NATHANAEL NAVARRO

We have been framed by the thinking that to be educated means to follow a certain order of learning. This so-called “order,” it is said, will give us the ladder to success. It is believed that achievements can be obtained by learning not to negate the given order but to sustain, reinforce, and dream for it. Those who go against the order of the system are seen to be running against “orderliness,” “authority,” and “education” itself. For Paulo Freire, a Brazilian critical thinker and educator, learning consists not only in molding ourselves to what is “given” to us by authority figures but also in shaping it ourselves. It does not mean that we should refuse to “receive” anything and legitimize violent obduracy against a given order. In fact, Freire challenges us to challenge ourselves through a self-critical understanding of a given order rather than becoming pigheaded about our “ideological correctness.” From this perspective, genuine education is about the process of receiving and giving, where learners benefit from and are also contributing to the process. As such, lifelong learners of society must constantly attempt to overcome the complacency, misleading them that the so-called “order” as determined by the prevailing system is, indeed, orderly in the truest sense of the term.In a world that sparingly gives time to re-thinking our decisions and way of life, Freire believes that learning, if we are serious in bringing it about for the betterment of society, must always be constantly guarded. Such an understanding of human beings as learning endlessly comes from the philosophical anthropology of Paulo Freire. Instead of accepting ourselves as merely passively walking the Earth and pulled by gravity, Freire understands the dialectical potential of human beings as capable of not merely accepting “fatalistically” our immobile, despondent situation, but of driving historical changes. Human beings are not merely changed by history, for people are also capable of creating history itself. Learning entails the refusal to simply be conditioned and programmed like docile robots under the manipulation of an engineer, for such a precious process is humanizing, as it involves remembering, re-thinking, re-questioning, reflecting, re-dreaming, among other things that cannot be reduced to machine learning. Does that mean that we should always choose the red pill even if it is inconvenient? While it is true that blissful ignorance in taking the blue pill shows obvious timorousness on the part of Neo had he not taken the red pill to continue the search for the truth, Freire would tell us that reality is more complex than this allegory. For instance, even polarizing politics and the neoliberal ideology towards endless growth and profit might delude us into thinking that anything that stops growth is anti-development. This has been the line of argument of U.S. President Donald Trump in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last September 23, 2025. By merely portraying the reduction of carbon emissions as “green scams” simply because it reduces the profit of the industry, Trump was able to deliver an awful argument that countries are being deprived of success if the consumption of what he calls “clean, beautiful coal” is cut down. Is development just that, and nothing more? To be sure, we cannot pretend to be Neo, seeing all at once how we were made batteries after the fact that the Earth has been so devastated, which could probably give us a disillusioned view that something must be changed in the dominant matrix of development.In settling for the dominant narrative of growth, we have lost the thrill of truth-seeking and unknowingly displaced the very spirit that questions our complacency in accepting the dark realities that this entails. The part of us that once thirsted for learning has faded in our hearts. In a world obsessed with accelerated growth, competition, and mindless innovation, Trump was able to create a destructive narrative that can be shoehorned into a system that neglects the integrated development of the entire ecosystem. Baseless suspicion, or worse, fabricated fear, is not a good ground for scientific understanding of things. Even before being elected in his second term as president, Trump was dismissing the detrimental consequences of the climate crisis by merely reducing it to mere propaganda with a so-called hidden “political agenda,”without even explaining further what it is and how he has arrived at that distrust, if at all it is true. Trump even had the audacity to commission an assessment report to justify the relaxation of climate regulations in the US, which many scientists found to contain much false content and misleading sources of information. For instance, the said report downgraded the problems of water scarcity exacerbated by climate warming by conflating such a fact with the greening of some arid areas. No amount of coercion and force can truly change our consciousness, except the dialogical disposition that we unwaveringly pursue and hone with the process of learning. We must also be reminded that to be critical does not mean to arrogate to oneself all the far-fetched powers of radicalizing things. Even though Freire has been pushing for the progressive side of education, he believes that the radicality of dialogue outlasts the exclusionary reforms instituted in a mechanistic and vanguardist way, as in the case of authoritarianism in Stalinist ideology and in the absolutist unfriendliness of the Left towards democracy.[4] Such a democratic education is so radical that it refuses to embrace a disposition towards pure activism that negates reflection, which only leads to unexamined biases, prejudices, and injustice.[5] We can perhaps try to rethink an economic framework with ethical standards that abate the fixation towards growth and accumulation, which is highly destructive for the environment, while retaining a certain amount of market freedom and efficiency in the economy. A crucial matter to probe about the consumeristic economy is the drive for profit borne out of the reality that households save not only for emergencies but also to boost their investment capacities in firms excessively. As a result, most firms are pressured to innovate, project, and support consumeristic lifestyles. It is worth quoting at length what the economist Tim Jackson observed:[…] Isn’t there a point at which enough is enough[,] and we should simply stop producing and consuming so much? One of the things that prevents this [from] happening, clearly, is the structural reliance of the system itself on continued growth. The imperative to sell more goods, to innovate continually, to stimulate higher and higher levels of consumer demand is driven [forward] by the pursuit of growth. […] […] Product lifetimes plummet as durability is designed out of consumer goods and obsolescence is designed in. Quality is sacrificed relentlessly to volume throughput. The throw-away society is not so much a consequence of consumer greed as a structure prerequisite for survival.[7] Failing to re-examine what motivates or demotivates us to investigate the configuration of reality as it stands is also a failure to know the ordeal that we are stuck with. With Freire’s pedagogy of dialogue, I am reminded of what Otto Scharmer has said in redefining and redesigning universities as institutions of knowledge revitalized by a sense of humility. For Scharmer, positive change does not merely mean becoming so technologically advanced but also shows that academic institutions search with humility, which, in the etymological sense, means being “grounded” in a shared reality through deep systems thinking. If we simply reduce development, for instance, to the calculable movement of GDP and GNP, we become unmoved by the other crucial matters that beset our society – those that cannot be reduced to numbers of commerce. We might, for instance, glorify the huge volume of sales in guns and other security technologies without knowing that its underlying cause is the escalating rates of crime due largely to socioeconomic inequities. Other developmental activities are difficult to measure based on the price of the market, such as reading programs, clean-up drives, peace of mind, safety of a community from violence, enlightening discourses, the ecological balance and harmony in biodiversity, among others. As Paulo Freire once quipped:So[,] the process of transformation is aesthetic, ethical, political, and knowledge-building. It implies that I should become ever more knowledgeable, not only of the object I wish to transform it, and the outcome to be achieved by transforming it. This also implies that I need to know something more than the object itself. So[,] all [these] points to a critical exercise in understanding the world; a clarity of thought rather than pure passion, which must also exist, because it is with my body and soul that I embark on the struggle for change: it involves passion, my desire, my frustration, my fears, etc., etc., but also my knowledge.[9] When we simply treat education as merely the banking type of commerce, where we simply accumulate concepts, we forget how knowledge should be of service to society, especially to deliver problem-posing endeavors. When we simply experience extreme heat waves, life-threatening typhoons, the depletion of the ozone layer, the uncontrollable growth of the economy, and the reality of carbon emissions as separate facts of life without any attempt to find the connection between them, we become ignorant of the climate crisis and the socio-economic inequities that perpetuate it. Thus, we become trapped in what Freire calls the “focalist view of reality,”[10] which makes us incapable of having a shared understanding about the problem, far less a solidarity to effectively sequester carbon emissions and other pollutants that increase global warming and its detrimental effects. Instead of mobilizing resistant narratives and discourses against a culture and industry heavily reliant on fossil fuels and mining, people become complacent and continue their highly consumerist lifestyles and ambitions, which all the more pushes the economy to exploit the limited resources of the Earth. Despite many instances showing how trees, through their roots and canopies, can intercept flooding and prevent massive soil erosion, society is still relying heavily on flood-control infrastructures. Many are dismayed, for example, with the ghost projects and substandard quality of flood-control projects in the Philippines, but a few seemed to be seriously alarmed by the massive deforestation, which is one of the principal causes of floods and landslides.[13]We need not only the courage to fight for what we think is right, but also the openness to encounter the opposite of what we are supporting. In this way, we allow ourselves to be involved in our relentless improvement. Dialogical education is not merely the demarcation of the so-called “educated” and “non-educated” nor those who are considered “smart” or “underachiever,” for it is, in essence, the augmentation of our understanding, even if, at some point, the realization that comes as its fruit is difficult to accept, yet very much reasonable to affirm. It is in this educational culture that we see how diplomas and certificates are not the holy grail upon which democratization must be evaluated as fulfilled. It is as if the world is being buried under concrete, as it is perceived to be a sign of so-called development. Rather than being content with seeing our walls filled with certificates of accomplishment and compliance, we need to understand whether these very walls become the fortress where we guard our societies against destructive values that perpetuate the avoidable sufferings of people, or whether these are only obstacles to seeing the reality of oppression and corruption that deprive our society of positive change. In the parlance of Paulo Freire, “ruptures” of the dominant order are sometimes necessary to break the wall, which seems unbreakable until we see and hear what prevents us from demythologizing our shared struggle. Such an educational culture demands that we confront the limits of our emotions, commitments, reasoning, and experiences. So, the wall that we have long held to simply function as our protective refuge could sometimes be breached to encounter what is different and assess the justification for why we answer this way rather than that way in a riddle. After all, the riddles that we ourselves uncover in our democratic atmosphere are not only to be answered alone. Just as we need to know how and why such a riddle is in the form that it has become, so too the “order” that we often take for granted.[4] Paulo Freire, Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach, translated by Donaldo Macedo, Dale Koike Alexandre K. Oliveira (United States of America: Westview Press, 2005), 26; 105; 130.[5] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Continuum, 1970), 88-89.[7] Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (United Kingdom: Earthscan, 2009), 97.[9] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Commitment, translated by David Brookshaw and Alexandre K. Oliveira (United States of America: Paradigm Publishers, 2014), 70.[10] Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation, translated by Donaldo Macedo (United States of America: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc., 1985), 14

Undeniably, today's fast-paced world has led us to reduce not only our time to think but also our time to appreciate the thinking process itself. The extent of this anti-intellectualism not only despises the idea of being quizzed but also brings about too much fascination with ready-made answers without thinking much about the questions. The Philippine society has a derisive word for those bugged by too much curiosity: Pilosopo (philosopher). It comes as no surprise that social media are plagued now with hatred, disrespect, arrogance, and many of the canceling tactics used in order not to pay attention to the logic, argument, and intention behind a post. Truth is easily dismissed with the avalanche of comments and reactions, but at the expense of reasonable discourse, mutual respect, and mindful acceptance of ideas. This is all the more afforded by the convenience of posting and accessibility of technology, if not with the anonymity that only pours fuel on the fire of disagreements.And I am speaking not only from the abstract numbers of surveys. I was once caught in the difficulty of making myself understandable to others in an extensive virtual warfare with almost nothing but irrelevant hurling of disdainful comments and unsound accusations.After commenting on a news post on Facebook that the school calendar for basic education in public schools of the Philippines will gradually revert to its traditional start of classes, which usually begins in June of every year, I saw the inundation of harsh reactions to my critical sentiments towards the government. In that post, I strongly questioned the possible wisdom–or the lack of it–behind the transition of the school calendar because of its superficial rationale. While I see the move to make the students comfortable in their studies so as not to experience the scorching heat of the summer days during April and May, I still believe that the issue is more complex and is interrelated with other social problems. There is no denying that we should protect the students from dangerous heat, but it is also no secret that on rainy days, many students struggle with flash floods and several cancellations of classes when strong typhoons hit the archipelago.Many people labeled me “bobo” (stupid). Some pictured me as a “pakialamero” (plain meddler) in public affairs. I was even called a paid opponent of the administration. But what struck me the most was that I was called a “pilosopo” a couple of times. Not because I think that it was an insult to me, nor because I was surprised that they had guessed one of my enthusiasms correctly, but because it has been used for several years as a pejorative term, even if it is supposed to be a crucial role for a noble discipline.My intention was not merely to show off a skillset in mental gymnastics nor to be a know-it-all in this matter. After all, I admitted that I am not an expert in climate change or Physics. What I wanted was to spark a conversation to clarify political matters that are too important to be left to policymakers alone. For instance, I would like to know if educational facilities are ready for the rainy season. Or is it the case that we have become inured to the fact that students have to brave the floods and study while their feet are submerged in floodwater? Does this mean that we have to focus on alleviating heat-related health hazards without looking into the threats of dengue, leptospirosis, malaria, among others?No less than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has studied that unless the world significantly reduces the rate of manmade carbon dioxide emissions and not merely stabilizes it, the rising temperatures will continue. With warmer oceans due to abnormal and long-lasting concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we are only waiting for typhoons of amplified intensity to land on our shores. The concepts of “evaporation” and “precipitation” will only remain as abstract as our illusions if we do not take our minds toward analytical thinking to figure out how the heat and torrential rains are connected and extremely devastating. Perhaps we need to revisit the 2022 Programme for International Assessment (PISA) in which Filipino students scored poorly in answering scientific questions requiring higher-order thinking skills in problem-solving rather than mere memorization and familiarity with concepts and ideas.Clearly, not only do we need to build facilities to mitigate the effects of climate change, but also to address the sources of the problems, such as the immoderate burning of fossil fuels, massive destruction of forests, wanton consumerism, and citizens’ lack of sufficient understanding about the environment and sustainability.While history shows us that academic culture was established by Plato, a philosopher who described himself as a lover of wisdom, our contemporary culture’s obsession with quick outcomes permeates the core of education, geared towards the fixation with authoritarian instructions, rote memorization, and, most of all, the repugnance towards thinking that only sees its tedious aspect. Rather than seeing philosophical skills as a boon for a thriving democracy so as to be troubled by problems that should profoundly disturb us, we remain on the surface of our delusions that everything is running smoothly as it should. Without attending to the questions, society has come into the absurd habit of thinking that it merely focuses on so-called “answers.” The problem with ready-made answers is that these might not reasonably and adequately correspond to the questions and problems we face. By insisting on something long-established, consensus-seeking, and culture-conforming, our demand for critical thinking dwindles to a drain at the cost of autonomous understanding. Becoming knee-jerk reactionary, or perhaps intentionally neglecting the vital re-evaluation of our thoughts, pushes us to a culture of canceling each other mindlessly instead of walking the path of dialogue together.Sadly, Philosophy, a discipline that poses problems inasmuch as it gives answers, is deprived of its social import. The intellectual humility behind the uncovering of questions is interpreted as a show of conceit, while the baseless accusations of demolition jobs against the government, the proliferation of fake information, and character assassination through memes remain the dominant predilections of those who do not want to be enlightened.More than ever, it is relevant to appreciate what Paulo Freire, a Brazilian thinker, sees as the importance of treating every moment of our lives as a learning process, for such a precious moment is not only confined to classrooms. To question is a very humanizing act, as it gives us not only the capacity to understand but also to change the way things are to the way things should be. That is, we are not simply to submit “fatalistically” to what is given to us but are challenged to find a meaningful existence.

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NATHANAEL NAVARRO

The Need for a Democratization of Education, Rationalities, and Development

Too Much Derision for a "Pilosopo" in a Self-Destructive World