Bring It Back The Other Way

The teacher stands in front of the class, but the lesson plan he cant recall; The students eyes dont perceive the lies bouncing off every fucking wall. His composure is well-kept, I guess he fears playing the fool; The complacent students sit, and listen to that bullshit that he learned in school. - Rage Against the Machine, Take the Power Back Today in the Inquirer, Antonio Calipjo Go writes an article about the 500 or so errors that there are in a recently-released public school English textbook, entitled English For You and Me. The book is authored by Elodie A. Cada, published by Book Wise Publishing House Inc., and is printed by a publishing company in Thailand. Some of the errors Go points out are listed here; my reactions in italics: To Heal Earth Yourself, Start with Your Cat. (Meow.) Delicately: done with fragility. (Whens the Fall Out Boy concert again?) The Badjaos are mostly found along the Coast of Jolo, Subuti, Sitangkal, Tawi-Tawi islands in Mindanao. They are regarded as cultured because they are hardworking and peace-loving. (So everything I was taught about what constitutes culture can be boiled down to slambook dedications?) The students busied themselves drinking thirstily. (I will now proceed to thirstily drink water.) The people observed keenly the pulsating chest of the animal hiding in the bushes. (Is this supposed to be educational or erotic?) At my age, swooning to Martin Nievera is far from my age level. (Now thats showbiz.) Yet life will continue to pour the best. There are people who stare. (So what am I looking at again?) The authorities were intimately bonded with the constituents because of the humanitarian project. (I bet you a politician wrote this.) A stain-smooth piece of driftwood. (I never heard of anything stain-smooth before. Maybe theyre teaching koan.) The janitress tried to clean the spume of the water underneath the tree. (OK kids: the word for today is spume.) Hes not here! Miss Racelis told at them. She told them to go out the room. (Methinks its menopause: telling at people, no good reason to do anything see what I mean?) Media people are afraid that information may be churned by the leftists. (Whoa, whoa, whoa!) Abracadabra, sssh! Boom! Make some magic for me! Abracadabra, sssh! Boom! Bobby shouted. He ran to his uncle. Looked here, Uncle, he said. His uncle looked like an invisible man. (Is that a Zen tale, or the script for the newest 98 Degrees music video?)

Mr. Reyes carried his suitcase together with his son who was holding onto his neck tightly. (Damn, that has got to hurt.)

Heres the best part: Instructional Materials Council Secretariat Director Soccoro Pilor says that the book Go criticized indeed passed the review process with flying colors. English For You and Me passed the following criteria for evaluation: Learning competencies

Content evaluation for errors Organization and propriety of material Proper grammar, and should be easily understood by readers.

In keeping with blogging without obligation, I write this in no uncertain terms: to miseducate our children is to compromise their future. Miseducation is the betrayal of the next generation. We put a very high premium on education; too high, in fact, for less-than-conducive forms of learning that are available to most of us. Education is the great equalizer that opens up opportunities for employment, financial security, and the gift of knowledge that is treasured for a lifetime. Yet for all the emancipation that there seems to be and there is in education, we have classrooms under mango trees, teachers saving every bit of chalk, students entering classrooms in tattered and frayed uniforms. That could all be excused and blamed on a lack of funding, that the teachers dont have laptops, and that the one-room schoolhouse on the jungle-covered hills does not have an Internet connection. We sometimes whine about kids not reading enough books, but if schoolbooks take the character of Gos list of errors, we should be enraged about children reading crap like that. We should be enraged about the fact that many of us write, speak, and think in the very same way, especially those of us who were taught in public schools. Its not just about English; we could surmise that the same butchering of knowledge takes place in fields like mathematics, civics, Filipino, and even values education. Its not the fault of our children why they turn out to be one way or another when they grow up: our children are nothing more than what we teach them, the knowledge and values we inculcate in them. Even if its something so simple, so irrelevant, so imperialistic, as grammar and spelling. The least we could do is to have factual, accurate books that teach our children the proper skills needed for them to stand a chance in freeing themselves from the chains of poverty and ignorance. The future of the Philippine educational system does not lie in making all public schools wi-fi ready, or replacing all chalkboards with whiteboards. Without books, students will not learn the skills necessary to survive and to succeed.

Take that book, and bring it back the other way.

Playwrights work used in erroneous textbook

Education: What matters most
By Erika Sauler Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 04:33:00 06/02/2009 Filed Under: Education, Books, Patents and Copyright and Trademarks, Litigation & Regulations

Read Part 1: ?We aren?t better than we were 10 years ago? (Second of a series) MANILA, Philippines?The tears are gone, but the nightmares persist. Playwright Debbie Ann Tan was shocked when her name cropped up in a news article as the author of an erroneous "literary piece" in a fresh batch of English textbooks for public schools published last year by the Department of Education (DepEd). "When I first saw it, I didn't believe it because I don't have a project with the DepEd," says Tan, who is also an English teacher. "When I confirmed that it was me, my world crashed," she says. "It would have future implications. What if somebody read such a thing and say, 'So this is how you write?'" The flawed essay, "Dreams for All," attributed to Tan appeared in the "English for You and Me" Reading for Grade 6 textbook published by Book Wise Publishing Inc. and authored by Elodie Cada. The textbook was published under a multimillion-dollar DepEd program updating English textbooks funded by the World Bank. In February, the Philippine Daily Inquirer published a critique of the textbook by self-styled "sick books" crusader Antonio Calipjo Go. The more than 500 boo-boos that Go claims to have uncovered included passages from the "Dreams for All" essay: "People are active individuals ... Sometimes, even while sleeping, they make actions through what we call 'dreams' ... Cartoon characters are also taken from dreams of the cartoonists ... Dreaming is a mysterious act." In response, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus and the DepEd's Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS) director Socorro Pilor said the errors cited by Go were lines from literary pieces taken out of context. Lapus and Pilor said Tan was the author of the essay. Maliciously singled out Tan feels she was maliciously singled out and plans to take legal action. She says she did not even write the essay. Cada "adapted" Tan's article "The World of Dreams," which appeared in Pambata magazine, she says. Distraught and distracted, Tan failed to participate in this year's Virgin Labfest, an annual festival for playwrights, directors and actors sponsored by the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the National Commission for Culture and

the Arts, and the Writers Bloc. "I couldn't focus much on writing," says the two-time Palanca awardee. She says the DepEd fiasco affected her. Tan was also hurt by Pilor's hands-off stance. "No one seemed to be at fault. Logically, how could that be when it's a multimillion-dollar project?" "The DepEd wrote that they already informed Book Wise about the matter. So, in other words, they're not answering directly our demand. They're pointing [the] finger at Book Wise," says Tan's lawyer. "Elodie Cada, based on her letters, admitted that she did not ask for permission. So there is no question that she is liable. The publisher will also be liable because they are the ones who published the textbook without verifying whether the authors there had given permission," he says. Cada wrote a letter of apology, but instead of appeasing Tan, she felt insulted that it was printed in blue ink and was also fraught with errors. "It was so insincere," Tan says. Cada's second letter partly read: "How I wish I could talk to you and personally ask my apology for the things I did ... How I wish I could iron things out and make proper action regarding the book I wrote. I hope I can make things better by asking permission to adapt the articles, stories and poems from the writers like you then I will be at peace." The DepEd has yet to answer a formal notice from Tan's lawyer to stop further printing and distribution of the English textbook, remove Tan's name as author of "Dreams for All" and refrain from using Tan's published works without her consent. The IMCS has long been taking the heat on the perennial problem of error-filled textbooks. It has been 12 years since textbook critic Go exposed the problem and nine secretaries have passed through the DepEd, but erroneous textbooks still remained. Catholic group takes action To address the quality of textbooks for private schools, the Catholic Education Association of the Philippines (CEAP) is forming a textbook review committee, which will be initially implemented in its member-schools in the National Capital Region. "We've gotten feedbacks about erroneous textbooks. Well, everybody knows that. The DepEd knows that. Schools know that. And there are groups advocating better textbook quality," says Msgr. Gerry Santos, CEAP president. "But there are good textbooks. We need, however, to distinguish between what's good and what's not. To do that, we need to use a template of principle and guidelines," he says. The CEAP plans to consult the National Book Development Board, the DepEd and an association of publishers. When it was pointed out that the DepEd is largely to be blamed for the error-filled textbooks, Santos said it was still the proper government agency to confer with. The DepEd under Lapus is bent on implementing reform measures to address the problems hounding textbook procurement, notably the "unbundled" bidding process, which was commended by World Bank. It cut cost in half and supposedly raised the quality of the textbooks by holding separate bidding for content and publication. The DepEd claimed that the English textbooks underwent a five-stage evaluation process. The English elementary textbooks were also supposedly reviewed by consultants from Ateneo de Manila University. In December last year, however, the Inquirer reported at least 300 errors in "English for You and Me" Grade 3 Reading, 80 in Grade 3 Language, 200 in Grade 4 Reading and 120 in Grade 4 Language. Go said he found more than 500 errors in the Grade 6 Reading. All these textbooks were published by Book Wise.

Mutilated, bastardized Time and again, the IMCS repeatedly defended the errors as mere poetic license that neither the book author nor the evaluator can alter. But the latest blunder of the DepEd division tasked with reviewing and approving textbooks uncovered a contradicting case. Cada did not just lift Tan's article, it was so drastically changed that Tan even felt that her essay was "mutilated" and "bastardized." Tan's legal counsel, who specializes in intellectual property, says: "As far as the case of Debbie is concerned, the point is that she has not authorized the publication of her article or any derivative thereof. "The fact that they did not get her authorization and neither has she consented to the publication and attribution of her name in relation to the piece that was printed in the textbook, it is a violation of her moral right as an author, which is given by the law on copyright." "In a way, [IMCS] is a co-principal because the book won't be published without its approval. All of them (Cada, Book Wise and IMCS) are liable because there would be no violation without their [consensual] participation," he says. It's not just a job Tan was initially hesitant to pursue the case because of the cost involved. She even takes public relations, editing, web design and commissioned writing jobs to help support her parents who live with her in a modest house in Quezon City. "But I need to put my protest on record," Tan says. "I'm speaking up to warn every writer in the Philippines that 'Hey, this could happen to you.' One day you're living a quiet life, then here you are, you have to fight for your name." "It was a hard road, 14 years of establishing myself," she says. "I struggled because I really want to write. It's painful on a deeper level because writing for me is not just a job, it's what my soul needs to do."