Let Us Create Revolutions At The College Level!

Even given this Luzon Lockdown, I say our generation will be saved, not by those who follow the rules, but by those who break them!

(Revolution image from Huffpost[1])

The revolution will start at a startling place, the one where one expects discipline – higher education.

And the media will have to be there too, necessarily proving their higher relevance. Right now, the media is glaringly amiss in its choice of stories and choice of words. Note the headline in the above image:

“SEARCA Leader: Innovator-Leaders Is The Heart Of Agriculture 4.0,” a big story of BusinessMirrorwritten by ANN (Author Not Named, 16 March 2020[2])..Did you see that?! I checked and double-checked. Ah, No, and Yes! No, “innovator-leaders is…” is notcorrect; it should be “innovator-leaders are…”

Yes, innovator-leaders are the heart of Agriculture 4.0. In media, if you cannot even take care of your grammar, how can you be trusted to take care of the facts, much more so the ethics of a case or story? Media must now rebel against its own incongruence in the midst of the Digital Revolution!

Taking all that in, it will be the most difficult revolution of all
– A Revolution of the Hearts.

Director of SEARCA Glenn B Gregorio is the one saying it. He is speaking at the “Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (Seameo)-University of Tsukuba Symposium VIII” on 14 February 2020. His topic: “Curricular Imperatives In Developing Next-Generation Leaders of the Agriculture Sector in Southeast Asia.” SEARCA is the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture. The theme of the symposium was “Education for Inclusive Growth of Society 5.0.”

According to Mr Gregorio, the huge challenge for leaders in Southeast Asia is:

Preference for technology over human labor, security issues, reliability and stability of technologies, and the reluctance of people to change.

Complex issues: technical, social, personal – Mr Gregorio lumped them as “ethical concerns” and said they needed “to be addressed at the school level.”

“Addressed at the school level” – simple, yes? No, Mr Gregorio said:

Character education… becomes even more important as we usher in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution characterized by changes, innovations, and disruptions in the society due to the fast-paced innovation and technology development.

We are in fact experiencing right now “fast-paced innovation and technology development” that are good for us. On the other hand:

While these innovations and disruptions would mean increased productivity and efficiency, (they) could, in (other ways), negatively affect social identities, values, and established ethics.

And that is why, Mr Gregorio said:

We need innovators with big hearts to be the heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The way I see it, we need a Revolution of the Hearts – and Minds. I am thinking this will have to start at the Schools, Colleges & Universities, SCUs, those that understand technology and psychology – even if we have to teach those SCUs first!

I am thinking of the SCUs because they are in agriculture. Ah, this will be the start of something great!@517

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[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-entrepreneurial-revol_b_8915226

[2] https://businessmirror.com.ph/2020/03/16/searca-leader-innovator-leaders-is-the-heart-of-agriculture-4-0/