[OPINION] Smart-shaming the 'un-smart': Is that the best we can do?
Toxic culture wears different masks, the worst being the face that chokes on its excuses.
Let’s talk about Tony Dizon, the teacher who appeared in the noontime television program, It’s Showtime. Think about his academic achievements. As we have witnessed, they were things he was openly proud of. He wanted the world to know that his hard work had paid off. If I were him, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
He’s a student enrolled in a doctoral degree program in educational leadership. That in itself is a tall order for anyone who teaches in a country whose degree of comprehension borders on the attention span of roadkill.
He has been teaching for eight years—eight years! That’s practically a lifetime to a honey-glazed donut chaser, that is, if you begin at the age of arthritis. Teaching also comes with serious occupational hazards, namely, voice disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and contact dermatitis, according to the European Educational Research Association.
Let’s not even go to where teachers are paid leftover microplastics, if at all.
Mr. Dizon likewise spoke for the Philippines at a research conference in Seoul National University in South Korea, the only Filipino to have presented a paper there in 2023. Did that not trigger in you some shape or form of respect for the young man?
After having been berated, vilified, and even threatened online for giving the wrong answer to a fairly simple question, allow me this query: Would you have given the right answer? Under the blaring lights of a television studio, the menacing eyes of several cameras, and hundreds or so of the live audience ogling at your forehead? Under three minutes?
And with an estimated three million or more views from its livestream alone?
I guess not. I once appeared on TV, and believe me, it didn’t work for me any more than it worked for Mr. Dizon. But I did have one good excuse: I didn’t have his credentials.
Sorry to rupture your burps, folks, but I just have to get this out of my chest. A PhD or a masteral degree does not make anyone an error-free brainiac. They know more than the average skunk, no doubt, but under pressure to prove themselves, they’re oftentimes no sharper than the doofus-next-door.
There are very few people I personally know who are out-and-out cerebral, and with an eidetic memory to boot, but even they sometimes fall shy of what a brand new Z8 can do.
So, why is smart-shaming such a clickbait?
I guess we could all blame the deadly mix of democracy and social media for that. When the loudest of social media users consists of the mugs and the boors, the clots and the creeps, what can we expect?
We live in a country where we spend more time stuck in horrendous traffic than trafficking facts. Falling in line at the MRT and LRT snatches away huge opportunities to get the brain growing additional synaptic connections.
We scroll our phones more than we read. We listen to redundant lyrics more than we build our vocabulary. We allow stress to get the better of us by pulling to pieces most every comment posted on your Facebook account, with the exception of comments from your meddling aunt. There’s simply too much cola in our bloodstream.
We can all choke on our sugary diet and excuses, but they don’t exonerate anyone from bad behavior. In short, we all make stupid mistakes—teachers, too. Live with it.
But, people who are learned, or claim to be learned, are likewise expected to act and think the way learned people do. And flexing one’s credentials in public like that produces preposterous expectations.
Mistakes are fine, but only when the question deals with how the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein can deconstruct the phenomenology of existence using abstract mathematical language, and associate it with what Martin Heidegger calls subjective consciousness.
When the mediocre goot can answer quicker and better than you can on the subject of who the first woman president of the country was, you know you just failed the budget hearing.
So, for those with Latin honors, doctorates, academic titles, those who have touched the skies, remember this: There’s a world of difference between being smart and slogging your way through a doctoral program. The former means being quick to the draw.
Besides, true intellectual honesty breeds humility above all.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of PhilSTAR L!fe, its parent company and affiliates, or its staff.