The wrong lesson

By Herman M. Lagon

Most people attend review sessions expecting answers. One aspiring teacher left with more questions. What began as a discussion about the drug war eventually became a conversation about discernment, human dignity, and the example being set before future teachers.

I have never believed that teachers should leave their political views at the classroom door. They are citizens too. They vote, they care about public issues, and they are entitled to their convictions. That is not what concerns me.

What gives me pause is when personal loyalties start crowding out the deeper obligations of teaching. Future educators need to see that good teachers do not fear difficult questions. They welcome them because that is often where the best learning begins. Education is not about defending personalities. It is about helping people understand the world more deeply and humanely.

You are expected to bring sound judgment.

You are expected to bring intellectual honesty.

You are expected to bring respect for human dignity.

You are expected to bring professionalism.”

Those were the first words that came to mind after reading an article written by my former Calculus student, Arniel Clarite, a newly graduated educator and former Editor-in-Chief of The Sea Treasure, our campus school paper. His piece was not a political manifesto. It was not a personal attack. It was not even particularly angry. It was something far more unsettling. It was the account of a future teacher who asked a question in a review session and found himself disturbed not by the answer alone, but by what that answer seemed to reveal.

As Arniel tells the story, the incident happened during a Contemporary World review session. The discussion reportedly included the lecturer’s support for former President Rodrigo Duterte and her favorable view of his anti-drug campaign. That alone should not alarm anyone. At the right venue, citizens are free to support leaders they believe in. The concern arose from what followed and what it appeared to suggest.

What disturbed Arniel was not only the answer but what seemed to lie behind it: the suggestion that children who died could be casually presumed guilty or reduced to collateral damage. Once innocence becomes secondary to a political narrative, something essential is lost. If that is an accurate account, then the issue is no longer about political preference. It becomes about how we value human life and what future teachers are being taught to accept as normal.

What struck me most was not the answer itself but the setting in which it was allegedly given. This was not a political rally. It was not a partisan gathering. It was a review session for future teachers. And the subject being discussed was Contemporary World. Of all courses, it should be comfortable living in the gray areas. The real world is rarely black and white, and neither are the issues it explores. From globalization and governance to inequality and human rights, the course is meant to help learners understand complexity, not escape from it. It should challenge simplistic thinking, not reward it.

Paulo Freire, one of the most influential educational thinkers of the twentieth century, warned against what he called the “banking model” of education. In that model, students become containers into which approved ideas are deposited. They are expected to receive, memorize, and repeat. Freire believed education should do the opposite. It should develop critical consciousness. It should help students think beyond easy answers and ask better questions. Education is not about obedience. It is about understanding.

That is why Arniel’s question matters. Notice what he asked. He did not ask about popularity ratings. He did not ask about election results. He did not ask about political strategy. He asked about children. In a room talking about law enforcement, public order, and governance, he instinctively thought about the most vulnerable. He thought about children. Politics often pushes us to choose sides. His question did something different. It asked us to remember the people caught in the middle. Whatever one’s political beliefs, that is an instinct worth respecting.

The troubling part is that future teachers learn far more than the content being presented. They learn from examples. They learn from tone. They learn from how authority responds to disagreement. A review lecturer may spend an hour discussing theories and concepts, but students often remember the moments in between. They remember whether questions were welcomed or discouraged. They remember whether complexity was explored or avoided. They remember whether compassion was treated as a strength or a weakness. Modeling matters. Sometimes it matters more than the lesson itself.

To be clear, this is not about requiring educators to be politically neutral. Teachers are citizens. They vote. They hold opinions. They have convictions. Complete neutrality is neither realistic nor necessarily desirable. What professionalism requires is something different. It requires fairness. It requires intellectual honesty. It requires the ability to distinguish between personal preference and responsible teaching. Most importantly, it requires a commitment to human dignity, even when discussing controversial issues.

What’s even more troubling is when educational spaces start to normalize the idea that innocent suffering can be rationalized away. Once we get used to treating human beings as collateral damage, we risk losing something vital. There are countless examples throughout history of civilizations justifying injury in the name of order, development, security or ideology. It is educators who should be among the first to realize that threat, not among the last. The role of education is not to make students more obedient to power. It is to make them more thoughtful about how power is exercised.

Perhaps that is why Arniel’s article resonated with so many readers. Beneath the political context was a larger question about what kind of teachers we are forming. Are we preparing educators who encourage inquiry, reflection, and discernment? Or are we producing teachers who value conformity more than critical thought? The distinction is important. The students in those review rooms today will soon be standing before learners of their own, carrying with them the lessons—spoken and unspoken—they acquired along the way.

In the end, this conversation is not really about Duterte. It is not about one reviewer. It is not even about one review center. It is about whether education still has the courage to defend critical thinking in an age of easy certainties. It is about whether future teachers are being taught to think deeply or simply to repeat confidently. Most of all, it is about whether our classrooms remain places where difficult questions can be asked without fear.

When a classroom begins valuing allegiance more than discernment, something important is lost. A classroom should never become a place where difficult questions are feared or dismissed. Its purpose is not to produce followers. Its purpose is to form thoughtful, reflective, and compassionate human beings.

Perhaps that is why Arniel’s question refuses to go away. Not because it was political. Not because it was controversial. But because it asked something painfully simple.

What do we do when a child’s death becomes easier to explain than to mourn?

A Contemporary World classroom should never teach future teachers how to answer that question quickly. It should teach them why they must never stop wrestling with it.

Because before students learn how to debate issues, analyze policies, or interpret history, they should learn that every person ha dignity, value, and worth. That lesson is not an extra. It is the foundation.

In the end, the lesson Arniel was looking for may not have been about politics at all.

It was about conscience.

***

Doc H fondly describes himself as a ”student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.