A Case of Miseducation

 

 A CASE OF MISEDUCATION

WHAT DO YOU REALLY LEARN FROM UP?

By: Javi Vilchez

05:26 AM September 08, 2018

…Three years into UP, I can tell you that the most important lessons you will learn are not found in books.

First, UP teaches you to develop a sense of diskarte. From enlisting in classes to staying in class, nothing at UP comes easy.

Still, the inefficient process of enrollment teaches you grit and fortitude, which many of our countrymen need to survive every single day.

At UP, you will also experience a diversity unlike anywhere else. Here, you will encounter rich, poor, conservative, liberal and a plethora of genders and ethnicities.

Remember to approach each person you meet with respect and an open mind. If everybody who enters UP does that, then they will contribute to breeding a society whose members build each other up.

Another lesson UP teaches you is how to work—especially with others. A majority of students are part of multiple organizations, student council groups, fraternities and sororities.

Extracurricular activities give you the opportunity to meet more people and to learn how to work with them, and with a sense of purpose.

Regardless of your course or interests, you become a politically aware person in UP. It can’t be helped.

The university, after all, is a microcosm of the state: You see it in the school administration, in the conflicts between student-run political parties and even in the apathy of the student body.

Never forget that your willingness to participate in the democratic process is what the future of this country depends on.

Read more: https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/305314/what-do-you-really-learn-from-up/#ixzz5SpbFCzYY

I agree with the article, especially the second point, that you learn how to work with others, notably the great variety of Filipinos who come from all around our country.

In my opinion, however, the article misses out one important point: UP teaches you how to ABUSE POWER. It does this indirectly by allowing eccentric teachers to say and do things that would not be allowed by the administrations of many other universities around the world, including world-class universities. Teachers who do not give exams, who do not check papers, who do not teach the subject matter indicated for the course, who include questions in the exams that are way beyond the scope of the course and sometimes can be answered only by a subject matter expert, who give arbitrary grades—sometimes failing grades—that are not based on student performance but on personal whims and dislikes, who give exams lasting, literally, for days, and so on. Moreover, UP teachers are not held accountable for their abuses because the administration does not act on student complaints and winks mischievously at instructor transgressions. Teachers are treated like gods in the classroom.

In the UP College of Law in particular, students are taught in the study of local cases that they can arbitrarily subvert existing laws and established legal doctrines simply by invoking twisted reasoning and summoning the authority of their position, especially if they are warming their behinds in the Supreme Court. Students are taught to submit cravenly to this abusive exercise of legal, in particular judicial authority, in the unspoken expectation that once they occupy their respective positions, they, too, can act abusively in twisting the law, and with impunity. Witness, for example, the way UP lawyers in all three branches of government and especially in the current administration abusively exercise their power. This scandal is glaring testimony to the miseducation of the Filipino in the practice of law.

Admittedly, not all who abuse power are UP graduates. We propose that the miseducation of law graduates appears to be systemic corruption not limited to the highly regarded state university, and as a result corruption pervades our entire society. Noli me tangere.