It’s Labor Day yesterday. It meant no work for me! I and Shean Chiva decided to go to Divisoria again since the time was so right. As we got down the LRT 1 Recto Station, we saw a big bulk of people rallying — shouting for their causes, letting the public be aware of the maltreatment they’ve been receiving from the government, reminding the government of its responsibility to its citizens.

The traffic jam was even doubled, much heavier than the usual days in Divisoria. Nevertheless, we still managed to squeeze into the busy streets. After three hours of haggling for much lower prices and beating the heat of the sun, we headed home. We almost forgot we had not eaten lunch yet. As soon as we reached home, we took out a meal in one of the fastfoods in town.

Reaching home after Divisoria wasn’t a day yet. After eating our late lunch, Shean headed for Laguna while I, for Makati. I had to go somewhere in Dian Street. A favor was asked to me that I couldn’t resist.

Therefore, Labor Day wasn’t really rest day for me. It meant work for me, still, only in a different perspective.

I was more than excited to go home! It’s been awhile staying in Manila and while it was in the start, it has been a whole heck of a missing process. I miss Bohol so much that I thought to myself, no matter where I go, I’ll always go home to where I belong: Bohol. Here’s a picture my brother took while we were boarding the plane:

Getting ready for aboard

During my 9-day vacation in Bohol, I did what I usually do when I was still based there. I missed my dad so much. And it’s given. I’m always a daddy’s girl - always have, always will. Of course, I was delighted to see my youngest brother, Ian, who has now grown so tall but his attitude still remains the same. He will always remain the “bunso” in our family. He’s still the mild and carefree Ian I have ever known. He still insists for asking money up to the point of resorting to coins if I don’t give him bills. I often exchange a peso coin to a kiss. Then he’d say, okay then kiss me twenty times so he’ll get P20. It’s funny how an 18-year old man deals to us for his contentment. I visited my friends too. In fact, I attended the church wedding of my most favorite teacher in high school, Sir Jenelou John F. Israel. He is finally wed to Miss Yoradyl Espejo. At last! After more than 7 seven years of love and engagement.

Also, I had a short time of reflection in my beloved hometown, Batuan. I always love strolling around and basically do nothing. Like the picture below:

Vacation is not complete without you

Now that I am back in Manila, I can’t help but think and plan of my next visit in Bohol. Hopefully by the end of this month. I wish to attend my town’s annual celebration, the Guimbawan Festival

Firstly, i thank my friend and my mentor kuya doctor arnell baguio for sharing to me his ideas on what i wrote the other day. now, i am sure that potpourri is double r.

Secondly, i thought about what you told me, it made me think too (hehe, seriously, ehem), “which is worth the while (baguio, friendster msg, oct{am i citing it correctly?}):
“working or having fun… perhaps it’s hard to have both at the same time huh? Some people say that to love what you do, you have to do what you love!”

…and certainly you are right doctor arnell. that’s why i am very strong in my desire to really push for higher studies. yes i’ve got work (and not just one, but 3). i am well-compensated (in the country’s conversion), i think (ive actually convinced myself i have or else i would commit harakiri), ive practically been using my time very well, but see, it’s all about these stray jobs i’m having. i mean, im trapped in boredom because of my routine. at first i thought it was worth the wait (for next year’s school to start) but now, nah, ive been thinking of doing something else, something really i love doing: events and organizing, public relations, human resources.. but above all, i wanna be atty yes. soar high yes. who knows you might get it — both — doing what i love to do.

Thirdly, i got my hair kinky! again, last year, i had it done twice. now, i had it again. just for a change. just adding some hot and spicy stuff in me.

We must admit it: Dating is one of those great life experiences that we all go through whether our parents like it or not. We think of dating as an activity done by adolescents, but our society now proves this, at least, as not necessarily true. Nowadays, even teenagers date. I have here a few good teenage dating tips which I read from an article on how to learn ways to do dating right - and to avoid the ways of doing it wrong.

Know yourself

One of the best top teenage dating tips is to spend some time getting to know yourself better. Think of how you would like others that you might be interested in to see you. If you know that you are a fun and positive person, keep reminding yourself of that, so it shows through to others. You are probably looking for the same in people you want to date.

Feel good about yourself

Dating can be a tough process. You need to be prepared by feeling good about yourself. If there are things you would like to change about yourself, now is the time. Interact with new people, learn a new language, start a healthy diet, or whatever - anything that will make you feel good about yourself. This will give you the confidence to show yourself off in the best light, and to be able to deal with any rejection that comes along. In matters of complications, only you and you alone can help you. Trust me, this really works.

Be safe

Be safe, in all senses of the word. When you are making eyeballs or initial contact with someone new that you haven’t met before, do it in a public place. Make sure you know as much as you can about the other person before you provide any personal information, such as your phone number, or where you live. Don’t take chances and use common sense. If you feel like the other person is being too mysterious, then it is time to move on. Chatting and meeting new friends in the net is still subject to deceit. So better watch out and don’t stick too close on your monitor’s screen. Get a life!

Learn from others

Be attentive to other successful dating relationships with people you respect such as the experiences your parents had while they’re still dating during their teen or adolescent years. Figure out what works for them and see what you can adopt for yourself.

Have an idea of what kind of relationship you are looking for

When you decide to date, spend some time making sure you know what you are looking for. Be honest with yourself and know what will make you happy. Are you looking for a friend? Or a longer term commitment? At the same time, be flexible. The teen dating world is unpredictable, but that can be part of the fun. Enjoy what comes your way.

Take your time

Successful dating takes time. Most people who date want something to happen immediately, but we have all found out that doesn’t happen. And most importantly, be ready to work hard to get what you want.

Leave when you need to

No list of best dating tips would be complete without reminding you to know when it is time to leave. There’s always an end to every beginning, we should remember that. Don’t be afraid that you are losing your only chance to be with another person. There are going to be others. Of course. Certainly. Don’t settle for something that isn’t right for you. You deserve better than that. Breaking up is never fun, but we all know that we recover. And if you aren’t the one initiating the breakup, remember that this is part of the experience as well. Charge it to experience. Rejection is tough, but keep in mind of what might be next - it could be even better. And you might end up with a really good set of new friends in the process. That sounds even cooler.

Have fun

The most important thing to remember is to have fun! Searching for the right person can be a fantastic experience, filled with anxiety and emotion and even drama. All of these are just normal so don’t feel pity for yourself if at any worse scenario, you feel rejected. But if you approach it with a positive attitude and think of the hunt as being as much fun as the catch, you will have a better time. Make it easy for yourself by setting your mind to the fact that this is something fun.

Many times I’ve asked myself what I would be, say ten, fifteen years from now. Will I be a career woman working on a company in my corporate suit? Will I see myself in the court defending my father’s case filed against him? Or will I be another count of our country’s high rate of unemployed citizens? Will I stay here in the Philippines for good or migrate abroad for greener pasture?

Everything is uncertain in this world. Because it is inevitable, living here on earth is uncertain too. And it has become even difficult because of the way we live it. Messy, isn’t it?

You watch television, what do you see? A drug addict who jumped off the building because he thought it felt like heaven. A theft killed by the police because of his attempt to murder an innocent child he hostaged. A newly born baby placed in a box left in front of the church, unidentified of who the irresponsible people did that. Jeepney drivers and operators raising the issue on the continuous increase on oil and gasoline, calling the government for immediate effective actions for this problem. Effects brought by the peso-dollar exchange rates. Foreign investors pulling off their investments in the Philippines one after another because of the threatening issues on war and terrorism; and a lot more. Still the list goes on…

You read a newspaper, listen to the radio, surf the net, and you’ll find out that what you got in these media are just those what you saw on T.V. You talk with people around and you hear the same problems and still unresolved problems.

Now, with all these too many tribulations, is there still a bright future that awaits me? Would I still continue to dream achieving my dreams, to struggle to achieve my goals in life? Or will my dreams and my generation’s dreams be just dreams forever?

I hope not. I’m dreaming not.

I call the people concerned, the ones responsible for taking charge of molding our lives ahead: please do your part, make your generation not a problem to ours. I understand that problems have already become part of us, but please don’t add up to all these anymore. Instead, let us all work together and be catalysts of change – a call, a protocol.

Permit me to speak to the deepest of my thoughts in my very words. I admit I am a no expert in this topic. Of what reasons that drive me to write regarding this notion I don’t know. All I have is my consciousness. To my fellow youth, this I speak: Our family loves us so dearly that they do everything in whatever ways they can just for our own good. They want us to live in our very comfortable ways amidst all the fickleness in life. Because they trust us, they gave us authority to whatever decisions we make. They share with us our joys if we make these decisions productive. If not even so, they are still willing to help us in however they can. They are even eager to carry all the burdens we experience, yet for our own cause. In other words, they gave us our freedom “ to choose how to live life, to live life to the fullest. But sometimes, we fail to recognize our family’s intentions brought by the kind of freedom they grant to us. At times, we become abusive to this liberty we have. How can I tell? Let us be aware on the issues around. See what’s happening to the youth. We are too involved on malefic crimes and unwonted concerns “ issues on drug addiction, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy, vices, and deception. These are some of the many clear manifestations of our irresponsibility. We thought we could handle these at our own risks. But is that what is happening? I don’t think so! A factor, however, that influences us to committing to these fruits of freedom is our exposure to the media. It cannot be denied that we have been so attached to the many possibilities of acquiring and learning these demoralizing acts. Peer pressure could also be one. Often times, we do atypical things for our companions because we want to please them even up to risking our whole self, without realizing the possible effects it may cause us. But haven’t we realized that no matter what we do, in whatever decisions we make, may it be influenced by peers or not, we still hold liable for ourselves? Why then we bait ourselves to the battle grounds of these fruits of freedom that bring-no-good to us? Why then we allow these disdainful things to affect and influence us to happen to us? Let us not allow ourselves to be victims of these irreverent transgressions. We must use our liberty over things, as entrusted to us by our elders, for our welfare “ to become productive, to become responsible youth. We should perceive freedom and independence commended to us by our parents as our strength to achieve our endeavors in life. After all, we don’t want to fail the expectations of our forefathers. I still believe in Rizal: the youth are the hope of tomorrow.

It had been tackled in the previous is that adult authorship of books for children is a practice that society has accepted willingly throughout the history of children’s literature. To reiterate, most do not question whether the adult is misappropriating a child’s voice or perception; rather, people feel that every author should have the liberty to write a children’s book because he/she has experienced childhood. Furthermore, some would argue that the adult has an even better understanding of childhood than most children do because he/she is now beyond that stage and can therefore make more astute and objective observations. Only recently have we begun to ask whether an adult’s memory of “childhood” is valid or reliable.

I’d mentioned two arguments on how children may be affected and influenced by adults through children’s literature. First, children’s literature sentimentalized childhood and second, children are presented as ignorant and powerless. Third, which I will be elaborating now, is that in children’s literature, children’s behavior must be controlled. Another form of control is asserted through verbal assault; the child is reprimanded or corrected so that he/she will adapt a desired behavior. A child is expected to obey to what the moral books dictate them to do.

But is all children’s literature entirely evil?

We presume that children are incapable of understanding the world mainly because they are in the primary stage of language acquisition. They therefore seem to lack adequate skills to observe the world and to express their thoughts using words. Consequently, the adult author assumes the position of “speaker” for silent children. However, while trying to present the child’s voice, the adult often uses that voice to promote the inadequacy of children. This result, however, is not always intentional. Some authors sincerely attempt to re-construct childhood in order to better understand the experience of being a child.

Now, what?

Some children’s books have left a legacy of condescension towards children, but we must consider whether all children’s literature has the same negative impact. Clearly, we must carefully examine texts for children with the realization that they exert a considerable amount of influence over a child’s perception and behavior. Adult authority has both negative and positive effects. The domination of children through sentimentalization and verbal correction is often apparent; however, we can also observe the empowerment of children through adult writing. Thus we cannot condemn all books that are written by adults. Furthermore, if we restrict the adult author to writing only about his/her immediate context, we will destroy genuine attempts to understand children and their lives. The freedom to write about any situation, using any voice, allows us to see the world through another’s eyes. In turn, this new perspective gives the child reader the power to examine life with a diversified soul.

The adult authorship of books for children is a practice that society has accepted willingly throughout the history of children’s literature. Most do not question whether the adult is misappropriating a child’s voice or perception; rather, people feel that every author should have the liberty to write a children’s book because he/she has experienced childhood. Furthermore, some would argue that the adult has an even better understanding of childhood than most children do because he/she is now beyond that stage and can therefore make more astute and objective observations. Only recently have we begun to ask whether an adult’s memory of “childhood” is valid or reliable.

In light of post-colonial criticism, we realize the danger of speaking for the “other”, whether it be another nationality, race or gender. Post-colonialism also recognizes the ability of a dominating group to exert its power over the “other” by using language. When the politics of children’s literature are compared with these ideas, the adult world may be the dominant culture while children, or “childhood” becomes the repressed “other”. Adults have constructed a concept of childhood that casts it as a world apart from reality; it is a separate period and place that each person must endure to reach adulthood, the supposed goal. Children are then merely incomplete, or perhaps even primitive, models of adults. Much like other colonized cultures in our world, children suffer hegemonic containment and control by another group.

The colonization of children is evident because the child’s experience is governed by people who no longer belong to that world. This colonization becomes even clearer when we look at the advent of established children’s literature. In the 18th century, children were viewed as deficient; therefore, they had to be educated and molded into civilized adults. Thus we have the beginnings of a literature written specifically to instruct children. In stories, they were told how to behave properly and taught to obey the commands of adults; the apparent success of these tales in instructing children also evolved into a general respect for the authority of books. In recent years, most children’s books have not explicitly propagated behavioral instruction, yet they continue to affect the how children behave. The modern child reader is still influenced by adults through children’s literature.

I will mention three points to support my claim.

First, children’s literature sentimentalizes childhood. The subtlest attempt by adults to control children through discourse is found in adult descriptions of childhood. There is a sentimental element in the way we view the past; it often seems simpler and more innocent. The times we spent as children are thus depicted as quaint and carefree. We imagine that our summer days were whimsical. This experience is a fantastical construction of an idyllic childhood. The adult poet has created a paradigm for childhood summers that may or may not be valid. This sentimental view of childhood could cause conflict in the child who does not share the experience, who is not carefree.

Second, children are presented as ignorant and powerless. Sentimental memories of childhood may lead to the sentimentalization of children in general. Thus, the adult author may present children as simple, innocent and even ignorant. This kind of depiction, while charming, incapacitates the child. It undermines any attempts of the child to gain authority or respect. Authors often portray the child mis-using or mis-understanding language, which is a supposed measure of intelligence. Pooh, who plays the role of the child in Winnie-the-Pooh, for instance, can never seem to master words or their meanings.

Children are thus often characterized to be unreliable sources of information. In depicting sentimental views of children, the adult author gives them invisible boundaries, suggesting that they are limited in thought and expression. Therefore, the child is rendered harmless and ineffectual.

The third and the conclusion part will be explained next issue.

Last week’s issue, an important criticism was raised: what should we do with a hidden curriculum when we find one? The sociologist Jane Martin suggested four alternatives: to do nothing about it, to change one’s practices, procedures, environments, rules, and the like in an effort to root out those learning states one considers undesirable, to simply abolish it, or to embrace rather than abolish 1the hidden curriculum one finds.

Another important understanding that one critic should dare not forget is that of Jean Anyon’s Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum. Here, it is exposed that social stratification starts, in fact, while an individual is in school.

Anyon observed five elementary schools over the course of a full school year and concluded that fifth-graders of different economic backgrounds are already being prepared to occupy particular rungs on the social ladder. In a sense, some whole schools are on the vocational education track, while others are geared to produce future doctors, lawyers, and business leaders.

Thus, it’s no surprise that schools in wealthy communities are better than those in poor communities, or that they better prepare their students for desirable jobs. It may be shocking, however, to learn how vast the differences in schools are - not so much in resources as in teaching methods and philosophies of education.

Moreover, Maxine Greene, another advocate in the exposition of the hidden curriculum wrote an article titled, “Curriculum and Consciousness.” Here, Green said that curriculum, from the learner’s standpoint, ordinarily represents little more than an arrangement of subjects, a structure of socially prescribed knowledge, or a complex system of meanings which may or may not fall within his grasp, that is ‘knowing is a moment of praxis,’ opening into ‘what has not yet been.’ Preoccupied with priorities, purposes, programs of ‘intended learning’ and intended (or unintended) manipulation, one pays too little attention to the individual in quest of his own future, bent on surpassing what is merely ‘given,’ on breaking through the everyday.

Thus, coming up with a realization that the school is still too prone to dichotomize: to think of ‘disciplines’ or ‘public traditions’ or ‘accumulated wisdom’ or ‘common culture’ (individualization despite) as objectively existent, external to the knower—there to be discovered, mastered, learned.

Last issue, I have defined what hidden curriculum is and how it is different with what we traditionally accept as our formal curriculum in schools; that hidden curriculum refers to the unwritten rules that we consciously or unconsciously learn out of education and that while we may be blinded with the seemingly extrinsic gains we believe, it, in fact, has unconstructive implications not only to the growth of the individual but with his interaction with the people around him and with the environment he’s in. I have included Nancy King and Michael Apple’s “What Do Schools Teach?” In this article, the authors claimed that there exists already an unequal and stratified social order even in the kindergarteners. The promotion of a rather static framework of institutions started even as early as the critical stage of development of a person, during the kindergarten years. Thus, the reason why and how individuals behave and treat the society when they mature.

 
A continuation of the subject matter is an article written by Jane Martin titled “What Should We Do with a Hidden Curriculum When We Find One?”

In this article, Martin identified two sorts of hiddenness: “Something can be hidden in the sense of which a cure for cancer is hidden or in the sense in which a penny in the game Hide the Penny is hidden.” Is the curriculum yet to be discovered or has it been hidden by someone? Martin also noted that a curriculum can be revealed to some, while remaining hidden to others: “Until learning states are acknowledged or the learners are aware of them, however, they remain hidden even if sociologists, bureaucrats, and teachers are all aware of them. Thus a hidden curriculum can be found yet remain hidden, for finding is one thing and telling is another”

Now, what then can we do with a hidden curriculum once we have found it? The author posited four alternatives: First, we can do nothing. This may seem to be the alternative of despair, but that is not necessarily the case, for there may be some hidden curricula, or elements thereof, with respect to which we are neutral – we do not positively value them but we do not consider them undesirable either. Thus, doing nothing is a reasonable alternative. Second, we can change our practices, procedures, environments, rules, and the like in an effort to root out those learning states we consider undesirable. The radical school-reform movement known as open education has tried to do just this. Third, instead of changing the setting, we can simply abolish it. This is an alternative for those in the deschooling movement, though abolition is not a simple matter. Finally, it is always possible that we will want to embrace rather than abolish the hidden curriculum we find.

To conclude, the significance of the question is a function of the quality of the hidden curriculum we find. If the hidden curriculum is harmless, then what we do with it will not matter very much. It is when the one we find is not harmless – when it instill beliefs, attitudes, values, or patterns of behavior in which are undesirable – that our question takes on urgency. And it becomes more urgent the more undesirable the learning states are.

More on hidden curriculum next ish…