Teacher & Writer, Here I Am Reinventing Teaching Twice, Including In Agriculture!

Must be mind-shaking. Yes, I brainstormed 2 new educational terms – Critical teaching and Creative teaching – early this morning Thursday, 04 November 2021. Now, world universities can realize inseparable double roles in teaching taking advantage of the Internet. This is a Filipino agriculturist speaking, UP '65, self-taught critical teacher and creative teacher.
(self-thinking photograph with Lumix FZ100 camera 17-08-17 at 7 AM)

My surprising brainstorming results I now call The Two Thinkings were stimulated by reading former PhilRice Executive Director Eufemio Rasco’s Facebook sharing of Fr Ranhilio Callangan Aquino’s opinion piece, “The Apostolate Of Academics And Professors[1]” (03 November 2021, Manila Times).
(Above, Fr  Aquino’s Facebook image)

I find the whole premise of Fr Aquino’s essay in his very first paragraph with these words:

It is time for professors and academics to sally forth from their classrooms and from libraries to engage in the apostolate of restoring rationality to political discourse in our country.

Googling, I learn that Roman Catholic Fr Aquino is currently Dean of San Beda Graduate School of Law. Which points to me either-or-both contradiction or conjunction: Creative Thinking (belief in the existence of God is beyond instruction) with Critical Thinking (insistence in the logic and laws of men is beyond intuition).

I repeat Fr Aquino’s injunction: “It is time… to engage in the apostolate of restoring rationality to political discourse.” Rationality, note: Fr Aquino is here invoking critical thinking only, and excluding creative thinking.

I do not blame him. I blame the university from where he graduated – I also blame my alma mater, the University of the Philippines Los Baños for teaching only critical thinking – or scientific thinking, whatever.

Fr Aquino insists, “Professors and academics must heed the clarion call to return rationality to political discourse.” And I insist that that is only half of the equation, Father; political discourse must cover not only the rational but outside the rational – the intuitive, gut feel, visceral, subconscious – from where the creative juice flows.

Father, the problem with political discourse today is that it is all from the outer voice and none from the inner voice!

Fr Aquino says, “Scholars… should now re-channel their drive into that moral fortitude that allows them to be defenders of rationality in the face of its alarming decadence.” Excuse me Father, but we now must invoke intuition with rationality; rationality is only half, and not even the better half of the political equation.

Creative-thinking Fr Aquino also says:

Much closer to home, academics should train their sights on the dismal state of education in the Philippines.

And our experience with alternative delivery systems while Covid forced us indoors should serve us in good stead… that there are sites of delivery besides the classroom, and other modes of instruction besides the boring narration of teachers and the peroration of professors hopelessly in love with their own voices.

“There are sites of delivery besides the classroom” – thank God for the information superhighway! I say: Educators should now take advantage of digital power pursuing both critical and creative teachings.@517

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[1]https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/11/03/opinion/columns/the-apostolate-of-academics-and-professors/1820721?fbclid=IwAR0XsixSaDABlfGlMX13x_iBIaJ8rkWvEyyuAGSRBSDgSvCarN2vbc0rync