Poisoning the minds of children is ok?

[sage]

I don't get it.

Why was Mr. Calipjo Go subjected to libel suits by publishers, authors and the DepEd?  He was wrong?

I saw for myself the Grade 5 English book being used by public schools which is labelled not for sale and is mandated for use by the DepEd.  The book says the following words are homonyms:  gripe/grip;eat/it, three/tree, branch/brunch, for/fur.  Duh?!  The last pair can only be homonyms if "for" is uttered in rapid speech but generally "for" should be partnered with "fore" and "four." 

The same book has this scientific statement: Birds sing for the joy of it.  Birds sing for other purposes but such songs are not used for communication.  I'm still trying to process this and I happen to be a Biology graduate.  Oh, another statement is "turtles are slow but sure animals."   Ooookay. Yes, in the context of Aesop's but as a general statement it sounds stupid.  I saw a list compiled by Mr. Go and I must say if people in the education industry do not see the mistakes can we just boycott local textbooks?   They don't see the errors?  Really??? I only learned recently libel suits were filed against Mr. Go.  I also read that for DepEd, 3 major errors in textbooks still deserve a rating of excellent.  What a load of crock! This isn't like getting 97 out of 100 is still okay psycobabble so kids don't think they have to be perfect all the time.

They are poisoning our children's minds.   We are breeding a population of imbeciles and idiots who will think that all fish have lungs, plants are self-planters, dreams make the world go around, animals sacrifice their lives for peopleand, bring peace to the world or create color and harmony to humankind.

I am going to be sick.

If anyone says to me, well, there's such a thing now as World Englishes and this is part of what is Philippine English...  I'm gonna beat the livin' daylights out of him!  Do not use this as an excuse.

Boycott local textbooks.  Instead, let us find a way to ask for rights to locally print imported books.  There are many good ones out there because I have seen them.

Adding years to our educational system isn't worth squat if our textbooks are garbage and our teachers are lousy and also products of the same trashy instructional materials!

Back to my question.  Why the libel suit?  They really really didn't think they were wrong?   This country is so doomed...

[Miss Mae]

I wonder why no one replied to this post yet when 33 people have already read it.

I assumed it's because no one can practically do anything about this problem. I remember my college professor who told us about his correspondence with the Department of Education (DepEd). He had asked them why is the department so keen in providing a computer for each student. The DepEd answered that it does not want our generation to lag in the 21st century. My professor retorted that how could it even consider the future timeline when most Filipinos haven't had their taste of the 20th century yet.

The thing is, almost everybody in his or her right mind is doing something. But each one can only do so much. Probably the DepEd preferred to address meeting every Filipino student obvious needs first. Quantity versus quality.

Probably too, there is just a dearth for able grammarians and writers in this 7, 107 islands. Maybe you could help?

In the end, as my friend said, it all boils down to one thing: pray. Not so bad if we would also do something.

[Joe Carillo]

In your posting, you said:

"Probably too, there is just a dearth for able grammarians and writers in this 7, 107 islands. Maybe you could help?

"In the end, as my friend said, it all boils down to one thing: pray. Not so bad if we would also do something."

Prayers might help, but it's much better to do something about the problem, as you say. Kuyerjudd, a new Forum member, has admirably taken a step in that direction. He has just made a posting in the Forum that specifically identifies problematic entries in an English-usage book written by Filipino professors of the same school where it is prescribed as reference. Check out his posting by clicking this link to "Can I just burn our English book already?"

[bridex]

Those books should be screened by able grammarians hired for the purpose (if there are none in the DepEd) before they are purchased.  I hope the new Education Secretary does something about it.