Education and School Activities
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING
Introduction Every developing society must aim at free, compulsory universal education as the highest national priority. However, considerable analysis of the education process is required if the enormous effort that this objective implies is to prove worthwhile. Education is normally thought of as the process by which the formalized knowledge of a society is passed on its young through institutions of learning of one sort or another. It has however a wider connotation implying all the means by which the youth are prepared for the adult experience and, indeed, the young and not so young equipped to play their part in society. It is in this wider sense that extra- curricular activities be considered along with education in developing the country. Obviously, for a country like Philippines, education is crucial since every aspect of our society reflects the failure to achieve a harmony between aspiration and performance or even between the existence of resources and their use. For students, therefore, it is not enough that education should transmit our accumulated knowledge and skill from one generation to the next, because most of our difficulties can be traced to the inadequacy of our skills and the misdirection of our knowledge. Accordingly, education cannot be neutral; the educational process cannot consist of mere techniques for transmitting knowledge. These activities other than those in the curriculum help students to overtake expectations so that, by engaging these resources, students can transform both the focus of one’s attitudes and the nature of their skills. Hence, education along with extra-curricular activities is the key to what must be an act of self-transformation. Right at the outset, it is necessary to clarify a philosophical question about extra-curricular activities in school, which cannot be left unanswered. There is a view of these activities, which seems to imply that the process
THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING
Introduction Every developing society must aim at free, compulsory universal education as the highest national priority. However, considerable analysis of the education process is required if the enormous effort that this objective implies is to prove worthwhile. Education is normally thought of as the process by which the formalized knowledge of a society is passed on its young through institutions of learning of one sort or another. It has however a wider connotation implying all the means by which the youth are prepared for the adult experience and, indeed, the young and not so young equipped to play their part in society. It is in this wider sense that extra- curricular activities be considered along with education in developing the country. Obviously, for a country like Philippines, education is crucial since every aspect of our society reflects the failure to achieve a harmony between aspiration and performance or even between the existence of resources and their use. For students, therefore, it is not enough that education should transmit our accumulated knowledge and skill from one generation to the next, because most of our difficulties can be traced to the inadequacy of our skills and the misdirection of our knowledge. Accordingly, education cannot be neutral; the educational process cannot consist of mere techniques for transmitting knowledge. These activities other than those in the curriculum help students to overtake expectations so that, by engaging these resources, students can transform both the focus of one’s attitudes and the nature of their skills. Hence, education along with extra-curricular activities is the key to what must be an act of self-transformation. Right at the outset, it is necessary to clarify a philosophical question about extra-curricular activities in school, which cannot be left unanswered. There is a view of these activities, which seems to imply that the process