Dilemma of Education in Modernization

Education. We may not know what its real essence, but it plays a really big role in us. It shows us the path for a better life, and a better future. It is the measure of our strengths and weaknesses.

            Today, we are very much influenced by the concepts of modernization and sophistication. It infects us not just physically, but also mentally, emotionally and intellectually. This is due to the fast growth of technology that makes us more complex and superior. But how does it affect our education?

Our parents keeps on reminding us that education is the only thing we can keep wherever we go, it can’t be stolen in us, and it is our key to open the doors of our future. But what’s happening to us right now? Why some of us are still illiterate even we have many sources to be educated?

Education seems to be Baduy or Uncool if we say it nowadays. Since for us the essence of being cool is using Cellular phones, Ipods, mP3s, computer, and many more. Things that makes us more proud, and feel sikat.

It is not bad to desire these objects, to be entertained and be inspired. But the problem is, together with this sophistication, is the decrease of our literacy rate. They build their nests in our eye. We loose our concentration and self-awareness.

Many countries are suffering for a very low literacy rate; it becomes a barrier for the development and success. The quandary is within us, we tend to use those gadgets on our working hours. We waste our time and money for nothing.

We students are the most common victim of this modernization virus. Instead of doing the assignments, studying our lessons, and making our projects, we dissipate our time in playing computer games, and texting. Cell phone is a common problem of any educational institution, we tend to use it during the class, especially if the teacher seems to be boring and we are not interested on the topic.

            When our teacher gives us a research work, we are expected to use the computer and surf the Internet. Yes, we made a research. But the problem is we have the copy-paste attitude. We just copy it from a website with-out reading it, print it and pass it to our teachers. Sometimes, we think that we had already made it; soon we found that it doesn’t make sense. The article we copied is not the right topic needed. So it doesn’t make difference in our grades, and it doesn’t make us learn things.

We are fond of wasting time; we have what we called Filipino Time – delayed or late. We are also chained by the different Filipino postponing attitude such as Bahala Na System and the Maniana Habit. We have this kind of attitude from our ancestors. This type of attitude was more encouraged these days because of the globalization. It makes us lazier and we think things don’t have any value. We just let them pass away. We say we always have a second chance, but we must value our time like a precious stones. As it was said, “Time flies and never will it return.”

If we say that Japanese are sticklers in time, Americans are very much time-oriented, why can’t we Filipinos? Self-discipline is the answer for this question, proper time-management and value of time. Cherish each second of our life; try to learn as many things as we can in just a minute, for education happens, everywhere, and anytime.