The avalanche effect

Reading and learning are dangerous. It needs just a little article on facebook and your curiosity triggers. Today one of my linked “fb friends” called “Hibok-Hibok Rocks” wrote about Hibok-Hibok volcano. 

In his text he mentioned a book written by a Brittish engineer, Frederic H. Sawyer: “The Inhabitants of the Philippines”. Although his facebook text had been linked to recent Mayon explosion, he  turned the readers to Mount Hibok-Hibok. 

Being rather familiar with our volcano, I was much more interested in the source of the text and the pictures. Poking around on the web I found that the “PROJECT GUTENBERG” had published this book and it is free to download ,to read and to redistribute.

I started reading … I suggest you do it also! Here it is 

I just started reading when already in the preface I stumbled over a sentence that made me again curious: 

“It seems to have been left to French and German contemporary writers, such as Dr. Montano and Professor Blumentritt to show a more appreciative, and the author thinks, a fairer spirit, than those who have requited the hospitality of the Filipinos by painting them in the darkest colours.”

Blumentritt? I always wondered about that funny name of a Metro Manila LRT railway station. Now I know! Read it here 

While reading, I wondered why José Rizal’s heritage does not find its way into today’s Philippines schools. It’s so easy and costs nothing to get information about the Philippines history. But school kids do not know about it. Many of those kids have access to internet, many of those kids have even a smartphone, but Sawyer, Montano or Blumentritt they do not know. And Rizal? They do not like his books because they have to read them in school. But they read facebook every 5 minutes. Maybe we should publish much more literature on facebook.

The avalanche effect: If you are curious, you read one word and then stumble over more words and then you get crushed by an avalanche of new information.

My advice to teachers nationwide:
1. Be curious
2. Make your pupils curious
3. Make free books available in your school