A Constant Search for Knowledge

Joseph Lawrence P. Barotac

The global pandemic poses a great threat in the sphere of academic education. This is proven by the recent and abrupt adjustments in the start of classes and the alternative delivery modes of lessons implemented by the Department of Education. While the threat of the global pandemic is true, we are left with an imperative dilemma: “Should we continue education or should we resort to academic freeze?”

In order to possess a comprehensive understanding of this problematic question, we should look at the global situation in the light of philosophy. We bleakly ask if we should stop education. But our human desire for knowledge will rather ask, can we stop education? Can we stop learning? Can we stop our search for knowledge, truth and meaning? Epictetus, a stoic philosopher in Rome, once said that lameness is an impediment to the body but not to the faculty of choice. We can experience physical disability but our ability to comprehend will never cease to work. We experience a lot of challenges in this global pandemic. Teachers for example are faced with a great task of resorting to other modalities of learning in order to educate the students. This requires great adjustment and flexibility because educating since time immemorial, has been executed in a face to face set up. Students on the other hand experience different kinds of problems due to the pandemic. Some struggle with the absence of classroom instruction while others are trying to reconcile the reality of having to attend online classes even with the limited resources they have. Their difficulty springs from the poverty of life in our country.

Now, given all of the sufferings that we are experiencing. Can learning really stop? Academic freeze is a possibility here in our country, but the stoppage of acquiring knowledge can never happen. Metaphysics will teach us that knowledge is rooted in the radical dynamism of the human spirit. This means that as humans, we possess an unrestricted drive to know things and to search for knowledge and truth. It is in our constant search for knowledge that our essence as humans comes to its full fruition. We have the freewill to succumb to the problems brought about by this pandemic or we can choose to transcend our humanity by constantly educating ourselves amidst this turbulent time.

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The author is Administrative Assistant III at Department of Education, Division

of City of San Fernando