You go to school to be able to get ahead. Your school is your training ground for life. It is there where you will learn stronger habits to follow routine, to obey rules, to get along with people, to subordinate your ideas and wishes to those of others. It is there where you will be able to find out if you can be a good leader or a good follower. It is there where you will form new ideas, attitudes and ideals resulting from daily contact with your teachers and classmates. There too, through your class work you will acquire more skills in doing things. You can just imagine how fortunate you are being in school now, unlike these people – the Matigsalog – who are out of school.
Sitio Namnam is in the southernmost part of Davao City. It is where the Matigsalog tribe is situated. It is a rural community. You think of a cluster of nipa huts in a place surrounded by many trees, a brook with bamboo trees shading its banks, and people bathing near and in those brooks while goats and chicken feed on the grasses nearby. Your picture of their place and how they live is not wrong. The population there is increasing fast. Women as young as sixteen already have two children. They have no other things to do than to populate. As they increase, their resources decrease, and will eventally be lost if they will not be properly educated on how to conserve them and also on how to control their number. You think of education as the key. You are not wrong again.
Most of the Matigsalog children and young people ar not in school. Even if some are, the highest level they can reach is grade three that is the sad trend in their tribe. You are somehow right to say that it is not just because of lack of money but because poeple there are lazy and a bit indifferent. Most of them are qiute backward in their mode of living, backward in the sense that they are slow in adopting modern ways.They are also superstitious. They have superstitions regarding a number of activities - birth, delivery, puberty, marriage, death, planting and going on a journey - which are partially responsible for their slowness in adopting modern and more scientific practices.
They indeed need education for their community to prosper and for their future generation. This could not only make their lives better but can also determine to a great extent the degree of prosperity they can enjoy. There is no other place that you can get a proper education, but only in school.
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