Center for Liberal Leadership

By K.J. John

What is responsible citizenship within the context of an emerging new world order, defined more by media and virtual realities than by the real world of material and earthly realities? But, first some context definitions from the title of the book Asian Cyberactivism: Freedom of Expression and Media Censorship.

First, what is Asia? Where is Asia in our civilisational past? Who is Asia today? What is the role of Asia in the Global Village of the future? More

Originally posted at fnfasia.org

A rough characterization of the liberal spirit might be “live, and let live”. A friend would always remind me that it would be illiberal to insist on everyone following Socratic rule to examine and reflect on what is valuable. Liberals must let people live unexamined lives; their concern arises only when such people try to stop others getting on with their own preferred life-style.

If liberals should let people get on with their lives, always, except infringements on the equal liberty of others, it might seem that liberals should let people get on with bringing up their children, pretty much how they like. Unexamined modes of life can be reproduced. Let people get on with it. More

“Ignorance can be educated…but stupidity last forever”.

Have you watched ‘Emperor’s Club? If not, take time to read this entry and some posted comments on it and understand the other side of – ‘being educated’.

These are some of my favorite quote from one of my favorite movie of all time:::

“Great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance. What will your contribution be? How will history remember you?”

“Aristophanes once wrote, roughly translated; “Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but STUPID lasts forever.”

“A great teacher has little external history to record. His life goes over into other lives. These men are pillars in the intimate structure of our schools. They are more essential than its stones or beams, and they will continue to be a kindling force and a revealing power in our live”

“The worth of a life is not determined by a single failure or a solitary success.”

“However much we stumble, it is a teacher’s burden always to hope, that with learning, a boys’ character might be changed. And, so, the destiny of a man.”

“History will tell us that you may not swim in the same river twice. Because an opportunity lost is lost forever. however, the water I find myself swimming in is very familiar to so many years ago.The waters in which we found ourselves swimming, were precisely as lovely as those we had earlier only imagined. But if time had made concessions for love, it made none for death.”

“Socrates: It is not Living that is important, but Living rightly.”

“The End Depends upon the Beginning.”

A man’s character is his fate…for most of us, our stories can be written long before we die.

More for comments

(taken from Prof. Jan Tolentino Blog – jaBlog)

To say that the modern public puts a premium on education is to state the truly obvious. It seems hard to imagine a world with high levels of ignorance and illiteracy.

Especially with the advent of the “Information Age,” one’s education determines the options that one has in life. A good life and a successful career are usually linked to the quality and level of one’s education; mavericks like Bill Gates and the Tai Pans – who never finished or took up a college education – of Southeast Asia are usually exceptions rather than the rule when it comes to accomplishment. So for most people, even a high school diploma is usually the key to a better future. More

Camila can hardly wait another year to finish her undergraduate degree program in a state-run university. She stopped going to school for six months to work as a full-time customer service representative in a call center. Both her parents were laid out from work so she had no other choice but to find a job and earn big money. She has plans to go abroad and settle with her family there eventually. More

By Dennard D. Dacumos

Camila can hardly wait another year to finish her undergraduate degree program in a state-run university. She stopped going to school for six months to work as a full-time customer service representative in a call center. Both her parents were laid out from work so she had no other choice but to find a job and earn big money. She has plans to go abroad and settle with her family there eventually.

Is Camila being selfish or has she been a victim of an education that conditions the mind of its recipients to apply their knowledge somewhere else but here? ‘Education for the masses’ is what the government aims in allotting a huge chunk of budget to the country’s education sector. But let us not forget that ‘education for the masses’ should be rooted into a system of ‘quality education’. ‘Quality education’ must not only pertain to teaching the best theories, practices and skills to the students. Inculcating the value of nationalism must go along with it too. No wonder the Philippines is suffering from brain drain because we can’t convince our professionals to come back and help our ailing motherland. It is a pity that we are always relying on OFW remittances when what we really need are their advanced abilities and knowledge to help rebuild this nation. RP education prepares its youth to become exports for the world market. At the end of the day, we end up losing more than gaining more.

Will there be more Camilas in the coming years? The answer is probably yes especially when you have a national leader who thinks that a 1:100 teacher-student ratio is the proper way to address the shortage of classrooms. Planning to work in a call center? If you are willing to be employed in a company that doesn’t really need what you studied for four years in college, why not?

Liberalism and Education

By Prof. Jan-Argy Y. Tolentino

A rough characterization of the liberal spirit might be “live, and let live”. A friend would always remind me that it would be illiberal to insist on everyone following Socratic rule to examine and reflect on what is valuable. Liberals must let people live unexamined lives; their concern arises only when such people try to stop others getting on with their own preferred life-style.

If liberals should let people get on with their lives, always, except infringements on the equal liberty of others, it might seem that liberals should let people get on with bringing up their children, pretty much how they like. Unexamined modes of life can be reproduced. Let people get on with it.

An important value for liberals, which is often forgotten and yet is implicit in many of the things liberal strive for is Education. Education is a central liberal value. The liberal commitment to the individual doesn’t stop at the notion that the individual is the best judge of his/her own interest. The commitment to the individual includes commitment to maximizing opportunities and commitment to self-fulfillment.

It is a truism that the educational literature is replete with conceptions of education that tell us that in this context of bringing children into the human fold we have some special obligations to them that we do not have towards adults. Even when education is viewed as little different from any other mode of socialization, educators are not likely to advocate exposure to prostitution or child abuse as part of their offerings. Fortunately or unfortunately, what schools offer is colored by normative conceptions on everyone’s view.

But the important point is that within this range of conceptions of education are some which stress intellectual detachment from what is socially given and promote intellectual independence and autonomy. It is likely to cut people somewhat adrift from their social moorings. Nor is it a particularly congenial site for toleration. We liberals want learners to get things right, not just do any old thing that occurs to them or is customary in their social milieu.