7

Seeking light as pursuit of reason and not of mere information, as pursuit of wisdom and not of mere knowledge

Promotion of seeking and sharing reason and wisdom as the basic process in education;

'Reinventing' the teacher as a 'sharing and learning facilitator' and of textbooks as channels of learning instead of authoritative 'last word' on anything.

Recognition and enhancement of sources of knowledge, skills and wisdom outside the school systems

Promotion of less-structured education systems for children that would encourage and enhance intuition, aesthetic appreciation and creativity, respect for self and others, love for all life, predisposition to team play, and basic spirituality.

Critique and repudiation of current data-memorization-based, competition driven, grades-indicated, teacher-centered & commercialized educational system, programs & policies

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

.

'Ginikanan': Parents Building
a Network for the Love of Nature

By Ed Aurelio C. Reyes

Lead Founder, Ginikanan para sa Kalikasan

This is the essay, dated March 9, explaining the rationale of building the network, carried by first of the two pages of the initial guide for recruiting members, forming clusters of members, and securing general and additional services.

PARENTS HAVE HAD TO CRAWL to earn tuition money for their children upon the false hope that such schooling would really redound to the better future of their beloved offspring. But many of these sons and daughters later descend into patterns of directionlessness. Some even get into juvenile delinquency, and resist their parents’ influence, due partly to lack of knowledge and appreciation about the natural life-link between parents and their offspring.

Many enroll their kids at a very early age. While the pre-schools do serve as glamorized day-care centers, the parents are unconsciously abandoning their natural responsibility and role as their children’s first teachers. Their very young Pepe or Pilar are just put under the care of overworked teachers who usually can not give them much individual loving attention.

Foundational education has to start at home, with the children learning from their parents’ living example and also from whatever explanations the parents have quality time to give them.

This is the first fork on the road of life for the children. Are they going to be good citizens of the planet and the country, part of the solution to our festering woes, or are they going to be hangers-on or part of the problems, when they pursue too desperately what is seen as solutions?

Are we going to allow our children and youth to develop into a future nation of weaklings? a nation of victims? a nation of destitute beggars who have had our land grabbed and despoiled? a nation of ingrates? Can our children be lovers of nature and of life, considering that things of nature and all living things are amazing? Or are they going to be among people who are insensitive to nature, ignorant of nature, and destructive of nature because they would love to love money much, much more? Can we still develop in the next generation the foundations of the honorable and strong character of the original Filipino so we can have a nation of nature-loving, active, gateful and empowered stakeholders?

It depends on how well and how early they get educated about loving nature. It depends on whether or not we as parents decide not to be weaklings on our responsibility to give our children foundational education right at home, to give them character development that can set their basic outlook and direction in life as wholesome citizens. That is, whether or not we take upon ourselves this responsibility, knowing so well that we cannot depend on our formal schooling system for it. Parents really have a tremendous responsibility much bigger than feeding their children and sending them off to school!

A parents’ mutual-help network has been formed to enable natural and surrogate parents to tackle this great responsibility. Each parental couple needs to be helped to form a more effective teamwork and the whole set of participating couples can make up a powerful synergy for shared lessons, for ecouragement, for simplified science lessons and for other forms of practical help. This network is the Ginikanan para sa Kalikasan -- nicknamed “Green-ikanan” -- where the first term is the Visayan word for parents. Literally, ‘ginikanan’ means “source.” while the Tagalog ‘magulang’ means “old.”

There is only one principal task for every member of “Green-ikanan”: Educate your children well to love nature.

These are the four secondary tasks: (1) convince other parents to do the same; (2) plan nature-loving activities involving your family members and other families; (3) build a stronger and wider teamwork of nature-loving families in your area; and (4) contribute lessons from experience to help other “Green-ikanan” members everywhere to succeed in their efforts.

“Green-ikanan” is now being formed* as barangay-based clusters of parents who formally register to become members, to get the general services and individually sign up for the specific additional services (like education modules) that they are most interested to avail themselves of.

Within a barangay-wide cluster, parent members can form sub-clusters among themselves, according to the age brackets of their children, according to the location of their respective residences, and according to the specific projects or activities they would be most interested in to pursue. Each barangay-based cluster shall be an active component of the local community’s overall efforts for effective environmental conservation.

Parents, let us band together for the love of nature! Our children will love us more, in deeper gratitude. For life.

_______

Main organizers: SanibLakas ng mga Aktibong Lingkod ng Inang Kalikasan (SALIKA) and Kaisari Movement for Gender Harmony, plus PTAs. Priority areas: past and chosen future national sites of World Environment Day-Philippines (WED-Phils.), plus areas of residence of leading environment¬alists. The general and additional services will start during “KAMALAYKASAN (Kamalayan sa Kalikasan) -- Green Consciousness Season” (from Earth Day, April 22 to World Environment Day, June 5, 2009), a period of about a month and a half for enhancing environmental consciousness.

back to top                      post a comment

NOTES:

Subhead