What Can SCUs Learn From Remote Teaching In Favor Of Their Students? First, They Have To Think!

 

If you are meeting your class online somehow, you are receiving your remuneration but you are wasting everyone’s time, including your own! Chances are, there is no learning at all.

If you are a mentor, teacher, instructor, or tutor in any subject, science or specialty, and you are using textual, visual or video materials, chances are you are unaware that you are not educating people at all – you are either entertaining them when you should not, or you are throwing bits & pieces of knowledge into the brains that you think are bottomless!

Today, Saturday, 12 December 2020, a Facebook post tells me “Remote Learning Isn’t Working[1]” (ANN, Patriotpost.us). ANN says:

Earlier this year, fears over the coronavirus shuttered classrooms across the country as school systems opted for makeshift online learning. At the time, the stopgap measure seemed like the only way to keep our kids both safe and engaged with their schooling.

That’s the US – but it’s true for the Philippines too. So, teachers and students have been forced to teach and learn in front of computers. How good has the learning been? The discovery: “Months later… the evidence now shows many children are failing their online classes.” Actually, the adults are failing too.

ANN says, “Remote education may be fine for some adults, but most kids need to be in schools with their teachers and classmates.” That is, back to the teacher’s direct control: “Do this, do that.” Whether in grade school, high school, or college: Teaching/learning in the classroom is essentially memory work. And that is what teachers are insisting even in online education.

What all teachers need to do is teach how to think.
What all learners need to do is learn how to think!

Since I studied to be a teacher in agriculture, UP Los Baños '65, I’m thinking of the state colleges & universities, SCUs, and how they are teaching their students agriculture. And of course teachers are teaching students like they had been taught:

Class, your assignment on Wednesday is the composition of the soil. We will discuss the details. And – be ready for a quick quiz.

On Wednesday, the class will recite on the nutrients that crops absorb from the soil for growth, and why at a certain point in time, there is a need for some fertilizer to be applied. The professor talks about  a total of 16 essential nutrients that plants need in order to grow well. But he does not explain why there are only a few kinds of commercial fertilizers available: such as supplying only nitrogen, only phosphorus, only potassium, and all of those 3, NPK, called “complete fertilizer.”

Think about it. The lesson does not include how the soil has naturally built up its own composition, and how the nutrients found in it are replenished naturally – or how the farmer may induce the natural replenishment of the richness of that soil. Via “natural farming,” say.

SCUs, think about it. Teaching is teaching how to think!@517

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[1]https://patriotpost.us/articles/76389-remote-learning-isnt-working-2020-12-11?fbclid=IwAR2u4CDLgQQ3vNyNGiUrjPB1QnLDpcSZstKN7CP_ziMp4TOjbtFp7JlK2rg

SEXY CiA – How To Grow Young Entrepreneurs In Agriculture, A Proposal

The KPAP aims to produce young leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs in the agriculture and fisheries sector.

Early this month, Friday, 04 December 2020, Justin B Dela Rueda says different PH public institutions formed the Technical Panel for Agriculture, chaired by Prospero E De Vera III (“DA To Harness Youth Potential In Agribusiness[1],”ATI.da.gov.ph). About the same time, the Department of Agriculture, DA, “launched (the) program seen to empower the younger generation (in) agribusiness.” This is the Kabataan sa Pagpapaunlad ng Agrikultura at Pangingisda, K-PAP, Program. K-PAP is ”Youth in the Advancement of Agriculture and Fishery” (my translation). 
(image of young entrepreneurs[2] from Assignmentpoint.com)

K-PAP is a bright idea. Except that giving it a Tagalog name implies that science, or new and improved knowledge, is unimportant! Importantly, the youth entrepreneurship must follow Secretary of Agriculture William Dar’s “The New Thinking for Agriculture” with its 8 paradigms, which are impossible to translate into Tagalog. Besides, we don’t have a knowledge base in Tagalog – where will you get your science? Too, economics does not lend itself to the National Language.
(image of “8 paradigms – Ani at Kita[3]” from Greenoptions.ph)

Now, I’m thinking of my own acronym to put my youth ideas in memorable terms, and here it is!

SEXY CiA.

Science –
This is composed of new or improved knowledge in agriculture and fisheries, to be obtained from the knowledge banks and/or database of state colleges & universities, SCUs, of the country.

Economics –
The youth must be trained to look atobstacles and then around them, and come up with an opportunity or two for new or improved businesses.

eXtra eXtension –
This youth program must be supported by digitally-abled extension people of the DA; SEXY CiA is for field work, advice given in the field, not simply in a classroom.

Youth –
The ages 18-30 are those of the youth[4] (NYC.gov.ph). In or out-of-school, a young one may be included in the SEXY CiA program if s/he shows high intelligence and/or understanding of the SEXY CiA Vision, which was National Hero Jose Rizal’s own vision:

The Youth as Hope of the Fatherland.

Clustering in Agriculture –
From the very beginning of engagement, the youth must be connected to a cluster: farmer association, farmer cooperative, or farm cluster. This is for practical purposes – for the youth to see and learn firsthand what is actually obtaining in the field as well as appreciate and make use of all the assistances that the DA has provided farmer groups so far: cash, food and equipment. The SEXY CiA youth is going to be immersed at once into the new realities of the Filipino world of farming.

Not to be forgotten is that:

Mentors are necessary.

Mentors may come from the private or public sector. Each mentor must have an appropriate sense of engaging in business in agriculture resulting in sustainable returns.

For a start, the DA may tap UP Los Baños as the model implementing institution, and from there develop the SEXY CiA program with regionally important SCUs in mind later.@517

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[1]https://ati.da.gov.ph/ati-main/news/12042020-1453/da-harness-youth-potential-agribusiness

[2]https://www.assignmentpoint.com/business/strategic-management-business/youth-entrepreneurship.html

[3]https://greenoptions.ph/2020/03/14/for-the-youth-you-can-bridge-the-gap/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=for-the-youth-you-can-bridge-the-gap

[4]https://nyc.gov.ph/republic-act-8044/

Webinar Presenter Are You? Much To Learn From Doc Willie Ong, Internist & Cardiologist!

Whatever subject matter you are discussing in a seminar, online or offline, there’s a bad and a good way to do a presentation, PowerPoint or not. Yes, you can learn from Doc Willie!

So today, webinars are in vogue. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that this current trend in educational digital communication began when SEARCA started a series of digital seminars in its fields of interests – agriculture and education.

I have been an active practitioner of science communication in the last 45 years, before the personal computer. with texts, images, sounds and actions; and with the coming of the PC and Internet, with addition of stylized and even magical presentations. Modern media as a whole is the most exciting thing that ever happened before our eyes and between our ears!

So why are webinars boring?!
Because presenters think that anyway,
they are talking to a captive audience –
no need to look from the audience’s point of view.

They are mostly textual, or mostly verbal. You hear the words and then right after that you forget them. I don’t blame those presenters – they did not study to be presenters, only to be experts in their fields. They need help!

Now, look at the Doc Willie image above again – “Kape At Tsaa: Sino Pwede, Sino Bawal.” (Coffee & Tea: Who May, Who May Not). While it is a small frame, since he is using a monitor and not a projector, there are lots of texts and visuals. Of course, Doc Willie goes through all of those materials in the course of his presentation. He is good.

You are attracted and you learn a lot.
Doc Willie did not study communication,
but he is certainly an outstanding communicator!

To help communicators, now this teacher, UP '65, I think that I have discovered  2 things that a short course should be able to teach: creative writing with digital presentations.

We must graduate from mechanicalpresentations by PowerPoint, say. Academically, we have no excuse not being able to produce something educational and yet exciting:

A challenging, thought-provoking presentation.

Those people with advanced degrees and/or PhDs who conduct webinars or room seminars and who are contented with their old methods of presentation are short-changing not only their audiences but also themselves!

Why cannot a scientist be creative? Doc Willie is creative – surprised? I have watched Doc Willie’s biopic, the original story of which he wrote: “I Will.” That is an unusual title for a human story, but Doc Willie is a highly unusual thinker himself. Son of a rich man who became poor, he continued to attend medical school… ah, I don’t want to tell the story. I have watched the movie twice already, and really, it’s well-written, well-acted and well-intentioned. It is a head-wringing, heart-warming experience.

Doc Willie Ong. In his Facebook posts, the good doctor willingly continues to give wellness advice to readers. And, as you can see, Doc Willie knows how to actively align art advancing animate advice. How about you?@517

Zac Sarian’s "37 Agri Stories" & Sustainability Of PH Farms & Gardens

For 60 years, Zac Sarian chose to write about individuals, and husbands-&-wives, first as absent-mindedly failing, and then business-mindedly succeeding, in PH agriculture.

He died Monday, 07 December 2020 in Manila, but he has journalled at least a thousand aggie success stories that Zac Sarian will live forever!

To honor Zac Sarian, we have to take off where he left off – we have to help beyond the individuals, beyond the couples – we have to help the village not only succeed but perpetuate itself in richness.
(Repeatability image[1] from Environmentalleader.com)

We are talking here of sustainability. Isn’t it a sin against Sociology if in Economics we nurture the successful individuals or married couples but not the whole village? It certainly is a Crime Against Humanity.

We must pursue Sustainability, not simply Success.

So now, if Zac Sarian were for entrepreneurial success of individuals, we must now go for sustained entrepreneurial success of whole villages – residents enriching themselves in agriculture & fishery repeatedly! People cannot lead sustainable lives for long if their village is not sustainable for long.

Your farming system must be sustainable in kind – and repeatable in time.

Let us take the rice farmers: For model sustainability, their farming must have these characteristics, all 5, not simply 3 or 4:

(1) Technically feasible: Does your technology work as claimed by the source? How much mastery do you need to make it work for your good?

(2)  Economically viable: Is the technology cost-effective? Then, you are a winner, not a loser.

(3) Environmentally sound: Whatever you do, it must not be at the expense of the environment. Like, no pesticides, no weedicides, no soil erosion. There should be no burning of crop waste – they can be turned into organic fertilizer.

(4) Socially acceptable: You cannot make money by taking advantage of other people’s ignorance – or not rewarding them properly for their contribution, directly or indirectly, to your endeavors.

(5) Sociologically helpful: After all is said and done, when you sell your harvest, do your net returns enable you to climb up the ladder of prosperity and properly ascend in terms of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Yvette Natalie Tan refers to him as “Father of Agriculture Journalism” in the Philippines (07 December 2020, “Zac Sarian, Former Manila Bulletin Agriculture Editor And Father Of Agriculture Journalism, Passes Away At 83[2],” MB.com.ph). Ms Yvette is correct.
(cover image[3] from Tribune.net.ph)

Thank you Zac, and goodbye.

What we desperately need now are stories that encourage interlinked successes of farmer associations, farm clusters, and cooperatives in the villages.

Aggie journalism must now work out of “The New Thinking for Agriculture” that is espoused by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar and is fed from what he calls “8 Paradigms” – Modernization, Industrialization, Promotion Of Exports, Consolidation Of Small- And Medium-Sized Farms, Infrastructure Development, Higher Budget & Investment, Legislative Support, and Roadmap Development.

Writing for the New PH Agriculture is not easy, is it? You need sustainability – just as farmers need sustainability. That’s why we need journalists steadfast on sustainability!@517

 

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[1]https://www.environmentalleader.com/2020/02/5-ways-businesses-can-exercise-sustainability-practices/

[2]https://mb.com.ph/2020/12/07/zac-sarian-former-manila-bulletin-agriculture-editor-and-father-of-agriculture-journalism-passes-away-at-83/?fbclid=IwAR2V6A1iRtiR93adZNg95oGb8ddjylvWJqN7RXauaKIVx-f1KZ7YNhybkqU

[3]https://tribune.net.ph/index.php/2020/12/07/agri-journalist-zac-sarian-writes-30/?fbclid=IwAR3cIkCiFnzk43CuFXSm6uRib6H9osEDYqe9CEINYM10BWZY_c963okUp7k

Where In The World Is The Los Baños Science Community?

"Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?” was a world-wide hit game show that lasted from 1991 to 1995 for a total of 5 seasons and 295 episodes[1] (Wikipedia). “The show was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey that indicated Americans had alarmingly little knowledge of geography, with one in four being unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.”

Today, Saturday, 05 December 2020, I ask the question, “Where in the world is the Los Baños Science Community?” My question is different in that I am asking for a place in the geography of knowledge, for essentially a community of people engaged in science for development via agriculture; after all, it is the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, UPCA (now UP Los Baños) that gave birth to that science on 08 March 1908, thanks to American scientists. (Yes, I am pro-American.)

My question is:

Why has the Los Baños Science Community not been contributing to the survival, revival and triumph of PH Agriculture especially during these lockdown pandemic times?

I’m speaking as an alumnus, UP '65, and as a creative writer for the advancement of “inclusive national development” via agriculture – inclusive of the rise from poverty of the poor, starting with the farmers.

That’s why today I’m looking for the Los Baños Science Community – where is it? I’m talking not simply of UP Los Baños and the other entities that celebrated the virtual 12^th SyenSaya” 2-4 December 2020 – syensaya, a good coinage from sciencia, science.
(SyenSaya[2] image from Facebook page of Los Baños Science Community Foundation Inc)

Carol Yorobe, Undersecretary of S&T Services of the Department of Science & Technology, noted in 2016 that the Los Baños Science Community was now composed of 22 members, including IRRI[3] (Paula Blanca Ferrer, IRRI.org). Easy to say, hard to count!

The units I know are 9: (1) UP Los Baños itself, (2) Ecosystem Research & Development Bureau; (3) Forest Products Research & Development Institute; (4) Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic & Natural Resources Research & Development; (5) National Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology; (6) National Crops Protection Center; (7) UP Open University, (8) IRRI and (9) PhilRice Los Baños.

According to its Facebook page, the Los Baños Science Community, LBSC, was formed in 1984 by President Ferdinand Marcos via Presidential Executive Order 784. The LBSC was registered as a foundation in 2001. The “LBSCFI hopes to transform Los Baños into a model community using science-based technologies[4].”

At most, the vision is for the Los Baños Science Community to become a model community. What about the communities around it – and in other parts of the Philippines?

The Los Baños Science Community has no plans to transform farm communities all over the country using science-based technologies?! With the 12^thSyensaya, the Los Baños Science Community has become virtual, online. On fire? No.

As far as technically assisting in the inclusive national development of PH Agriculture, where in the world is the Los Baños Science Community?!@517

 

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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_Is_Carmen_Sandiego%3F_(game_show)

[2]https://www.facebook.com/lbscfi/photos/a.366509663473984/2464549123670017

[3]http://news.irri.org/2016/07/the-los-banos-science-community.html

[4]https://www.facebook.com/lbscfi/about/

How To Teach_Learn Anything Technical In Agriculture

You are looking at a rotavator, which I am sure you are not familiar with. Precisely!

Question: As an innocent farmer, or even as an Agriculturist, do you need a technician to learn about a machine such as the above, a rotavator? (CY80[1], Ching Yee Manufacturing, Taiwan). It’s a cultivator with blades that rotate, hence the coined name “rotavator.” The whole thing is dragged, not pushed.

Answer: My answers: Yes – and No. As a teacher in agriculture (graduate of UP Los Baños with a BSA major in Ag Education, 1965; with a Civil Service eligibility at the Professional Level, with high school and college teaching experiences). But as good teachers, we have to learn on our own first before we teach!

Even now, look at those blades. There are 5 pairs of blades. They cut against each other, don’t they? And since the whole thing rotates as those L-shaped and J-shaped blades cut – look at the middle of the contraption – the brown and greens are simultaneously cut and mixed together in the same rotary motion; and this is repeated as you cultivate the field.

Technically, it is called the rotary tiller or rotary cultivator[2]. Australian Arthur Clifford Howard invented this one, patenting the design in 1920, hence it is also called the Howard Rotavator.

The Teaching_Learning Lesson From The Rotavator

If you don’t know anything and want to know more about a machine, go watch someone use it. Observe what happens, and then ask questions. If the fellow does not have the answer/s, so much more to learn!

In the case of the rotavator, I have been reading and writing about it since 08 November 2015 (see my essay “Women, Urban Agriculture & InangLupa[3],” A Magazine Called Love), so I know much about it.

But the lesson here is not to know more from me about the rotavator but to know more about something you don’t know, so that you can begin to understand and then in a little while teach! That is to say, even if the subject – or object – is foreign to you, you can approach to learn about it intelligently:

Understanding what it does is
the beginning of understanding
how it works!

Now I remember – that’s exactly what happened to me when I began to get interested in learning how to do word processing using WordStar Version 1 – starting 28 December 1985, or 35 years ago! First I had to study the commands – I already knew how to type – the first one of course being how to operate the desktop computer and then open WordStar to get to work on something I was writing.

To appreciate how the rotavator works, compare what happens with the disc plow – it throws up chunks of soil from below, inverts them, and leaves them to dry up. There is no mixing of soil and anything green growing – no layer of mulch formed over the surface of the field. Now then:

I’m telling you: It is that surface mulch that is your secret organic fertilizer!@517

 

 

 

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[1]https://cy0520.en.ec21.com/CY80_Tiller_Cultivator_Hand_Tractor--6333548_8566349.html

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

[3]https://amagazinecalledlove.blogspot.com/2015/11/women-urban-agriculture-inanglupa.html?view=classic

Andres Bonifacio Should Have Thought More. He Was Well-Read, And That’s Almost My Hero!

 

I'm a teacher, Civil Service Professional Level, and I want to teach what others have ignored about this other PH National Hero.

30 November 2020. Today is the 157^th birthday of Andres Bonifacio, who was born into a middle-class family, not poor[1] (ANN, globe.com.ph). Also according to ANN, he is variously known as “The Great Plebeian,” “Supremo of the Katipunan,” “Father of the Philippine Revolution,” and “First President of the Philippines.” I believe he deserves all those titles.

I am surprised to learn from ANN that the Bonifacios were not plebeian. His mother Catalina De Castro was a half-Spanish mestiza. He spent his early years in Cebu, where his parents hired a tutor for his arithmetic and Spanish. He had 5 siblings; they were orphaned when he was 14 years old. To support his siblings, he had to work – while doing that, he taught himself English while employed as a clerk-messenger by a British firm[2] (Wikipedia). He read voraciously, such as about the US Presidents, Les Miserables, Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo, and history of the French Revolution. With his readings, “he laid down the foundation for the Katipunan – its strict moral codes, means of recruitment and mission-vision[3]” (Alen Gonzales, Inquirer.net).
(books image[4] from Inc.com)

We have been wrong thinking about Bonifacio’s thinking – like, he did consider education as the initial way for the Filipinos to improve their lives, having read Noli, but in the end he still insisted on an armed struggle, consistent with a radical interpretation of the Fili, when Rizal was arrested and deported to Dapitan. To me, through the Fili author Jose Rizal is telling the reader:

Armed struggle will get you nowhere!
(image of Bonifacio thinking[5] from manilatimes.net)

Bonifacio was killed by his passion – as was the rebel leader in Fili.

What I’m learning from all of the above is that Revolution is more persuasive than Reform if you want to change society.

But I prefer a Revolution of the Word rather than a Revolution of the Sword.

My phrase “the Word” has 2 meanings: Intellectual and Spiritual, that is, man’s knowledge gained through Man’s Science and God’s love gained through His Grace.

Sustainable practices in farming, for instance, will deliver us from the evils of man’s own destruction of his world. If Science disobeys the laws of Nature, which are the laws of God, Science and Man will not survive. Violence against the wealth of the world will deprive Man of the riches that God intended for him.

Bonifacio wanted the Philippines free from the abuses and tyranny of the Spanish friars who were the rulers of the country, yes. But not from the abuse and tyranny of government and the ruling class, now Filipino!

Bonifacio was married to his second wife Gregoria De Jesus through a Catholic ceremony in Binondo Church in March 1893 (Wikipedia). The rulers of the Philippines at that time were Roman Catholic clergy – how could the Church save itself?

Rizal was right – only Education will Save the Soul of the Filipino!@517

 

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[1]https://www.globe.com.ph/go/entertainment/article/andres-bonifacio-facts.html#gref

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

[3]https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/351927/andres-bonifacio-unconventional-thinker/

[4]https://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/why-you-should-be-reading-books-every-day-according-to-science.html

[5]https://www.manilatimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/robin-padilla20161130.jpg