Quality teachers = quality education

Aside from the "No Prostitution Day," today, October 5, is also the "World Teachers' Day." This year's theme is "Build the Future: Invest in Teachers Now."

I think this year's celebration is well-themed. We should really invest in the teachers. We should give as much focus to improving their lot as we do to students. For what makes schools tick is neither air-conditioned classrooms nor nice textbooks. It's the quality of teachers.

A 2007 research done by McKinsey & Company argued that the reasons why some schools perform better than the others are that these schools: (1) get the right people to become teachers, (2) develop them into effective instructors, and (3) ensure that they are able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child.

The 21st century slavery

[caption id="attachment_1148" align="aligncenter" width="405" caption="On Tionko Avenue near the Central Bank, street-level prostitution is thriving."][/caption]

Among the places in Mindanao, Davao City is lucky enough to have been spared from the wars that continue to ravage its neighbors. But it has not been spared from what Nicholas Kristof, a Pulitzer prize-winning columnist in The New York Times, dubbed as the 21st century slavery—prostitution.

Today, October 5, Davao City is celebrating the “No Prostitution Day.” This is the fifth time that the city is celebrating it.

Does the celebration mark the end of prostitution?

The 10 Most Annoying English Grammar Errors by Jose Carillo (A Book Review)

If you approach a snake-oil vendor, he will tell you, without a moment's hesitation, that something's wrong with you, and that you better take his medicine. A medical doctor, by contrast, after performing a battery of tests, not only will tell what ails you, but also explains what causes your ailment. Then he will recommend the best cure possible.

Jose Carillo, the English-usage columnist of The Manila Times, is like the latter---he does not only point out the flaw(s) in a sentence, or in a paragraph, or in an entire composition, he explains as well how come it's wrong, and prescribes an antidote to avoid committing the same mistake again.

With a clinical eye of a doctor, Carillo diagnosed the recurrent---so recurrent that the author finds them annoying---grammar errors in his second English-usage book, "The 10 Most Annoying English Grammar Errors." (The first being "English Plain and Simple: No-Nonsense To Learn Today's Global Language"---which was given by the Manila Critics Circle a National Book Award.)

'When writers speak'

I admire Paul Krugman. Which is why I read his columns in New York Times and his blog, although some of them are hardly understandable, as far as my unlettered economic mind is concerned.

I admire Krugman's eloquence and the richness and power of his prose. But when I listen to him, I wonder if he's the same Krugman who writes the columns. When he talks, he stammers. Sometimes it takes him a long time to get his message across.



Still, Krugman has my admiration. After all, "writers don’t have to be brilliant conversationalists; it’s not their job to be smart except, of course, when they write," argues Arthur Krystal in his essay, "When Writers Speak."

Thanks for Sir Jose Carillo for the pointer.

Absurd

After insinuating the last time that the CHR 's public inquiry into the vigilante-style killings in Davao City is but politically motivated, a demolition job, a political harassment, 2nd District Councilor Danny Dayanghirang has now an absurd theory why the killings continue until today.

"The number of law violators in our city has not dwindled down, in fact, it is only increasing," said Dayanghirang in his Mindanao Times Op-Ed piece, "Davao residents in the losing end," which appeared on October 01, 2009. "This could be attributed to the never-ending investigation of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on the crimes in our city. The investigation of the CHR has made publicity to our city. Although we welcome the investigation of the CHR in order to purge the city from any misconception and to clear the name of the city, the slow paced investigation has only made the crime rate in the city grow. The criminal elements have shown its ugly head again, knowing that the investigation of the CHR would weaken the efficency of our police force."