Eloisa Jasmin F.

Perez
I2AC – Rizal

What are your thoughts on the weaknesses of both Spanish and Modern Educational system?

My thoughts on the weaknesses of Spanish educational system was that during the early
years of Spanish colonization, education was mostly religion oriented and controlled by the
Roman Catholic Church. The effect of education to the Filipinos was only compelled to the
friars' influences from their lessons based on the Christian Doctrines or teachings. The Spain’s
Educational system in our country were inadequate when it comes to having good and quality
facilities, suppressed by those who have power and, they controlled the life of the Filipinos. The
schools or Universities were under the control of the friars and most of the Indios or the
Filipinos in school before were victimized by the upper class. There has also been a lack of
classroom facilities and inadequate instructional materials, which have caused low academic
performance of their students. There are also no academic freedom which causes the Filipinos
to be deprived in school, they cannot pursue the truth because they were afraid from the Friars
– since they are known to be the most influential and powerful in their times. Whatever the
friars would do or would teach them, the Indios must always follow them, Indios will always be
left with no choice. Since the school before were exclusive to the Spanish Students and th
schools also limited their accommodations to the sons of wealthy Filipino families, sadly they
are always favored, while the Filipinos before are always discriminated. The language that they
used in their teaching was Spanish because these spaniards feared that the Filipinos would be
able to understand them, thus, will encourage the native Filipinos to rebel against them. The
friars still believed that the Filipinos would not be able to match their skills and that the only
way for the Filipinos to learn fast was to impose upon them strict discipline which means
applying corporal punishment. For this reason, the Filipinos became followers to the Spaniards
in their own country. Even auspicious Filipinos became cronies, to the extent that even their life
styles were patterned from the Spaniards.

On the other hand, the Modern Educational system is mainly digital and online. Since
we are already in the 21st century - under the innovated and developed technologies, we use
modern day gadgets in our daily living and we are free to browse different kinds of information
that we may want to know. Unfotunately, as we enjoy all of these, we tend to forget to have
social interaction, which caused the students today to experience barrier amongst one another,
it also disrupted the students’ to enhance their knowledge of literacy as well as their critical
thinking and problem solving skills. Their learning experiences adversely affected their
emotions causing them to have high level of frustration. Due to the pandemic that we are
currently facing as of today, students also isolated themselves from having interaction to one
another which led them to study alone. With lack of communication often leads to several
mental issues such as depression, anxiety and, having negative thoughts. It also affects the
students’ drive or motivation to study due to the lack of interpersonal touch between the
students and the teacher in the online classes. There is a need for physical interaction between
the students to make them feel that they are not being left out. Sometimes, the amount of
work felt like more than when they are in school, causing them too much fatigue and stress.