Scribd Explore Nayla Gandulan Despite the noble aims announced by the American es was theirs toprotect and

guide, the fact still e a conquered nation whosenational life had to be ican dominance. Philippine education wasshaped by overriding factor authorities that the Philippin remained that these people wer woven into the pattern of Amer the

of preserving and expanding American control. To achievethis, all separatist tendencies were discouraged. Na y, they had to be condemned as subversive .With this as the pervasive factor in the grand design of conqueirng a people, t he pattern of education, consciously or unconsciously, fostered and established certain attitudes on the part of the governed. These attitudes conformed to the purposes of American occupation.An Uprooted RaceThe first and perhaps the master stroke in the plan to use education as an instrument of colonialpolicy was the decision to use English as the medium of insturction. English became thewedge that separated the Filipin os from their past and later to separate educated Filipinos fromthe masses of th eir countrymen. English introduced the Filipinos to a strange, new world. WithAm erican textbooks, Filipinos started learning not only a new language but also a new way of life,alien to their traditions and yet a caricature of their model. T his was the beginning of their education. At the same time, it was the beginning of their mis-education , for they learned nolonger as Filipinos but as colonials.They had to be disorie nted form their nationalist goals because they had to become goodcolonials. The ideal colonial was the carbon copy of his conqueror, the conformist follower of the new dispensation. He had to forget his past and u nlearn the nationalist virtues in order to livepeacefully, if not comfortably, u nder the colonial order. The new Filipino generation learned of thelives of Amer ican heroes, sang American songs, and dreamt of snow and Santa Claus.The nationa list resistance leaders exemplified by Sakay were regarded as brigands and outlaws.The lives of Philippine heroes were taught but their nationalist teachings were glossed over. Spain was the villain, America was the savior . To this day, our histories still gloss over theatrocities committed by America n occupation troops such as the "water cure" and the "reconcentration camps." Truly, a genuinely Filipino education could not have been devisedwithin the new framework, for to draw from the wellsprings of the Filipino ethos would only hav elead to a distinct Philippine identity with interests at variuance with that of the ruling power.Thus, the Filipino past which had already been quite obliterat ed by three centuries of Spanishtyranny did not enjoy a revival under American c olonialism. On the contrary, the history of our ancestors was taken up as if they were stange and foreign peoples who settled in these shores,with whom we had the most tenuous of ties. We read about them as i f we were tourists in aforeign land.Economic Attitudes Control of the economic life of a colony is basic to colonial control . Some imperial nationsdo it harshly but the United States could be cited for th

e subtlety and uniqueness of its approach.For example, free trade was offered as a generous gift of American altruism. Concomitantly, theeducational policy had to support his view and to soften the effects of the slowly tightheningnoose aro und the necks of the Filipinos. The economic motivations of the American incoming to the Philippines were not at all admitted to the Filipinos . As a matter of fact, fromthe first school-days under the soldier-teachers to t he present, Philippine history books haveportrayed America as a benevolent natio n who came here only to save us from Spain and tospread amongst us the boons of liberty and democracy. The almost complete lack of understanding at present of t hose economic motivations and of the presence of Americaninterests in the Philip pines are the most eloquent testimony to the success of the educationfor colonials which we have undergone. What economic attitudes were fostered by American education? It is interesting to note thatduring the times that the school attempts to incul cate an appreciation for things Philippine, thepicture that is presented for the child's admiration is an idealized picture of a rural Philippines, aspretty and as unreal as an Amorsolo painting with its carabao, its smiling healthy farmer, thewinsome barrio lass in the bright clean patadyong, and the sweet nipa hut. That is the portrait of the Filipino that our education leaves in the minds of the young and it hurst in tw o ways. First, it strengthens the belief (and we see this in adults) that the Philippine s is essentiallymeant to be an agricultural country and we can not and should not change that. The result isan apathy toward industr ialization. It is an idea they have not met in school. There is further, afear, born out of that early sterotype of this country as an agricultural heaven, that industrializationis not good for us, that our national environment is not suite d for an industrial economy, and that itwill only bring social evils which will destroy the idyllic farm life. Second, this idealized picture of farm life never emphasizes the poverty, the di sease, thecultural vacuum, the sheer boredom, the superstition and ignorance of backward farmcommunities . Those who pursue higher education think of the farm as quaint places, good for anoccasional vacation. Their life is rooted in the big towns and cities and the re is no interest in revamping rural life because there is no understanding of its economic problems. Interest islimited to aretsian wells and handicraft projects. Present efforts t o uplift the conditions of the ruralmasses merely attack the peripheral problems without admitting the urgent need for basic agrarian reform.With American education, the Filipinos were not only learning a new language; they were not only forgetting their own language ; they were starting to become a new type of American. Americanways were slowly being adopted. Our consumption habits were molded by the influx of cheapAmerican goods that came in duty-free. The pas toral economy was extolled because thisconformed with the colonial economy that was being fostered. Our books extolled the westernnations as peopled by superior beings because they were capable of manufacturing things thatwe never thought w e were capable of producing. We were pleased by the fact that our rawmaterials c ould pay for the American consumption goods that we had to import. Now we are us edto these type of goods, and it is a habit we find hard to break, to the detrim ent of our owneconomy.We never thought that we too could industrialize because i

n school we were taught that wewere primarily an agricultural country by geographical loc ation and by the innatepotentiality of our people. We were one with our fellow Asians in believing that we were not cutout for an i ndustrialized economy. That is why before the war, we looked down upon goods mad ein Japan despite the fact that Japan was already producing commodities at par w ith the West. Wecould never believe Japan, an Asian country, could attain the sa me superiority as America,Germany or England. And yet, it was "Made in Japan" ai rplanes, battleships and armamentrs thatdislodged the Americans and the British from their positions of dominance during the SecondWorld War. This is the same a ttitude that has put us out of step with our Asian neighbors whoalready realize that colonialism has to be extirpated from their lives if they want to be free,p rosperous, and happy......(to be continued with PART 2 of 3) Click these URLs to see: related documents and/or postings: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/america-and-philippines-heres-bit-of .html , http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/01/philippine-american-history-jones-ac t.html , http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_thefilipinomind_archive.html http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/racial-arguments-against-philippine. html ,http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/mission-of-our-race-in-support-of.h tml ,http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/buffalo-soldiers-in-philippine.html ,http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/03/phil-am-history-recovering-and.html ,http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/01/philippine-american-history-america s_13.html ,http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/11/manifest-destiny-philosophy-that_14 .html , http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/11/mock-battle-of-manila-bay-beginningof.html , http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/11/we-do-not-want-filipinos.html , http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/12/american-occupation-and-control-of.h tml

,http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/08/mark-twain-and-american-imperialism .html http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/09/why-our-homeland-did-not-indu strialize.html ,http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/what-is-filipino-nat ionalism-mrs.html http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/02/filipino-heroes-m acario-sakay.html The HISTORY of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors. - Meridel Le Sueur, American writer, 1900-1996 Neocolonialism - The dominance of strong nations over weak nations, not by direc t political control (as in traditional colonialism ), but by economic and cultural influence. The true Filipino is a decolonized Filipino. Renato Constantino THE MISEDUCATION OF THE FILIPINO: PART 2 OF 3 SeePart 1 Transplantation of Political Institutions American education in effect trasplanted American poitical institutions and ide as into thePhilippines. Senator Recto, in his last major address at the Universi ty of the Philippines,explained the reason for this. Speaking of political parti es, Recto said: "...It is to be deplored that our major political parties were born and nurtured before we had attained the status of a free democracy. The result was that they have come to be caricatures of their foreign model with its known characterisit ics --patronage, division of spoils, political bossism, partisan treatment of vi tal national issues. I say caricatures because of their chronic shortsightedness respecting those ultimate objectives the attainment of which was essential to a true and lasting national independence. All throughout the period of American co lonization, they allowed themselves to become more and more the tools of colonia l rule and less and less theinterpreters of the people's will and ideals. Throug h their complacency, the new colonizer wasable to fashion, in exchange for suffe rance of oratorical plaints for independence, and for patronage, rank and sinec ure, a regime of his own choosing, for his own aims, and in his ownself-interest ." The Americans were confronted with the dilemma of transplanting their political institutions andyet luring the Filipinos into a state of captivity. It was under standable for American authorities tothink that democracy can only mean the Amer ican type of democracy, and thus they foisted onthe Filipinos the institutions t hat were valid for their own people. Indigenous institutions which could have led to the evolution of native democratic ideas and institutions were disregarded. No wonder we too look with hostility upon countries who try to develop their ow n politicalinstitutions according to the needs of their people without being bou nd by western politicalprocedures. We have been made to believe in certain political doctrines as absolute and thes ame for all peoples . An example of this is the belief in the freedom of the press. Here, theconsens us is that we cannot nationalize the press because it would be depriving the for eigners of the exercise of the freedom of the press. This may be valid for stron g countries like the UnitedStates where there is no threat of foreign domination , but certainly, this is dangerous for anemergent nation like the Philippines wh ere foreign control has yet to be weakened.Re-examination Demanded The new deman ds for economic emancipation and the assertion of our political sovereignty leav eour educators no other choice but to re-examine their philosophy, their values, and their general approach to the mak ing of the Filipino who will institute, support and preserve thenationalist aims. To persist in the

continuance of a system which was born under the exigenciesof colonial rule, to be timid in the face of traditional opposition would only result in the evolutio n of an anomalous educational system which lags behind the urgent economic and p olitical changesthat the nation is experiencing. What then are the nationalist tasks for Philippine education? Education must both be seennot as an acquisition of information but as the makin g of man so that he may function mosteffectively and and usefully within his own society. Therefore, education can not be divorcedfrom the society of a definite country at a definit e time . It is a fallacy to think that educationalgoals should be the same everywhere a nd that therefore what goes into the making of a well-educated American is the s ame as what should go into the making of the well-educated Filipino.This would b e true only if the two societies were at the same ploitical, cultural, annd econ omiclevel and had the same political, cultural and economic goals. But what happened in this country? Not only do we imitate Western education, we havepatterned our education after the most technologically advanced western nations. The gapbetween the two societies is very large. In fa ct, they are two entirely different societies withdifferent goals.Adoption of we stern values Leave a Comment Submit Characters: 400 07 / 21 / 2010This document made it onto the Rising List! Follow Us! scribd.com/scribd twitter.com/scribd facebook.com/scribd About Press Blog Partners Scribd 101 Web Stuff Support FAQ Developers / API Jobs Terms Copyright Adchoices AdChoices Privacy updated Copyright 2012 Scribd Inc. Language: English