16 May 2021

Shortest Cut To High Intelligence And/Or Creativity – Reading!


Here is our good friend Ramon Yedra quoting Washington SyCip on PH public education: “So the emphasis on a good public education so that the poor can use education as an equalizer, that’s essential.”

From the EsquireFebruary 2012 issue[1], here is the more complete paragraph:

My father insisted that the whole family go to public school because public schools could compete. I went to Mapa High School and Burgos Elementary School. I could compete with any La Salle or Ateneo graduate. Nowadays, you cannot. So the emphasis on a good public education so that the poor can use education as an equalizer, that’s essential.

I was thinking of overhauling the whole public school system, but no, let us simplify.

I went to a private institution, attending the high school department of Rizal Junior College(RJC) – which practiced liberal education, even if they did not call it that. The secret? RJC had a welcoming library full of book classics American and British, and American magazines: Look, Newsweek, Reader's Digest, TIME. My best teacher was not a person – it was the Reader's Digest. Some lessons: How to think, how to write, how to enjoy life.

I am a UP Los Baños BS Agriculture graduate major in Ag Edu. Among other things, I taught myself to be a creative as well as a critical writer. Inspired thus by our good friend Ramon:

I am proposing the simplest and fastest change in PH schools – from high school to college – Put up libraries well-stocked with classics (books) and old copies of American magazines, including of course National Geographic.

Who am saying all that? Here is this bold claim of mine that is at least 5 years old and in public, in my blog Creative Thinkering:

“World's creative genius online,
most prolific writer of non-fiction:
Frank A Hilario, Guru”

Thank God, going on 81, since January 2020, I have blogged every single day an essay of a minimum 500 words each – I have created several blogs along the way, the latest being: Asa Ka Pa!, Brave New World, THiNK DiFFERENT, and the latest ToCA: Towards Organic Cooperative Agriculture. (But now I have gone back to Brave New World as you can see the name above what you’re reading.) The blog names themselves will tell you how I think about what I think.

Encourage students to write, yes – but before that, encourage them to read first. They will not be able to appreciate their own writing if they have not read brilliant or creative or inspirational writing from first-rate writers and/or first-rate minds.

Since 2005, I have blogged at least 5,000 long essays of 1,000+ words each – and that is not a joke. And I have published at least 10 books authored by me, subjects from ICRISAT science to Indios Bravos: Jose Rizal As Messiah Of The Revolution.

A good education is on Thinking. A good education in thinking is Reading. Want to write like crazy? Read like crazy! That’s how to open many windows – then you can choose the one(s) you love.@517



[1]https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/what-ive-learned/we-remember-washington-sycip-through-his-words-of-wisdom-a00011-a1521-a1881-20171008-lfrm

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