Kids in the Philippines now have to spend two more years in public school. As if we needed more evidence that we have a government of child-hating psychos.
On the other hand, kids will have more time to hone unmarketable skills to a fine edge.
Silver lining: the additional years might make them more articulate. So they'll come up with all kinds of colorful ways to curse us for inflicting more mind-murdering "education" on them.
Few of us remember our Science lessons. Everybody remembers Mara Clara. Therefore, resurrect the character and have her teach Science.
Point one: Public education system, food, energy, trees, endangered animals: The more we revere something or regard it as a "human right", the worse we are at producing it. Dogs and chickens? They're everywhere. Tarsier? Eagle? Not so much.
Point two: Cellphones, junk food, noontime shows: We're great at making things that we don't consider sacred.
Conclusion: To improve culture, trivialize everything. Excellence will follow.
I'm grateful that Philippine culture doesn't regard cake as a fundamental human right. If it did, cake would taste like hepatitis. And we'd have cake shortages. And people would rally to lower the price of cake, and there would be a cake lobby. It would ruin the joyful spirit of cake altogether. And then I would have to write "Red Ribbon Shrugged" and be known as "that guy who writes for freedom of cake."
It must be so nice to own Red Ribbon.
One super simple way to make a public school teacher's job easier: Don't force her to spend hours a week hand-writing basically the same lesson plan over and over again. Yes, they actually do that. It's part of their routine. It's totally wasteful.
It's nice to have your own website. You can say whatever you want, and the worst that can happen is that you get reincarnated as a Panda.
Have you seen those cute Panda videos on YouTube? No speed, no strength, can't fend for themselves. It's hard to imagine them surviving in the wild. Unless they're nature's equivalent of bureaucrats.
Why do we keep saying environment-friendly? Why not just say human-friendly? The environment doesn't care how "friendly" our machines are. We can't hurt it.
I've been told that Filipinos are among the happiest people around. I've also heard that our government is one of the most corrupt. So it seems that we're a wonderful people in spite of our politics, not because of it. Maybe we should aim for a government that does less, not more. Less misery, more happiness.