Rizal as an Educator

CHAPTER 14
RIZAL AS AN EDUCATOR

The Right to Education
Seeing the condition of the people 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, will
continue to be used as an instrument of
enslavement.

Education was the primordial concern of Jose
Rizal. It had been his life long concern of the
preparation for the attainment of independence.
John Schumacher aptly puts it: “education is the
key to understanding much of Rizal's career, for
his hole career was bound up with education-his
own education and the education of his own
people.”

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 the tyrants of
tomorrow? And that they will be such is not to be doubted, for
he who submits to tyranny loves it.” Rizal believed in the
effectivity of education as a solution to the social,
political and economic problems of the country. He was
convinced that reforms were possible through
education and liberty.

One of the significant contributions of Rizal to the cause
of human rights in his defense to the right of the
Filipinos to quality education.
Rizal wrote to Blumentritt:
“We are struggling for our rights, the rights for humanity, and if
there is a God, he will have to help us… Spain cannot justify
even in the name of God himself that six million Filipinos be
brutalized, exploited, oppressed, denying them rights and
afterwards heap upon them contempt and insult”

In defending the right of the Filipinos to education Rizal
appealed to the good sense of the Spanish authorities
not to be begrudge the education of the Filipinos.
In another 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 aspirations 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.”
The right to the education is now enshrined in the
historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which
the Philippines is one of the 48 original signatories.

The declaration guarantees that education should be
free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages;
elementary education shall be compulsory; technical
and professional education shall be equally accessible
to all in the basis of merit.
It also declares that education shall be directed to the
full development of the human personality and to the
strengthening of respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms.

Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of
education that shall be given to their children.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
proclaims the value of the human person and
the right to education that would enable him to
develop his creative powers to the full benefit of
all and in the cause of progress.

Education for the Masses
Rizal wished the education for the masses. He shared
his educational views with Blumentritt. On one
occasion he told the German scholar about his dream
of establishing a school in 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 educating the masses:
"All our efforts tend to educate our people—education,
education, education, education of our people—education and
enlightenment."

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 when
he said: “The school is the basis of 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 the people
are.”

Rizal's School
Rizal advocated education as a necessary condition in a
free society, necessary in the pursuance of liberty.
The Admission Test
Rizal's school, like any school today, devised an
admission test each applicant had to hurdle. However
this entrance exam was unique. Towards 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 would send the
boy to fetch it. 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 boy was deep in the woods, they would
make strange sounds and swing their lanterns to cast
eerie spots of light.

Many a 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.

The Curriculum
When Rizal put up his school in Dapitan, He designed a
curriculum that would teach students to "behave like men."
1. Primary Education — Primary education is fundamental in
the education of the masses. The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights asserts that education should be free in the
elementary and fundamental stages.
2. 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.

3. 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
Physics and
Chemistry
Philippine
History
English Horse riding
Natural Law Natural History Logic French Fencing
Civil Law Geography Rhetoric and
Poetics
German Swimming
Deportment Political
Economy
Chinese Music
Hygiene
Dance
Tagalog Dance

Rizal's curriculum also included the following features:
• Academic Freedom — In a letter to his parents about the
expulsion 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 the 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

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 in 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:
1. A teacher should pass the appropriate competitive
examination.
2.He must have mastery of his subject matter.
3.He must have initiative and resourcefulness.

4. He must be kind and "cultivate in the children
confidence, assurance, and some personal pride."
5. He must grow professionally and love his profession,
for "any kind of work done in disgust and shame is a
kind of martyrdom."
6. And "in order to be heeded and to maintain his
authority, the teacher needs prestige, reputation, moral
strength, and some kind of freedom of action."

Pablo S. Trillana III discusses the following implications of Rizal's
concept of education for higher education
Here are some of his recommendations inspired by Rizal:
1. Study paradigm shifts as part of the school curriculum
2. Study the future or the science of alternative scenarios
3. Develop multi-tasking
4. Anchor and core curriculum on a strong liberal arts education
5. Develop the ambiance of education and strengthen a school
celebratory culture, and transform the school into a place for
community commitment
The Innovations and Challenges to the
Present Higher Education in the Philippines

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 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 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 task of nation building. This is evident in
the word of Padre Florento in the Fili:
“Liberty must be secured, by making ourselves worthy of it, by exalting the
intelligence and the dignity of the individual by loving, justice, right and
greatness, even to the extent of 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”

Rizal as an Educator

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