Rappler Teaches History As Extensionists Teach Farmers: “Don’t Think, Just Absorb!’”


A good media does not teach Hate – s/he teaches Understanding! A good extensionist propagates Thinking, not simply Memorizing or Remembering.

Rappler, with your Facebook sharing on Tuesday, 21 September 2021, “Here are eight books on martial law to furnish your knowledge on one of the darkest periods in Philippine history,” plus your online entry, “#NeverForget: Revisit The Dark Era Of Martial Law Through These Books” – thereby you are a Dictator, not a Teacher!

Rappler, you are dictating to your readers What to Think, not How to Think! A good media teaches how and not what to think critically. It Engages, Enriches, Inspires.
(“Engage, Enrich, Inspire[1]” image from Teachingwithamountainview.com)

This is a teacher speaking, a graduate of UP Los Baños with a BS Agriculture degree major in Ag Education. In 1966, I taught at the UP College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños and, having discovered organic farming for myself, began to change students’ minds about modern agriculture. In 1968, I taught college in Cagayan De Oro City at Xavier University College of Agriculture, there stirring the mind of Nicanor “Nicky” Perlas into embracing organic agriculture and who later “graduated” into biodynamic agriculture and won the world-famous Right Livelihood Award in 2003.

Was the student better than the teacher? Also in 2003, I became the Editor In Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science (PJCS), based at UP Los Baños. The PJCS was 3 years late. It was a one-man job – I did the desktop publishing myself, everything digital, doubly fast. In 2006, singlehandedly I made the PJCS up-to-date, and in 2007 made it internationally accepted, listed in that prestigious list called “ISI” (now “Web of Science”).

Yes, I am a full-blooded Ilocano (FBI) with roots from Rosario, La Union, and President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos (FM) was an FBI, roots from Sarrat, Ilocos Norte – when the FBIs are good, they are the best! FM is the best President we have ever had. The FBIs are also thinkers; Communist Jose Maria Sison is an extreme example. At UP Los Baños, we were trying to un-convince some radicals on their path to perdition, but we failed. But not for want of trying.

Can Rappler be convinced to change its media way of negative thinking alone and neglecting positive thinking? As a writer, I prefer creative thinking to critical thinking. Like the British wit Oscar Wilde, I always look at the doughnut, not the hole!

In her practice of journalism, Rappler behaves like many extensionists of agriculture in this country – they train farmers; they tell farmers exactly what to think, instruct farmers exactly what to do – and they believe they are serving the farmers superbly! Those unmindful aggie extensionists do not encourage farmers to think otherwise, ask questions, explore other options, suggest changes in inputs or systems of production and processing of produce. They do not engage, enrich, inspire. After training? They expect the farmers to go on, apply what they learned, and be successful!

Like the rabid Rappler journalists, the rabid aggie extensionists are always right!@517


[1]https://teachingwithamountainview.com/

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