Category: Essays

I no longer have a passion to teach. What I have is a passion for education. 

While most people would equate the two, I have discovered a difference. Teaching is about me, my expertise, my skills in delivery, techniques to engage, simplification of complex ideas and so on, and as a former teacher, I worked hard to develop myself into a better speaker, better explainer and a more engaging presenter.

Education, however, is about the learner. What do they want? What are they interested in? And how can I support them? We often equate supporting learning with teaching (as if that is the only way to support it) but what I have realized in my years of study and research of self-directed education that supporting learning sometimes means not teaching and letting the learner find their own path, to pursue their own passions without forcing it to bend to anyone’s agenda or curriculum but their own.

In a way though, you could still say I am passionate about teaching — not kids — but adults. I want to teach parents, teachers, school “experts” to stop being obsessed about whether or not kids are learning enough material, whether to add more hours, days, years of teaching, whether they ought to take more tests or do more homework or more projects.

I am not saying these are unimportant. But the first step is to respect the child’s choice whether that is a path they want to pursue — to recognize that the children are people with as much right to their life choices as we adults have. Whatever gave us the idea that we have the right to command a child who wants to read a book or draw or play, to put those things aside and listen to teacher explain the difference between igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks? What makes that so much more important?

Would you tell 8-year old Mozart to not spend so much time on his piano and music sheets? Ah, but not everyone is a Mozart, you might argue. And I would say, how many young Mozarts have we unwittingly suppressed because we did not allow them time to pursue their passions? As A.S. Neill, founder of Summerhill School, wrote, “heaven only knows how many geniuses have been destroyed by stupid coercion.”

Kids already have more than enough material — in fact, so much more than they will ever have a practical use for in their lives. We only need to look back at all material we supposedly “learned” before but hardly ever use today. 

Education is not about force-feeding the kids, having them regurgitate material back to me, to my satisfaction so I can give them a grade. It is not about us teachers. It was never about us.

Education is about them, their passions, their interests, their future. We till soil, enrich it, and make sure it is a suitable environment for growth. But it is they who do the growing for themselves. You cannot pull on seedlings to make them grow faster. You only end up damaging them. They grow at their own pace and direction, and in their own time. We have to recognize and respect that, and be grateful for the amazing privilege of witnessing their journey.

That is what I am passionate about.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

Different people have different understandings of spirituality. Some see it as having a relationship with a spiritual being whom one may consider their creator, savior, redeemer and so on. Some think of it in terms of communing with the universe, creation or all of matter, of having some sort of synchronicity with invisible, supernatural or unknown forces.

I like to think of it, simply, as having peace with myself.

So-called spiritual teachers and gurus have recommended many paths to better spirituality — joining a religious body or church, prayer, meditation, fasting, yoga, studying scriptures. Some religious groups even attempt to “measure” one’s spirituality by checking attendance at services, percentage of tithes to one’s income, time spent studying doctrines, etc.

I have been there, done that, cried my heart out in repentance, danced my feet off in worship, studied the scriptures, prayed again and again in the quiet corner of my room, as well as joined with others in communal prayer.

None of those really gave me peace, at least, not the kind of peace that I have now.

But it was/is a personal journey. I do not claim to hold the 5 Steps to Enlightenment or 21 Days to a More Spiritual You that you can also achieve if you enroll in my course and pay the P1899 registration fee. Although if you want to send me money, I won’t stop you. Email me and I’ll give you my GCash number.

What I can do is just share my experience. If that is useful for you, then fine. If not, fine as well.

You see, I believe that people have perverted spirituality, theology, and so on. I believe that long ago there were people who sincerely sought the truth, had discussions with those like-minded, and recorded their reflections. Then other people came and instead of looking at these records as conjectures, pointers, guideposts or jump-off points, they made them into scriptures and systems — to be followed to the letter or else. Instead of priests whose role is to guide each person into inner peace, they became enforcers of external practices that supposedly exhibit one’s piety. 

In fact, one can even take courses in theology, get grades for it, and even an M.A. or a Ph.D. in it. That just goes to show that theology is no longer a search for truth but rather a system of preservation of beliefs.

So what did I do? Well the very first step I took, which I believe was the key to it all, was letting go of all my beliefs — yes everything that I held sacred or untouchable, I eventually let go, not because I despised them but I understood the zen parable of the empty cup: I cannot receive truth in its purity if there is still something left that I am not willing to let go.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

The homeschooling movement has been in the Philippines has gained a lot of traction in the past decade, and especially last year with schools closed and lockdowns in place.

The most common method of homeschooling is the structured method ( also called traditional homeschooling). This is literally just bringing school to home. You enroll with an accredited provider who sends over materials and the child either studies on their own or the parents become the teachers. One parent I know even bought many materials from the school system he was using and now has a mini-school at a corner in his house.

This is not a method that I recommend.

It doesn’t matter who the provider is, or how good the material/curriculum is. The fact that you are following a curriculum sends a message to the child that someone else dictates what they ought to be studying or learning.

The other method of homeschooling is called independent or “indie.” Here, parents and kids can choose which materials they like, and can even do activities not normally in the scope of things one does for school, like go trekking, climbing trees, or playing computer games.

I am more for indie except if the parent dictates too much what the child ought to be learning. They may be mixing and matching stuff but if it’s according to the parent’s preference more than about the child’s, then that sends the same message to the child: that they are really not in control.

That is actually the key issue here for homeschooling parents to understand. You hold in your hands a very powerful opportunity to reclaim your child’s education from the outdated system that, like Frankenstein’s monster, we have been patching and reviving for decades, when it ought to have been buried and replaced with a better philosophy and paradigm.
I hope you do not waste that opportunity and simply think to bring school to your home. The problem is not with the material nor the method. The problem is with thinking that our kids need us to tell them what to study and learn.

Your kids are learning machines (as are we adults). People never stop learning. As I am typing this, I am learning. As I chat with my friends, I am learning. But the difference is that we adults have the capacity to choose while children in the school system merely follow whatever the curriculum dictates.

Why would we waste so much of our children’s time on that, now that we can actually give them the chance and space to explore what it is they really want?

This is how to hack homeschool. Give your kids time and space. If they want to “waste” time (and remember that wasting time is from your point of view), let them. This is their time to explore, make mistakes, to learn and to grow.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

There is too much artificiality going on in the educational system.

We spend too much time on contrived problems. We feed kids mountains of information and force them to memorize these even if they could easily be accessed with a few taps or keystrokes. We induce very real stress by giving false importance to quizzes, exams and grades — and yes, it is false because you don’t get grades in real life. It creates a very wrong picture of the world, that people are either “passers” or “failures” when in reality we experience cycles of both.

Education fails spectacularly because it refuses to look at itself in the mirror and admit that it has been a failure.

It has created an artificial world where kids enter almost automatically when they are around 4 or 5, and they don’t get to leave until they are in their twenties. This world tells them that their choices don’t matter; that they have to follow the schedule; they have to wear their uniforms and follow the prescribed haircuts; that what they want isn’t important — at least not as important as the different subjects they are forced to study and pass, on the threat of being expelled or repeating a grade level. It ignores individual learning styles and rhythm, forcing everyone to learn everything in the same way at the same time.

Many maverick teachers who go in hoping to change or improve the system end up being sucked in and just going along with the flow. Or they may fight and flail for a while but they soon realize they are like a tadpole going against a tidal wave, and while they may make a small difference here and there, the huge machinery and inertia of the system steamrolls on unabated.

Even parents get trapped in this malevolent system, becoming its strict enforcers at home, forcing their children to do homework or take extra tutorial classes (as if the torture of school were not enough). Of course, this is all in the name of “doing it for their own good” or “for a brighter future” which is mostly a farce since technology is moving ahead so fast we hardly know what the world will look like a mere 10 years from now, much less prepare anyone for it.

Education does not give any real answers to the basic question that is in every student’s mind — and I’ll bet it was even in your mind when you were in school. That question being, “Why do I have to learn this?”

It gives all sorts of rationalizations and justifications, and even if the student is unconvinced of its significance or importance in their life, would still force them to learn it, take an exam and pass it.

If there was even a sliver of authenticity in education, it would leave the students alone to discover what was really significant to them and to their lives, to equip and support them as they embark on that path of their own choosing.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.