit, of its ideals and traditions. In keeping with that spirit, I’ll speak today about the freedom to think, to speak, to study, and to teach – things which we in UP tend to take for granted, but shouldn’t, and I’ll tell you why.

I am a UP graduate, BSA major in Ag Edu, 1965, weighted average 2.36 and yes, I can vouch that at UP, we have the freedom to think, to speak, to study and to teach.

It’s no big secret that rebellion and resistance are coded into UP’s DNA, because we have always encouraged critical thinking, which in turn encourages – at least for a while, until complacency sets in – an attitude of dissidence, of anti-authoritarianism, of rejection of the status quo. That’s how knowledge happens, that’s how it begins, as every scientist since Galileo has affirmed.

At UP, Mr Dalisay says, “We have always encouraged critical thinking.” That is correct – and that’s exactly what’s wrong with UP! My alma mater encourages mostly critical thinking – when it should be encouraging mostly creative thinking. The UP Oblation offers all of himself to critical thinking!

Galileo is nobody. UP has never learned from Einstein, critical mind plus creative genius. He did not argue himself into his Theory of Relativity, E=MC² – he intuited it first. You create first so that you have something to defend. Otherwise, you defend the status quo, and you will never get out of that rut.

In the sciences, education & law, UP does not teach creativity. At UP Los Baños, they teach scientific thinking, which is logical thinking, critical thinking. They do not teach how one may arrive at a scientific theory where there was none before – they do not teach the dual genius of Einstein.

I learned my creative thinking on my own, starting in high school at my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, in the library of Rizal Junior College where I voraciously gobbled the Reader's Digest, among other digestible matters. In 1974, my Pacifica copywriter friend Orlino A Ochosa gifted me his copy of Mechanism Of Mind by Edward De Bono, published 1969 – that opened my mind to unbelievable creativity that, as the above inset text says, since 2000, I “have blogged neatly composed 7,000+ essays: 7M+ words.” Which explains my intellectual tease: “How about a Nobel Peace Prize for Non-Fiction Writer Online? Wake up, Digital Nobel!”

My unsolicited advice to my alma mater UP Los Baños: “Cultivate minds even as you cultivate soils!”@517

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[1]https://up.edu.ph/the-freedom-of-intelligence/?fbclid=IwAR1XO4CcQmTFd9G2GnuTefuMTg96TI8E7-1lXBowkAqJYk5XTeLxnZbuOoM

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Dalisay_Jr.

A View From The Side, By FAH: Tunnel Vision?

 

You don't know me as a photographer. Here, I want to highlight my photographic "tunnel vision" that I acquired from my readings and views of master painters some 50 years ago at the library of Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City.  

World Teachers’ Day – Digital Is The Best Way To Teach Today! Especially In SCUs?

 

A Filipino, I am a certified teacher – Civil Service Professional. I have taught in high school and college, public and private. And I have been disappointed: Teachers teach things, not thinking!

“We teach things, not thinking” – that has a double meaning. One: We teach without thinking. We are unmindful of what we are doing. Two: We do not teach thinking!

I am known to be a relentless blogger, as even today at 81 I blog every single day, thank God. Not known as a teacher, I have a BSA Agriculture degree, major in Ag Edu. I did teach at UP Los Baños and had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: 2 of my 1967 students later became well-known in their own rights, girl and boy. Classmates in Horticulture. Girl: At the UP College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, Candida “Ayds” Bernabe-Adalla became College Dean. Boy: Vic Ladlad became a New Peoples’ Army commander, probably encouraged by my teaching against science minding only collectible cents, ignoring common people.

Plus: From the College of Agriculture of Xavier University, from my 1968 lessons on organic agriculture, Nicanor “Nicky” Perlas graduated to biodynamic farming and later won the world-coveted alternative-Nobel Right Livelihood Award in 2003.

I did not learn such kind of thinking leading to such kind of teaching at UP Los Baños – I learned before college. The rich and open library of Rizal Junior College (High School Department) in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, led and encouraged me to be a creative writer – which requires that you be a creative thinker first.

What we do teach in school, from Grade 1 to Graduate School, is critical thinking (scientific). What we do not teach is creative thinking. So how can I celebrate today, Tuesday, 05 October 2021, “World Teachers’ Day” when the world’s teachers are teaching only the bitter half, not also the better half, of thinking?

My favorite example of creative thinking is from poet & wit Oscar Wilde:

Between the optimist and the pessimist,
the difference is droll.
The optimist sees the doughnut,
the pessimist the hole!

Be positive, not negative. Explore, not deplore.

Today, explore digital! Use the laptop to teach critical/creative thinking. Examples:
(laptop image[1] from YouTube)

Grade 1: On Microsoft Word, teach children to type their complete name, select the text, and store in memory with their initials as tag. Today, I type FAH and press F3 right after H, and out comes Frank A Hilario. The children will love the magic of it!

High School: Teach to read and memorize without consciously memorizing – For instance, let the students read the Reader's Digest and type the lines they like. That will help them learn to type well, plus learning from other minds will prove delightful.

College: Google! The Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein is a lesson in both critical and creative thinking. He came about relativity by intuition, later thinking E = mc² by logic.

State colleges & universities (SCUs) – SCUs have the best reason for teaching thinking: Agriculture is a dull subject!@517

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[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=F9G7KLcVjME