RIZALIANA FILIPINA: “THE TEACHER”

Topical Paper

Submitted by:

Ferlyn Arkaye R. Padillan

John Exequiel T. Imson

Carol Mae E. Palmos

PSY 4 Y 1 – 3
I. The Right to Education

Upon seeing the condition of the people, that condition made Rizal conclude that
education should be top priority. Unless education was wrested away from the hands of the
friars, the school, instead of becoming an instrument of liberation, it will continue to be used
as an instrument of enslavement. Education was the main concern of Jose Rizal. It had been
his lifelong concern of the preparation for the attainment of independence.

In El Filibusterismo, Rizal stated, “With Spain or without Spain, they would always
be the same and perhaps worse! Why independence, if the slaves today will be tyrants of
tomorrow? And that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits tyranny
loves it.” Rizal believed in the effectivity of education as solution to the social, political and
economic problems of the country. He was convinced that reforms were possible through
education and liberty.

In defending the right of Filipinos to education, Rizal appealed to the good sense of
Spanish Authorities not to be begrudging the education of the Filipinos. In the letter of Rizal
to Blumentritt, Rizal said: “We believe that the cause of our backwardness is and ignorance
is the lack of means of education. We are all human and we can improve ourselves through
education and culture.”

Rizal expressed his desire to found a school to carry out his aspiration for the
Filipinos: “When we shall have obtained this (Philippine representation in the Spanish
Cortes) concession, then we shall rest and devote our strength to the education of our
people which is my supreme aspiration."
II. Education for the Masses

Rizal only wishes the education for the masses. Rizal shared his educational views
with Blumentritt. On one occasion he told the German scholar about his dream of
establishing a school in his hometown Calamba, Laguna to carry out his aspiration of
educating his people. At another time he wrote the same good doctors about the efforts of
Filipino leaders in education the masses.

In advocating the education of the masses, Rizal pleaded for the education of the
adults. In a conversation in El Filibusterismo, between Isagani, the leader of the students,
and Senor Pasta, the lawyer whom the friars consulted in their difficulties, on the
indifference of the Spanish authorities in granting the student’s petition for the opening of
an academy to teach Castilian, Rizal embarked through Isagani: “We cannot all be doctors, it
is necessary that some of us cultivate the soil. We must follow everyone’s own personal
inclination.”

“Mass education is therefore a must in a free society.” Rizal emphatically expressed this idea
in the Noli Me Tangere when he said, “The school is the basis of the society, the school is the
book in which is written the future of the Nation! Show us the school of the people and we
shall show you what people are.”
III. Rizal’s School

Rizal is a promoter of education as a necessary condition in a free society, necessary

in the pursuance of liberty.

The admission Test

Rizal’s school, like any other school today, devised an admission test each applicant
had to hurdle. But this admission test is very different from this present day. The entrance
exam was unique. Towards the dusk Rizal would take the applicant for a walk in the woods,
and when he could do so without the student noticing it, leave his walking stick behind.
Before nightfall the two would return to the school grounds, and when it was completely
dark, Rizal would casually mention that his cane was missing. Remembering where he had
left it, he will send this applicant to fetch the walking stick. By this time, the older students,
in collusion with Rizal, were already hiding in the forest, waiting for the initiate to come by.
As soon as the unsuspecting student was deep in the woods, they would make strange
sound and swing their lanterns to cast eerie spots of light. Many frightened applicants
returned to the house saying he could not find the cane. Although Rizal would reassure him
it was not important, the following day, he would send the boy home with a note of regret
telling his parents that the class was full. Only those boys who came back with the stick were
admitted to the school.
IV. The Curriculum

When Rizal put up his school in Dapitan, he designed a curriculum that would teach students
to “behave like men.”

Primary Education - Primary education is fundamental in the education of masses. The

Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that education should be free in the
elementary and fundamental stages.

Vocational Education - During his stay in Barcelona, he visited a clay, glass and porcelain
factory. He wrote to his parents and brother his desire to study practical mechanics,
trade, agriculture, and science.

College Education - Rizal prepared a plan for a college to be established in hong Kong. It
included a progressive curriculum offering subjects which would provide for
physical, academic, vocational, aesthetic, and moral development.

European educational system taught him that science was the key to industrial progress.

Curriculum would offer subjects on health and physical.

Courses that would develop their artistic talents and aesthetic sense.

Courses on etiquette to refine their manners and social behavior, and vocational subjects to
prepare them for gainful occupation.

To accomplish these objectives, the following subjects would be taught:

 1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year 5th year

Morals Mathematics History Spanish Gymnastic

Study of Religions Physic and Philippine History English Horse riding

Chemistry

Natural Law Natural History Logic French Fencing

Civil Law Geography Rhetoric and German Swimming

Poetics

Deportment Political Economy Chinese Music

Hygiene Dance Tagalog Dance

Rizal’s curriculum also included the ff. features:

Academic Freedom - In a letter to his parents about the expulsion of of Dr. Miguel
Morayta from the Universidad Central de Madrid because of his speech on the
academic freedom of the professor, Rizal said: “Knowledge ought to be free and
professor as well.”

The school curriculum would develop the potentials of the students.

The curriculum would promote the dignity of the individual and thus no corporal
punishment would be inflicted.

The curriculum would inspire learning by encouraging a wholesome class competition.

The curriculum would emphasize the great importance of personal discipline.

The curriculum would emphasize the “science of life “ or learn to live with others by
respecting the rights of others.
 The curriculum would stimulate arts and letters.

The curriculum would meet the demands of modern time.

V. Rizal as Teacher

Rizal first and foremost was an educator, a teacher. Even at the early age of 16, at the
Ateneo, Rizal already wrote a poem on education entitled “Por La Educacion.”

And his poem “El Amor patrio,” Rizal urged Filipinos to seek progress through education, to
be proud of being Filipinos.

He had his own ideas of the desirable qualities of a teacher, from his qualification, training,
and preparation, selection, professional growth, tenure, even his salary. As summarized by
Esteban A. Ocampo, Rizal stressed that:

A teacher should pass the appropriate competitive examination.

He must have mastery of his subject matter.

He must have initiative and resourcefulness.

He must be kind and “cultivate in the children confidence, assurance, and some personal
ride.”

He must grow profession, for “any kind of work done in disgust and shame is a kind of
martyrdom.”

And “in order to be heeded and to maintain his authority, the teacher needs, prestige,
reputation, moral strength, and some kind of freedom action.”
VI. The Innovations and Challenges to the Present Higher Education in the Philippines

Pablo S. Trillana III discusses the following implications of Rizal’s concept of education for
higher education

Here are some of his recommendation inspired by Rizal:

Study paradigm shifts as part of the school curriculum

Study the future of the science of alternative scenarios

Develop multi-tasking

Anchor and core curriculum on a strong liberal arts education

Develop the ambiance of education and strengthen a school celebratory culture, and
transform the school into a place for community commitment
VII. Rizal’s Strategy for Liberation

As a liberal, Rizal proposed that the individual must be educated so that he could be
unshackled from ignorance and irrationality.

Dr. Antonio de Morga in his Succesos de Las Islas Filipinas noted that there were no
illiterates in this island. The adults that he met could all read and write in their own
system of writing.

Not only did Filipinos lose their literacy. They lost much more. Wrote Rizal in the “The
Philippines, A Century Hence”:

Seeing this condition of the people, Rizal concluded that education should be top priority.

In a manifesto he wrote while exiled at Fort Santiago, he emphasized the value of education:

“I place as a prior condition of the education of the people, that by means of instruction and
industry, they may have a personality of their own and make themselves worthy of these
liberties.”

Rizal reiterated his insistence on education as an important ingredient in the tas on

nation building. This is evident in the word of Padre Florento in the Fili:

“Liberty must be secured by making worthy of it, by exalting the intelligence and the dignity
of the individual by loving, justice, right and greatness, even to the extent dying for them.”

And through Ibarra’s word in the Noli, Rizal said:

“ I desire a country’s welfare; therefore I would build a schoolhouse. I seek to be means of
instruction, be progressive advancement; without light there is no road”.

VIII. Rizal as a Physical educator

Jose Rizal started to show his potential to sports when he was sent to Binan in June
1869 and accompanied by Paciano who acted as his second father. He was brought to the
school of Maestro Justiniano Aquino Cruz to study. According to the stories of his Maestro,
there was by the name Pedro who once bullied him. As a typical type of bullying, he made
fun of Rizal and insulted him in front of many children. Having a high regard and respect of
himself, he challenged Pedro to a fistfight to prove himself and regain the lost respect. He
wrestled Pedro furiously inside the classroom. Jose learned the art of wrestling from his
Uncle Manuel, the reason he was able to beat the bigger boy who bullied him. Uncle
Manuel, a huge man who loved sports above everything else, took Jose in hand and taught
him athletics. Jose was very fortunate, because even if he was undersized and frail, his Uncle
Manuel had not torn him from his books and led him out into the joys of sports. Jose was
able to build up health and muscle and to form habits of daily exercise that kept him fit
through the terrible years which followed. He learned to run, to jump, to fence, and to swim.
Gradually, as he was growing up, he developed those skills.

When Rizal visited Japan he fell in love with Osei San, whose father also plays Kodokan style
of Judo. In his desire to attract his girl, he decided to enrol and learned the rudiment of the
sport. His exile to Dapitan gave him the opportunity to practice the educational theories he
learned from his travel around the world. He opened a school of judo for seventeen boys,
mostly sons of of the living citizens of the town. Aside from teaching his students the three
Rs, Rizal made his pupils do rigid physical training he learned while a judo student. With the
seashore serving as outdoor gymnasium, he and his pupils set up bodybuilding paraphernalia
composed of parallel bars, Roman ring and chinning bar. Together with his physical fitness
program, Rizal propagated the Japanese sport of judo, Spanish fencing, American boxing, the
native arnis and marksmanship. As a pistolero, he was a sharpshooter wherein he could hit a
target 20 meters away. As a fencer, he did it with Europeans and with Juan Luna and other
Filipino friends in Europe. As a chess player, he played and beat several German and
European friends and acquaintances. He also became interested in gymnastics but did not
pursue it.

Besides being a poet and novelist, Rizal was also a teacher and physical educator. He
harnessed and developed them to improve his knowledge, skills and talents which he used
not only for himself but shared them with other people.