Knowledge Production before the Age of Internet

In the 1990s, I attended high school and college classes where we would be periodically asked to “research” on some of the topics covered in the syllabi. This was before the age of Google and Wikipedia. 

Based on project-based learning, our subjects covered topics that would now and then require us to research from knowledge coming from the local community—interviews with the local people and yes, folk wisdom and social history.

In other words, not all the things we tackled in class come from the top-down knowledge flow led by the teacher. This was because these teachers—primarily those in the social sciences—did not rely on the textbook. In more senses, I have been a participant and witness to the rather lateral knowledge flow in the classroom. 

When classmates reported on legends culled from the local folks; or when we submitted interviews with overseas Filipino workers on economic diaspora; or when we asked our parents to become parts of answering questions related to family, we were being active components of the knowledge production. 

Once in our junior high school Practical Arts class which covered “Retail Merchandising”, I was asked to profile our local electric cooperative two rides away from our school campus. So I spent several afternoons rummaging through their archives and learning the dynamics of power distribution, and losses owing to jumpers and all other forms of pilferage, etc. 

I was fortunate to learn about the power supply in the process. It was participatory learning galore. 

For that project alone, I could say, I was not only assessed by my teacher but also appraised for efforts that rendered my output originality and authenticity inasmuch as it had come from the invaluable knowledge supplied by our local community.